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May 2025
The NursingCAS Dispatch is a monthly newsletter designed to update you on current happenings involving nursing’s centralized application service. The newsletter features:
- NursingCAS Know-How including key features, resources, recruitment opportunities, and reminders
- NursingCAS by the Numbers featuring application statistics and other relevant metrics and data
- User Updates to keep you in the loop, so you can keep your team and applicants in the loop
- Q&A providing answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from school users
 NURSINGCAS KNOW-HOW
Required Webinar: NursingCAS Configuration Training Webinar
The 2025-2026 NursingCAS Configuration Portal opens on Monday, May 19. Register now to attend a NursingCAS: Configuration Training Webinar, on Thursday, May 29 at 3:00 p.m. ET or Wednesday, June 4 at 3:00 p.m. ET. The following topics will be discussed:
- Configuration portal terminology and the CAS rollover process
- Features to efficiently maximize application reviews
- Best practices for closing out a cycle and tips for preparing for a new cycle, including suggestions for improving a program’s homepage to increase recruitment efforts
At least one member from each institution must participate, but all users are encouraged to attend. Registrants will receive a copy of the recording, even if they cannot attend.
Access to the Configuration Portal in the Prelaunch environment is required for all programs and allows you to edit program pages, features, and requirements for the upcoming cycle. Configuring and submitting your pages is required every year for your program to launch.
Student Recruitment: Echo Targeting Webinar on May 21
AACN encourages you to attend the Student Recruitment: Echo Targeting webinar on Wednesday, May 21, from 2:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET.
Echo Targeting is an affordable digital banner advertising tool that allows member schools to exclusively reach NursingCAS applicants while they surf the internet. AACN’s partner, Owen Landon of Echo Interactive LLC, will share how you can use banner ads and/or videos to target future students. Join us to discover why dozens of nursing schools and 4 health professions utilize Echo Targeting! Please register in advance to attend.
Recording Available: NursingCAS Student Webinar
AACN held a webinar for prospective NursingCAS applicants, Preparing and Strengthening Your NursingCAS Application, last month. The recording of the webinar is now available. AACN encourages admissions and recruitment teams to review the recording to learn about NursingCAS from the applicant’s perspective. Schools can consider hosting similar webinars to support their applicant pool as well. Please share the recording with your in-progress and prospective applicant pool.
Webinar content includes:
- Detailed overview of the NursingCAS application
- Guidance on requesting transcripts and submitting coursework entry
- Answers to FAQs (application statuses, references, etc.)
- Tips to avoid common mistakes
- Recommendations to ensure quick application processing times
- Resources available for NursingCAS applicants
Recording Available: NursingCAS Demo Webinar
Are any members of your team new to NursingCAS or in need of a refresher? Review the recording of the NursingCAS Overview: A Demonstration of the Student Application and Admissions Management Portal webinar held last month. Prospective and current NursingCAS users are encouraged to access the recording for a walk-through of the platform and an overview of best practices and useful tools in WebAdMIT.
Featured Liaison Academy Course | WebAdMIT Configuration Portal Training
Looking for an introduction to the configuration process? Get ready for the 2025-2026 cycle with the WebAdMIT Configuration Portal Training course in Liaison Academy.
This course provides an overview of the CAS Configuration tool and how to use it to configure the program(s) your applicants apply to. This technical course provides the information users need to configure their programs. The course consists of the following units:
- Unit 1: WebAdMIT Configuration Portal Training
- Unit 2: WebAdMIT/CAS On-demand Course Feedback
Create a free account with Liaison Academy and become a NursingCAS super user!
NursingCAS Applicant Newsletter & Recruitment Event Calendar
The Applicant Newsletter, provided by AACN, is emailed to 160,000+ NursingCAS applicants the third week of every month. This newsletter is for programs affiliated with NursingCAS only. Program submissions are FREE and due on the Friday prior to publication. Posts must relate to one of the three topics below or they will be removed. Please submit an announcement using the form on our website.
Here is some additional information on how schools can leverage each section of the Applicant Newsletter:
- Open Seats: Use this section to provide notifications to applicants about NursingCAS programs with available space. You can share information about one specific program or multiple programs in one announcement. You can highlight the program by providing information relevant to your nursing school, specific program requirements, location, accreditation, program cost/scholarships, specialties, etc.
- Deadline Extensions: Use this section to share announcements about deadline extensions for your NursingCAS programs. You can share information about your programs, the new deadlines, and any requirements that might have changed (if applicable).
- New Programs: Use this section to highlight any new programs launched in the Application Portal since the last newsletter.
We recommend including contact information for representatives or links to your website and the NursingCAS application within the announcement. Visit the Newsletter Archive for samples of previous submissions.
The NursingCAS Events Calendar is a great platform for publicizing your program’s recruitment events. These events include student information sessions, virtual fairs, open houses, and other recruitment events that connect your institution with potential applicants. You can submit items to the Events Calendar using the Applicant Event Form. This calendar is distributed to 160,000+ students each month.
WebAdMIT Sandbox Environment Refresh
Are you utilizing the WebAdMIT Sandbox? If not, you should be! Sandbox is a duplicate test platform useful for testing and training purposes; any actions performed in Sandbox will not affect the live data in production. This tool provides users with a safe, “near-production” environment to test applications and run sample exports, among other actions. The WebAdMIT Sandbox is a copy of the WebAdMIT production environment with sensitive applicant information (such as surnames, email addresses, etc.) obfuscated.
The WebAdMIT Sandbox is refreshed between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. ET every Monday. If Monday is a US or Canadian holiday, deployment is the next business day and includes all system changes from the preceding release. The WebAdMIT Sandbox environment is refreshed with current (cleansed) production data and program configurations. Any test exports, custom fields, etc., in the current Sandbox will be overwritten.
