More than 300 colleges now use direct admissions—proactive offers to students who meet preset criteria—as institutions scramble to protect enrollment. Enrollment managers warn that direct admits behave differently from traditional applicants and require tailored engagement and tracking to convert into matriculants. Practitioners highlighted pitfalls: combining direct admits with traditional applicant pools can obscure signals of interest and depress yield. Hampshire College’s missed enrollment target was cited as a cautionary example. Enrollment leaders say successful programs separate outreach, customize outreach cadences and adapt yield metrics to reflect the different decision timelines of direct admits.