How Can Colleges Get Your Attention?

College Search & Selection
101

To capture our attention, schools in remote locations should offer shuttle services to the closest major airport at least on the holiday breaks or in the spring or fall. Charging for the ride would be okay. This might capture more students from the Boston-DC corridor. Basically we would put in the effort to make the journey and look at the school IF we knew that once child is accepted the child could get to the school! Making this clear might entice more people to look at the school.

The Boston-DC corridor has too many kids chasing too many slots that are accessible.

102

Emails are easy for me to delete without opening them, because they are impersonal and I get between 20 and 50 a day. Plus, I can usually tell that the email is a template, so 500 identical emails were also sent out, to other students with their name on it who are also interested in studying biology, or whatever the subject line may be.

Physical mail, on the other hand, is totally different. While I get a lot of that too, it is more personal… even if I know hundreds of others received the same piece of mail… There is something about looking at printed pictures of a campus that draws me it. The more pictures, the better.

Social media can be effective in attracting my attention as well. When I want to learn more about a school, I go to their Instagram page. It is comforting to see pictures posted often (at least once a week) of fun student activities that would make me feel ‘at home’ at that school.

Birthday cards and emails from schools are awesome! They are probably the best way to make a template piece of mail feel more personal.

103

Phone calls are a bit aggressive.

104

^Agreed. Phone calls are far too aggressive and honestly make me want to avoid seeking more information about the institution.

My preferred form of communication with colleges would be either through email or physical mail sent straight to my mailbox. Duke, Stanford, Pomona, Yale, WashU, and others sent me a ton of thick, expensive-feeling booklets and magazines that I could marvel at and wonder, “how on earth are they able to afford sending these to everyone?”. I also loved the emails that UChicago sent me, like this one:

Asugut 1: A Mmenoutos Dtae Tghuorouht Hstroiy
Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 11:42 AM

Dear yinuos,

If you’ve seen the 2015-2016 UChicago Essay Prompts, then you may already know: rerhceseras say it’s siltl plisbsoe to raed txet wtih olny the frist and lsat ltteres in palce.

Well, did you also know that one of our other 2015-2016 essay prompts has a secret connection to today?

Prompt #3 asks you to mash up historical figures, and we offered a few examples to get you started: Joan of Arkansas. Queen Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Babe Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But, it’s no coincidence that we picked those examples. They’re all bound together by a mystical date throughout history: August 1st.

Let us explain:

On August 1st, 1947, the Arkansas Catholic newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, ran an article about plans to use Jesuit editor Rev. Dr. Paul Doncoeur as a consultant and advisor on the new film “Joan of Lorraine,” starring Ingrid Bergman in the title role as Joan of Arc.

The book Rightfully Ours: How Women Won the Vote, 21 Activities (For Kids series), published August 1st, 2012, details the efforts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other suffragettes in winning the right for women to vote. This book was written by Kerrie Logan Hollihan, who got her start writing a biography of Queen Elizabeth I.

This “Notorious RBG” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) baseball tee sure would have looked great on Babe Ruth as he took the field for the Yankees in the 1928 season. That year he signed a new contract for a record-breaking salary of $80,000 per year, which was money well spent, as he already had 42 home runs by August 1st of that year.
Okay, these are actually all coincidences. In fact, we had to do some pretty creative Googling to come up with those. But, we’re justifiably excited about today, August 1st. It’s a big date in the world of college admissions: the day the Common Application goes live, and you can begin applying to many universities nationwide, including UChicago. You can also use the Universal Application, the other application accepted by UChicago. We treat each application equally, so use whichever you prefer!

Whenever you are ready, you can also visit getstarted.uchicago.edu to create your UChicago account and begin your UChicago Supplement. This year you have the option of submitting your Supplement through the Common Application website or directly through your UChicago account.

Thank you for considering UChicago as your future college home. This fall, we will be visiting communities and schools throughout the world, as well as hosting events on campus. Wherever it may be, we’d love to see you there! Please feel free to contact us with any questions—we’re happy to help you through the process.