 BY THE NUMBERS
2023–2024 NursingCAS Applicant Newsletter Success
Looking for a platform to advertise programs that are still accepting applicants? The NursingCAS Applicant Newsletter is a great resource for marketing your Open Seats, Deadline Extensions, and New Programs to prospective and current nursing school applicants. Join your colleagues and make the most of this recruitment tool! Submit an announcement on our website and review the above NursingCAS Know-How section for additional details.
The graphic below provides some highlights from our Applicant Newsletter during the 2023-2024 cycle.
 USER UPDATES
This section provides monthly updates on new features and enhancements available within the Applicant Portal, Configuration Portal, WebAdMIT, and information on upcoming training opportunities. Please note that these are only a few highlights of Liaison’s recent enhancements. A complete list of recent WebAdMIT Release Notes is available.
Subscribe to WebAdMIT Release Notes
WebAdMIT Release Notes provide a summary of enhancements and new features that are made available in the Applicant Portal, Applicant Gateway, Configuration Portal, Letters by Liaison, and WebAdMIT. Want to receive Release Notes emails? Subscribe here.
Annual Spring Lookup Updates
Many fields in the Applicant Portal contain predefined answer values that applicants can select; for example, the Country and County fields both have predefined answer values. These values are housed in shared “lookup tables.” Periodically, we update these tables to include additional response options.
The new lookup table values include updates to degrees, languages, majors, and visa types. Review the Shared Lookup Table Updates page for a full list of updates.
These lookup table updates impact the following portals, some of which you may use. If you created a “crosswalk” from our portals to your local data in your SIS/CRM, you may need to update this crosswalk for the newly-added options. For guidance on the optimal implementation of the new values, review the Shared Lookup Table Updates page.
Optional Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
CAS now offer applicants the option to activate two-factor authentication (2FA) using any standard 2FA app (e.g., Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy, etc.). By default, this is turned off for all applicants. They can activate it on the Security & Privacy page under the Profile section.
If activated, applicants will follow the standard 2FA process, including verifying their account with a six-digit code. If the applicant has five unsuccessful login attempts, their account will lock, and they must reset their password.
This enhancement provides applicants with an alternate way to securely manage their CAS application.
Search Field to Filter Recommendation Requests
Recommenders can now use a search field to quickly filter their recommendation requests. They can search by:
- Applicant name
- CAS name
- Evaluation type name
- Date the recommendation request was sent
This enhancement is especially helpful to recommenders who have received many recommendation requests within and across application cycles.
Updated Email Editor
The Email Editor has been refreshed with updated functionality. These include:
- Increased editor window size for more visibility of the email body.
- New fonts, header styles, justified text alignment, and more background and text color options.
- A new Reset formatting button to quickly revert text back to plain text.
- New window for links with the option to edit and unlink the URL.
- All links open in a new tab by default.
- Dynamic image sizing.
- Title and alt text for images for 508 compliance.
- Custom Field merge fields reflect the order on the Custom Field Manager page.
Some functionality has been altered or removed, including:
- You must now enter HTML attributes for email and phone links. For example, you must enter “mailto:” before an email address to make it a link (e.g., mailto:gradadm@demo.edu).
- The default URL protocol is http://; if you want a different URL protocol, you must now manually enter it before the URL (e.g., https://demo.edu).
- Recent background and text color history reduced from six to one recently used colors.
- You can no longer link to anchor in the email body.
- You can no longer apply a border or spacing to an image from within the email editor. You must format your image in another software first before you upload it to WebAdMIT.
In all cycles, you will continue to have access to all your exports, reports, etc., and you can run those individually through the applicable feature.
New Documentation for WebAdMIT
- Essential Insights into the CAS Application | A new Essential Insights into the CAS Application guide is now available. It describes the key processes of the CAS application so you can better understand the applicant experience and create more streamlined and efficient strategies for managing and communicating with your applicant pool.
 Q&A
Q: Can a student reuse their application data to re-apply in a different cycle?
A: Yes, students can use an existing account to re-apply. To avoid processing delays and difficulties, we do not recommend that applicants create a new account, as duplicate accounts and any documents associated with those accounts are deleted. Instead, they can utilize the re-applicant feature, which allows them to keep the same CAS ID number from the previous cycle.
When re-applying, students can:
- Copy an application from the previous cycle to the next (for example, from the 2023–2024 cycle into the 2024–2025 cycle).
- Skip a cycle and copy an application (for example, from the 2022–2023 cycle into the 2024–2025 cycle).
- Skip several cycles between applications. However, application data is unavailable after three cycles of inactivity (for example, if someone last applied in the 2020–2021 cycle, they cannot copy your application into the 2024–2025 cycle). This includes any transcripts or WES evaluations, where applicable.
Information such as coursework, official test scores, attached transcripts, etc. can be copied into the new application. References, essays, payments, and program-specific information cannot be copied into the new application.
Support for WebAdMIT School Users
As always, the dedicated WebAdMIT Client Support Specialist Team is available Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET to assist with questions about WebAdMIT features. The team can be reached at (857) 304-2020 or webadmitsupport@liaisonedu.com. Training is also available via webinars, on-demand courses, and the Liaison Academy. Please visit the WebAdMIT Help Center for further information.
Make sure to sign up to receive important notices through the Liaison CAS Status page for updates on future CAS and WebAdMIT outages.
If you have any questions, please contact Taylor Jaczko, AACN’s Director of Application Services, at tjaczko@aacnnursing.org. |