Data-Informed Tips to Understand College Admissions: Part 3
Advertising and marketing to attract college students is BIG business. In 2019, Columbia University spent $75,300 on one ad about switching careers to health care. According to The Hechinger Report, “colleges collectively spent $2 billion on advertising in 2018 and $2.2 billion in 2019.”
So who spends the most? Here are the biggest marketing spenders in the country according to their expenditures in 2018 or 2019:
Southern New Hampshire University - $144M
Western Governor’s University - $127M
Johns Hopkins - $29.6M
New York University - $28.5M
University of Pennsylvania - $25.7M
Northwestern - $25.6M
University of Miami - $23.2M
Columbia University - $13.2M
Boston University - $12.7M
Georgetown - $11.6M
Stanford - $10.3M
Welcome to part 3 of my series on college admissions from a data-driven perspective. In previous posts, I explored the vital data points that admission officers use to shape their enrollment strategies and discussed how you can access valuable information from each school's common data set. If you haven't had the chance to read parts 1 and 2, I encourage you to do so to familiarize yourself with this crucial background information.
So let’s start by reviewing the enrollment funnel once again (pictured below). Each part of the funnel relates to an important data point. Wise and experienced college enrollment professionals track these data points every step of the way. They understand that to meet their enrollment goal, which they all have, they have to do whatever they can to grow prospects, increase yield, or a combination of both.
A typical college admissions funnel. I’ve added “Melt” because some schools are looking at this data point very closely.
As you can see, this funnel closely represents the sales funnel for any business - because college is a business. Some of my colleagues in higher education don’t like to hear this and they often counter with something like “But it’s a special kind of business.”, but the fact is that most schools, even public schools, are highly dependent on tuition and fees (along with the federal government through Title IV financial aid funding) to keep their doors open and lights on. It’s not uncommon for schools to spend over 80% of their annual budget on employee salaries and benefits. Enrollment managers understand that there are a lot of variables in moving a student from “prospect” to “admit” to “enrolled”. This is why every school employs a discount model, where most students receive some kind of discount (noted as a scholarship or grant) off the list price (Cost of Attendance).
Prospects
This is the broadest category (hence, it is at the top of the funnel) and represents all potential students who might be a fit for the institution but have not necessarily shown direct interest yet. These can be identified based on various criteria like standardized test scores, demographics, geography, the high school a student attends, major of interest, family income, etc.
So who are prospects and where do they come from? There are many ways for colleges to build up their list of prospects, including:
High School Visits: Admissions representatives visit high schools across the country or even internationally to introduce their institutions to potential students. Some schools employ a virtual army of admission counselors and utilize current students to serve as ambassadors.
College Fairs: Colleges participate in college fairs where students and parents can meet representatives from various institutions. The recent one I attended in Aspen, CO and the annual Colleges that Change Lives fair are just some examples.
Partnerships with High Schools: Some colleges form partnerships with high schools to create pipelines for students, often through special programs, workshops, or scholarships.
Standardized Test Scores: Institutions often purchase lists of students' scores from standardized tests like the SAT or ACT. They use these lists to target students who meet certain academic criteria.
Direct Mail and Email Campaigns: Targeted mailings and emails are sent out to students based on demographic and educational data that colleges obtain or purchase from various sources.
Digital Marketing: This includes pay-per-click advertising, social media campaigns, and retargeting strategies aimed at students who have shown interest in similar colleges or programs.
Content Marketing: Colleges create blogs, webinars, and virtual tours to engage students who are researching college options online.
Alumni Networks: Colleges use their alumni to help recruit students by hosting local events or reaching out to prospective students in their areas. Many local and regional alumni organizations offer scholarships to students who choose to attend their school. For example, my father oversaw the scholarship program for a University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni chapter in northern Wisconsin for many years.
Recruitment Events: Colleges may host their own open houses, preview days, and other events to invite potential students to learn more about what they offer.
Community College Transfers: Many four-year institutions work with community colleges to attract students who are interested in transferring to complete their bachelor’s degrees.
Athletic Recruitment: Colleges scout and recruit athletes directly, sometimes years in advance, for their sports programs. This is a very important piece of “prospects” for many schools. Most schools know that if they admit a certain kind of athlete that other students often follow. So they are not just recruiting that one student-athlete, there is a chain of recruitment that follows them.
Online Presence and SEO: Institutions optimize their online presence to ensure that their programs and offerings are highly visible when students search for related terms. Go ahead and try this now. Open up a search engine and type in any kind of school you are looking for - big or small, major specific, location, gender specific, online or in-person - and see what schools come up at the top of the list. This isn’t a random list. There is a reason why these schools are being shown to you at the top of the list and they often tweak their SEO variables, and pay money, to do everything they can to stay at the top of the list.
Becoming a Prospect
One of the most common ways to become a prospect is through the standardized testing industry. When you register to take a standardized test - PSAT, SAT, Pre-ACT, ACT, AP, etc. - the student will have an option to have their information made available to colleges.
