Mythbusting Admissions: Where Prospects and Professionals Agree, and Disagree, on Enrollment Marketing, Messages, and Channels

#AMAHigherEd
Mythbusting Admissions
Gil Rogers & Michael Stoner

#AMAhighered
@GilRogers
Gil@Chegg.com
@mStonerVT
Michael.Stoner@mStoner.com

1. About this study
2. Myths and realities
3. Suggestions for action
4. Discussion, comments, questions

@GilRogers @mStonerVT #AMAhighered
Myths? Or realities?

Myths or realities?
1. Prospects hang on an admission ofﬁcer’s every word.
2. The higher your ranking, the more impressed teens
are.
3. Social media is an awesome channel for engaging
teens who don’t know our institution.

Myths or realities?
4. Admission ofﬁcers don’t understand how teens use
their phones.
5. Search works. Really.
6. Facebook is dead to teens.
7. Teens love it when you contact them on social media.

Prospects hang on
an admission ofﬁcer's
every word.

Admission ofﬁcers said teens value a
conversation with admission ofﬁcers
at a college…
before deciding
to apply
after deciding to
apply after applying after being
accepted
71% 79% 77% 72%

75%
said college fairs are not that influential
in deciding where to apply
66%
said college reps visiting their
school were not that influential
Only 45% of teens value a conversation
with admission ofﬁcers at a college.

Teens pay attention to
• Gut feeling about campus & students: 79%
• The tour: 78%
• Student tour guide: 71%
• Admission officer’s presentation: 45%
• Organized meeting w/current students: 40%
• Sitting in on a class: 28%
• Overnight stay: 29%
• Athletic event: 24%

The higher your ranking, the
more impressed teens are!

Admission officers think teens check US
News & value rankings …
before deciding
to apply
after deciding
to apply after applying
after being
accepted
72% 20% 14% 11%

What teens say …
⅔ indicate rankings are extremely
useful when researching colleges
say that rankings are influential
when deciding where to enroll77%
16%

Social media is an awesome
channel for engaging teens
who don’t know your institution.

never heard of heard of, not considered
email 18% 29%
phone call 12% 23%
social media 30% 26%
brochures &
pamphlets
33% 12%
text messages 4% 5%
virtual event 4% 5%
Of all these ways to reach teens, admission
officers think social media works well …

prefer social as the first point of contact
Half of teens use official social media for
the college they’ve applied to. But (only)
They use official social media as an information source that informs
their decisions. They prefer to engage with current students.
4%

70%
say that social media
conversation influences
their decision about
where to enroll
research decide where
to enroll
Facebook 10% 33%
Twitter 4% 15%
YouTube 7% 8%
Instagram 5% 15%
Snapchat 3% 7%

Admission ofﬁcers
don’t understand how teens
use their phones.

of admission
professionals say
teens primarily use
smartphones to
research colleges
73%

What teens do on their phones
what admission
ofﬁcers think teens do what teens say they do
visited a college website using a mobile
browser
87% 81%
texted w/ a college rep 65% 14%
took a virtual tour 73% 33%
submitted an application 50% 35%
scheduled a campus visit 83% 40%
asked questions on social media 74% 13%
live chat with a college rep 36% 7%

Search works. Really.
image source: Instagram,#collegemail

Admission officers believe that communications
from colleges that teens hadn’t previously heard
about will have some influence on their decision
to apply to those colleges.
believe it will have
“some effect.”
23%73%
believe reaching out to teens
who haven’t heard of their
colleges will have a “big effect”

OMG! HaHaHaHa!
!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!

21%
of students say it made
any difference to them
(and that’s down from
24% in 2014).
59%
of students with GPAs
3.6+ read less than half
of their unsolicited mail

Facebook is dead to teens.

⅓
Fewer than ⅓ of admission
professionals believe students
use Facebook when deciding
where to enroll.

of teens say they use
social media when
deciding where to enroll
67%⅔
of teens used Facebook
when researching college;
half used it to research
colleges they applied to

Social media reality = fragmentation
Facebook YouTube Instagram Twitter Pinterest
20%
46%
48%
62%
67%
14%
31%
28%
49%
60%
6%
19%
41%
58%
2012 2013 2014

Teens love it when you
contact them on social media.

Admission officers believe …
said teens were open to being contacted
through Facebook72%
said are open to contact through Twitter71%
said teens were open to contact through
Instagram50%

of teens prefer social media as an initial form
of contact.
4%
75%
more than 75% say they are interested
in talking to admissions on a social
channel
But teens say …

Some advice about reaching teens …
• Your website is really important. Make sure it’s responsive.
• Teens pay attention to your ofﬁcial social channels: they use
them to learn about your institution, but may not engage with
you there. So make sure they’re up to date and that there is
engagement happening.
• Teens use their mobiles to engage with friends. Not you. In
general, they’re not interested in texts or other communications
with colleges, especially those with whom they don’t have a
relationship.

Some advice about reaching teens …
• But: It’s OK to text teens or reach out to them on a social
channel—as long as they reach out to you on that channel ﬁrst.
• Teens use apps like Snapchat to engage with friends, not with
you.
• There’s no silver bullet for connecting with teens. Don’t get
caught up in a technology arms race.
• Don’t be everywhere until you can be awesome everywhere you
are.

Sign up to receive notice of the
white paper about this research
as soon as it’s published:
mstnr.me/AdmissionsMyths

Gil Rogers
Director of Marketing and Enrollment Insights, Chegg
gil@Chegg.com
Michael Stoner
President, mStoner, Inc.
michael.stoner@mstoner.com
Thank you!

Chegg (download: edu.chegg.com/downloads/):
2015 Social Admissions Report (February 2015)
How Did you (Really) Decide? (May 2015)
Trends in Student Perspectives Annual Research
(March 2015)
mStoner, Inc.: research with admission professionals
conducted June 2015
Data sources

Mythbusting Admissions: Where Prospects and Professionals Agree, and Disagree, on Enrollment Marketing, Messages, and Channels

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Mythbusting Admissions: Where Prospects and Professionals Agree, and Disagree, on Enrollment Marketing, Messages, and Channels