Sneak Peek at Article

Here's an article that's going to be in the member newsletter for member colleges in April. I've blogged about this in the past but here's the "official" article going to colleges:

The Changing Admissions Funnel

There is no doubt that the ever increasing usage of the internet by high school students is changing the way that admissions personnel are able to predict the enrollment numbers for each semester. With college websites getting more and more informative and students becoming savvier about finding information, response rates to conventional methods of recruiting are quickly declining due to many students choosing not to identify themselves until very late in the decision making process. For many of the 2009 Noel Levitz surveys and white papers the focus has been on helping colleges rethink their admissions funnel from inquiry to enrollee to more accurately predict student numbers going into each college session.

Much of this change is a side effect of a good website. Having a website that allows students to not only learn about entrance requirements but also student life and make a connection to the school before ever telling the school s/he is interested can be good and bad for the admissions department. On one hand the school is unaware of the student and cannot reach out to him/her, but on the other hand the student is already making the connection via blogs, videos and other media on the website as well as ultimately reducing the workload in the admissions office. The NRCCUA president, Don Munce said of this change: “Student search must shift from being a feedback mechanism to a brand awareness initiative that uses a multi-year, multi-pronged approach— rather than a single search campaign—to identify and communicate with students in target markets.” (2009) According to the latest Noel Levitz Survey (2009) students are less likely to send in a feedback inquiry based on the information they find on the web, and there has been a 10% increase in the past year to an average 57% of students who do not identify themselves before starting the enrollment process. (Noel Levitz, 2009)

Another effect of the web is the online application. The ease of which this can be filled out and submitted is changing the nature of how they are processed at the college end. Results are beginning to show that the web applicant is a less committed applicant, but this is offset by a larger number of web applicants. Another 18% of the students who begin a web application do not return to the website to finish it. (Noel Levitz, 2009) In this new application funnel Noel Levitz has found a slightly different set of numbers compared to the traditional admissions funnel using conventional recruiting practices. The new average benchmarks for each step in the admissions process they found were: 23% went from inquiry to application, of those applications 68.5% were admitted, and of those admitted 34.5% enrolled in classes. (2009) Looking at this a different way it could be said that in a pool of 100 web based inquiries, 23 applied, 15.75 were admitted and 5.4 actually started classes. (Incidentally, this is close to what many colleges with Anycollege.com are reporting from Information Request results. A school receiving between 90-120 Information Requests in a year can get around 5-6 enrollments from that lead source alone. Depending on the institution of course, this can be more or less- we would love to hear your results!)

In conclusion, much of the conversation in 2009 not only through Noel Levitz but also on blogs and Twitter for higher education admissions and marketing has been on trying to figure out how to accurately predict how many students will actually shake out of the online inquiries or applications. Many of the highly active higher-ed bloggers agree with Noel Levitz in recommending that online inquiries and applicants be subjected into a different funnel than the students who have been conventionally recruited. This seems to make sense, as the students has a completely different sense of the college when they finally choose to make their presence known to the school, and will be an interesting field to watch as colleges adapt to this type of prospective student!


Sources:

Noel Levitz. Retooling the Enrollment Funnel. (2009) Retrieved on March 30th from: https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/Campuswide+Issues.htm

Noel Levitz. Fall 2008 Funnel Benchmarks. (2009) Retrieved on March 31st from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/ResearchLibrary/Fall+2008+Admissions+Funnel+Benchmarks.htm

Ruben, Rachel. Blog. (2009) Retrieved on March 31st from: https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/Campuswide+Issues.htm

Cool!!

Not gonna lie, some colleges really have cool admissions websites.

It's almost making me want to go to a few of them because they really do their job well in that the college looks unique, appealing and, well... cool! There is enough information to intrigue me but not overwhelm and who isn't a sucker for pretty pictures!

On top of that there are a few that lay out the information most pertinent to students in an easy to find fashion. This is important in my book. The Apply Online link and Request Information links should be easy to find. Right up there is also Financial Aid, tuition and scholarship info. You shouldn't have to call the school (unless you want to) to find this information.

Then there are the fun things. Green Mountain has a list on the admissions site to 50 Things to Do Before You Graduate. Sounds like this campus has a good time!!

Got some time? Hit up www.anycollege.com/search and look at a few schools websites. What do you find that you like or don't like?

Surveys Results Are Never What You Expect

People amaze me.

I often like to think that I've got a pretty good handle on people and what they think about things that relate to me. However, I'm learning that every time I think that I should survey them for their actual thoughts and bring myself down a peg or two.

These are two surveys we recently placed into our newsletters that we send out, one to high school students around the country and another to high school counselors around the country. I would have thought that the results would have come in about the same, but that wasn't so! The top poll is from the students and the bottom poll is the same poll taken of counselors.

What does this say about the perception high school students have about college? I wonder if being in the "real world", as the counselors are, they have a more pragmatic view of higher education than students do, leading them to feel less education is necessary to be competitive in today's workforce? Or is it an "at least" kind of thing, where the counselors feel that students need "at least" two years of higher education to be competitive (and of course more doesn't hurt either)? Add on top of that my answer would have been "none of the above" as I'm a huge

advocate for graduate school! (Of course it's not for everyone but I've enjoyed my graduate school experience so much more than my undergraduate coursework.)

This is where the simple answers get tough because we can only conjecture the reasoning behind it, but I am absolutely blown away at the significant difference of students feeling the need for a four year degree.

I would actually like to see the poll results of one more group- current college students. But then, I wonder if the response would again be significantly different between students attending a two year or four year school, or even public or private school. And I wonder how many of the students who are attending a two year school had counselors who answered two years to the question.

Unfortunately for me, as what usually happens, is this survey created more questions for me than it answered!

Any thoughts on these results?