Your information is valuable so schools will pay to get it. Remember, each student who goes from “prospect” to being enrolled is worth thousands of dollars. But schools have limited budgets so they have to be strategic in whose names they are buying. This is why they engage in a type of campaign to maximize the ability to buy contact information for the right students. It’s not just about increasing the number of students it’s about finding the right students to be prospects. And colleges have a general idea of the type of student who is attracted to their institution. But this can change depending on institutional priorities (IP).
So how much does it cost to get this information? Prices have been going up, but let’s assume that the cost is $.50 per student name for both the ACT and SAT. Knowing this is critical for an admission office to be able to strategize how to use their recruiting budget as effectively as possible. It also means they need to think through their institutional priorities and how their budget relates to the kind of student they are trying to attract.
Consider the following hypothetical example. A major donor gives $20M to East State College to build a new computer engineering building and wishes to see the number of women and students-of-color increase in the program by 20% over the next ten years.
You are the enrollment manager at ESC and you have spoken to this donor. You and your team are currently working on your recruitment plan for the next two years. How will this gift, and the donor’s wishes, impact your decision about how to identify prospects? Will you ignore their wishes or will you strategically adjust your recruiting to target certain groups to help grow the computer engineering program? Will you start sending admissions counselors to schools with higher populations of women and students-of-color who demonstrate an affinity for engineering? What if this means you need to recruit outside of your typical area and focus on different high schools?
But what if you could simply go to the College Board and tell them that you’d like to buy the names and contact information of students fitting the following criteria?
Graduation year (high school sophomore, junior, or senior)
Gender
Location (zipcode can often be used as a proxy for family income)
Ethnicity
High school GPA
Test score range (only students who scored between 1250-1450 on the SAT)
Major of interest
How Many Prospects Do We Need?
Let’s keep working with our hypothetical East State College. The enrollment goal for next year has been set at 2,000 new first time, first year students. The enrollment manager knows this is a 10% increase over the previous year so their team has their work cut out for them. So how does the enrollment manager (EM) use their funnel data to work backwards and determine how many prospects they need to target?
The EM and Admissions Director look at the last five years of recruitment data and identify that their average yield rate has been 20%.
So if they want 2,000 enrolled next year, this means they need to admit 10,000.
But they also discovered that they’ve had a melt rate of 1%, meaning 1% of the students who accepted their admission and said they were going to enroll ended up walking away over the summer. So they decide to ratchet up the number an additional 20 students to account for the melt making their new admit number 10,020.
So how do they find enough students to hit their admit goal of 10,020? They utilize all the methods listed above to strategically focus on key student populations that meet their institutional priorities. Are they growing a certain program like computer engineering or the arts? Do they want to start admitting more students from a certain state or part of the country? Do they want to grow their international student population?
Let’s keep moving up the funnel. Even though most schools admit the majority of students that apply, we also know that most four year schools are not going to admit 100% of the students who apply. East State College has a 75% admission rate so this means that most, but not all, of students who apply will gain admission. With a 75% admission rate this now means that their target will go from 10,020 to 13,360 applicants. This means they anticipate that they would admit 10,020 if they receive 13,360 applicants based on past data.
And of course they know that not every student who inquires about their school through the website, takes a tour, or receives a mailer from them is going to apply. They crunch the numbers and determine that their application rate is 20%, meaning that one in five prospects will ultimately apply to East State College. This means their prospect number is now 66,800.
So if they were to target these students through the College Board, it would cost over $33,000. This is simply the cost of getting the contact information and doesn’t take into account the cost of marketing materials, travel, staff salaries, etc. But this is the cost of doing business when we have nearly 4,000 colleges in the US, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics 2022.
As you can see, schools track a lot of data and it’s become part of the industry. Enrollment is a big business and there are several large consulting firms offering services to help colleges become more adept and efficient throughout every step of the funnel. Saving money on the recruiting process means retaining staff and faculty through raises, providing more services for students, maintaining buildings and infrastructure, and so much more. It also allows them to generate the revenue needed to recruit next year’s incoming class. After all, this is where the business of education begins.
Pro-Tip for Students
Once a student enters the recruitment funnel they are going to start getting a lot of information from colleges. This includes email, mailers, texts, and even phone calls. I always suggest to my clients that they create a new email that is specifically for the college search process. This is a great way to keep your everyday personal email from getting clogged with college emails. But if you do this, be sure to check it often and don’t just treat it as a kind of spam filter. When you do get emails from colleges of interest to you, be sure to open up the messages. This is because many schools will track who opens up their emails and determine if you are truly interested in their school and what they have to say. Plus, you don’t want to miss out on important information like special campus events and deadlines.
I empower college-curious and college-bound students and families with the knowledge, tools, and confidence for college success. I will guide you through the complexities of college admissions and beyond, so you can create your boundless life.
Have a question or comment? Please leave it in the comment section below or contact me at mark@mastalskicoaching.com.
There’s no one way to do college.
Be Boundless.
