5 Steps to an Admissions-First Mobile Mindset
Fact, the iPhone 5 has more processing power than the Mars Rover Curiosity. Mobile technology has forever changed the way that students will interact with your university, but many institutions I’ve talked with have not made any changes to their admissions process in light of mobile student trends. For many students, mobile devices have become the dominant [...]
Amplifying the Student Decision
May 1st is here, which marks the national deposit deadline for US colleges and universities. As admissions offices are anxiously awaiting to hear how their Class of 2017 is shaping up, we decided to try an experiment to see if students would share their admissions decision from the Schools App.
Social Media and Student Trends – Where are they headed?
Did you know you have thousands of secret admirers? They are your prospective students and they are stalking you and anyone who goes to your college to see whether or not it is a good fit. While the digital college search is “old news” for some, many admissions and marketing offices are still trying to [...]
Looking Beyond the Campus Visit: How Online Behavior is Changing Predictive Enrollment
Many admissions directors I’ve spoken with explain that of all the predictive indicators they track, a campus visit is the most telling of whether an admitted student will actually enroll. Indeed, a student’s behavior, such as a campus visit, is typically a much stronger predictor for enrollment than geographic or demographic data, such as whether [...]
Wooing International Students Without the Help of US News
Flashback to my junior year of high school in Singapore. I was an international student, and even though I had followed an American high school curriculum, selecting which US colleges to apply to was overwhelming. There were the obvious “brand name” institutions: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, as well as universities in famous US cities such as [...]
Finding Your Flock: Admissions Marketing Best Practices for Faith-Based Institutions
While admissions offices across the country attempt to attract the best and brightest, those at private faith-based institutions have the added challenge of dispelling misconceptions prospective students and their parents have about pursuing a faith-based education. With such a wide variety of “religiously affiliated” institutions in the United States, it’s no wonder secular and spiritual [...]
What’s Happening with Admissions Yield in 2013?
The power dynamic of the college search process has shifted into students’ hands. Literally. With accessibility to mobile devices, virtual tours, and social media over the past 10 years, students are able to gather more information about college than ever before. Don’t get me wrong — access to information is a great thing, and students [...]
Are University Admissions Facebook Pages Worth the Effort? [NEW DATA]
![Are University Admissions Facebook Pages Worth the Effort? [NEW DATA]](http://blog.inigral.com/wp-content/uploads/Tired-Guy-150x150.jpg)
While just about every university has their own institution-wide Facebook page, other departments are also attempting to join the fun by creating their own presence. Since we work with Admissions and Marketing offices, we researched a sample of 70 universities to see if they were utilizing a Facebook Page specifically for the Admissions office. We found approximately [...]
4 Ways to Maximize ‘Early Action’ Student Engagement
As the winter holiday approaches, high school seniors all across the country will learn whether they have been accepted early-action to their preferred schools. Early-action applicants have been a growing pool over the past ten years. According to NACAC’s ‘2012 State of College Admissions Report’, 31 percent of all four-year institutions currently offer an early-action [...]
How Important are Friendships in Creating Successful Student Outcomes?
Happiness, health, and wealth are all contagious, at least that’s what Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler claim in Connected – The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. One of my favorite facts from this book is that people 3-degrees removed from us (most of whom we do not know) [...]
How Should Colleges Respond to Declining Student Populations?
A daunting trend has beleaguered the health of higher ed institutions in the Midwest and Northeast–declining numbers of high-school graduates. According to a recent Inside Higher Ed report, declining student populations in the Midwest and Northeast present a challenge for colleges who primarily recruit students in those markets. Since I consult primarily with institutions in the [...]
Increasing Enrollment in the Face of Budget Cuts
I’ve had dozens of conversations with Admissions Directors who feel stuck between a rock and a hard place: trying to increase enrollment numbers in the face of shrinking budgets. State and local funding for public higher education per student fell by 21 percent from 2000 to 2010. California alone saw $650 million in budget cuts [...]
Introducing the 2012 Social Admissions Report
Observe any fifteen to twenty-one year old for more than a few minutes and you’ll undoubtedly see them “connected” via their phone, texting, tweeting or Facebooking with their friends. While it’s no news that social media is here and here to stay, the jury is still out whether students use social media to research colleges [...]
How to Welcome Transfer Students with Social Media
The school year is starting, and the much anticipated “Class of 2016” have been recruited and are off having a successful first quarter or semester. While admissions departments are ready to pack their travel suitcases and start looking onto next year’s crop of students, some folks are still sitting uneasy. I recently spoke with a Director of [...]
Top 3 Reasons Your Students May “Melt” This Summer and What You Can Do About It
The school-year is just around the corner and with all the fun in the sun that summer brings often comes a scary reality that institutions face each year. Summer melt. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, summer melt is defined as: “the phenomenon that students pay a deposit to attend a particular college [...]
What Teenagers Really Think of Your Marketing – 2012 TeensTALK Takeaways
Every summer STAMATS hosts a TeensTALK panel featuring 15 graduated high-school seniors who reflect on their college decision making process and what college marketing tactics resonated with them most. Some of the student responses were shocking such as, “don’t advertise on Facebook” while others seemed a bit more common sense “when you send us 100 [...]
Are Liberal Arts Colleges and Students More or Less Social? (New Research)
The Liberal Arts. According to Wikipedia, the “liberal arts are those subjects that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts.” While some may say the liberal arts needs an upgrade for the 21st century (I’m looking at you Michael Staton) others would argue in this time of hyper-digital-social-mobile-media-extravenganza there [...]
What’s the Best Way to Improve Yield for Admissions?
Universities spend considerable time and resources to get students interested in their institution every year. With each stage in the admissions cycle, comes a new opportunity for administrators to connect with potential students and help them make the right choice for their future. Last week at the New England Association for Admissions Counselors, Jessica Winthrop-Oney and [...]
What’s Happening With Schools App on Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]
![What’s Happening With Schools App on Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://blog.inigral.com/wp-content/uploads/schools_app_info-150x150.png)
A few months back we presented an infographic titled What’s Happening With Facebook in College Admissions to the higher ed community, which was one of our most popular posts of all time. After the word got out, some folks asked to see an infographic about our own Schools App on Facebook. We dove into our app [...]
What Prospective Students Think About Your College Facebook Page
Last month I had the opportunity to hear from a variety of higher ed heavy hitters at the CASE Social Media and Community conference in Chicago. Although the presentation topics were varied, my biggest takeaway was that institutions love their Facebook Page like their first born child. The School-wide Facebook page was often described as “our [...]
How Are You Welcoming the Class of 2016?
There’s nothing new about colleges and college students creating Class of 20XX Pages and Groups before school start. These groups offer an engaging medium for students to meet one another and discuss life before they arrive on campus. While this is a best practice for institutions looking to build community and improve yield, rarely do [...]
Tumblr for Arts Schools Admissions – Tips from University of the Arts
Before I dive into the post I have to say my biggest pet peeves in marketing are: 1. Marketers try to join every social network under the sun and 2. Marketers disregard their unique brand and business situation when evaluating which platforms “make sense” to participate in. Although Tumblr has been around for a few years it [...]
7 Ideas to Improve your New Facebook Timeline Page
When March 30th arrives, Facebook Pages will change forever. Well, knowing Facebook’s track record, things will probably change again. But, at the end of the month, Pages will have the new Timeline design. While some schools have taken the leap of faith, a few schools are still hanging on to their current pages. While you do have [...]
