In a higher education setting, we process inquiries but we don't always know if or when they will apply. We've ran into a problem where inquiries have tried to apply, but get stopped because can't create an account because they are technically already in the system, but they don't realize that they are in the system. Which means they either need to 1) use a new email or 2) contact us to get their username, because we've already created an account with a username for them.

Although we've tried to communicate with inquiries their username and that they need to click "first time" here to create a password, it doesn't always work like this.

The system already marks when an inquiry or candidate is duplicated and we have the option to override some information if they are. So, if we didn't need to assign them a username and they could just input a username when they go to apply and not get blocked, and then we fix it on the admissions end though the duplicate route that would be ideal.