The Counselor Expectations Gap: What We Ask vs. What We Allow

Admissions job postings describe counselors as relationship-builders—trusted guides who help students navigate one of the biggest decisions of their lives. The role is framed as dynamic, student-centered, and purpose-driven. It’s what draws talented people into the profession.

But the reality looks very different. A recent enroll ml time study found that counselors spend over 650 hours per year on back-end tasks: pulling lists, validating CRM fields, and manually deciding who to call next. Instead of guiding students, they’re buried in systems that were never designed to support the human side of the work.

The gap isn’t intentional, it’s structural. We ask counselors to be strategists, storytellers, and advisors, but leave them without tools that surface urgency, detect drift, or highlight who is still truly in play. The result is wasted effort, declining morale, and fewer meaningful conversations.

That’s why enroll ml was built: to close the gap. By turning raw CRM data into real-time guidance, counselors start each day with clarity instead of guesswork, spending more time doing what they were hired to do: having conversations that matter.

Read the full white paper here.