Dive Brief:
- A recent report from Royall & Company, detailing new strategies for effective recruiting and engagement of potential college students, eCampus News reports.
- The report identifies four best practices in making connections with potential students — interactive surveys and pop culture references, social media engagement, text messaging and targeted emailing. Gender-specific mailing, Spanish-language messaging and school specific mobile apps were among the least-effective tools.
- Observers say that these adjustments can be cost-effective and raise applications and enrollment exponentially. Millsaps College, for example, used mobile optimization to increase enrollment of underrepresented students by 12% since 2013.
Dive Insight:
Creative engagement is the most productive use of recruitment and outreach resources for small and mid-sized colleges, but it also is an element of the possibilities schools can use to reach specific students' profiles. As college students become increasingly older and the notion of a "traditional" student becomes more blurred, the recruitment techniques should also change to reflect this shift in student access.
Muhlenberg College uses an athletic recruitment model to earn greater attention from potential physics students, and Marlboro College promotes its open governence structure as a benefit of enrollment. Smaller schools must find unique niches, and bolster in-person engagement strategies in addition to recruitment materials, to captivate diverse pools of students.