Sincerely,

Andrew Green
Senior Admissions Counselor

I ended up not applying to UChicago, but the emails I got certainly piqued my interest.

105

I skimmed this thread so maybe I missed this suggestion. Visits by college admission staff to local high schools are an effective way of reaching students. A lesser known school might make a student’s radar when they see them on the list of visiting schools. It can work both ways (just like college visits) - something said to HS kids by a visiting admissions person can make an impression - good or bad. It is a good way to make contact with HS students in person.

My daughter’s HS had a college night (not a real fair - just a dozen schools with small groups at each session) - which we attended together and got to hear about some schools. They also had afternoon or lunchtime visits by schools which only students attended. I can still remember something which the admin rep from NYU said which discouraged my daughter from applying and something the Fordham rep said which made her apply there.

106

We loved one of the many postcards U of Chicago sent my kid. Well, they were all interesting, but the one showcasing the beautiful Chicago weather was precious. I really doubt that trying to convince busy, stressed high school kids that completing the hurdle of essays about totally random topics that the school chooses to impose on them is going to be ever so much fun and is going to elicit a positive response. My kid probably would have said, Oh, here’s one I can’t tailor, why do they insist on wasting my time?

MIT also had some creative marketing. My kid really isn’t influenced by that kind of stuff. She didn’t apply to either school.

One of the things that did impress us positively were some of the tour guides going off script and talking about their own experiences and projects they had done at the school. And if the tour guide could find nothing to talk about in the entire hour of the tour that interested or impressed my kid, that also left a strong impression.

107

Personally emails go directly to spam. I had a school in long island send me a hard copy of an application. Although it seemed easy, it made me a little uneasy about sending my personal information via mail so that’s a definite no.

I also have been getting constant emails from a school in California that emails me every week and informs me that I’ve received a “scholarship” despite me never filling out an application.

I would say send something in the mail but be VERY time specific. Receiving mail during the summer before junior year or senior year got me excited to apply but getting things after March (senior year) ended up being very annoying. I personally enjoyed when I’d receive catalogs with pictures or information about demographics. ANYTHING after May 1st was annoying, even if the school had rolling admission. This is a time when a student normally confirms their admission somewhere.

When I got accepted to a school even if I didn’t “confirm” I received sunglasses and that was pretty exciting but costly I can imagine. Also, a school on Hawaii sent me Hawaiian candy and a hand written note, which was exciting as well.

The worst thing I received was a catalog that was sealed in plastic really tight and when I opened it, it smelled SUPER chemically. I felt like they were trying to kill me (haha). This one stood out to me because I can literally still smell it.

If you want to stand out as a school you should have your timing ABSOLUTELY right if you want the student to be thinking about you around application season. Anything too early will be forgotten and anything too late will be …too late. Also, make sure your brochures are genuine. When I’m looking at them as a potential student I’m looking for diversity and action shots from a real classroom preferably if there’s an instructor teaching in the front. I want to see people engaged, students just walking side by side holding random books doesn’t really sell it well enough

This is just my perspective.

108

Just adding on to the brochure thing, we absolutely can tell if a photo is staged believe it or not. I have a vivid memory of my friends and I being sophomores and comparing our “dream school brochures” and making fun of the photos that look 100% staged.

It is ALWAYS better to fill a brochure with pretty pictures of campus than pictures of random students that look really staged fake.

Also. I really enjoyed getting mail from schools in my state that I otherwise didn’t consider. It forced me to look at a school in a free and quick way that I didn’t know of or I wouldn’t of otherwise applied to.

You also can never go wrong with a list of majors and minors as well as a campus map. The goal for admission marketing should be that if the student won’t come to you, bring the school to them via brochure.

109

I should just keep going.

Organization is key. Please keep track of those you rejected, accepted or wait listed. I was on a wait list of a school and they called me. I was in class and I was unable to answer but when I seen the caller ID and seen it was the school I literally jumped out of my skin, thinking I had finally found my way off the waiting list. The caller didn’t leave a voice mail but then called the next day, this time I grabbed the bathroom pass and it was a student asking me to apply and informing me about the schools graduation rate and aid statistics. I was pissed obviously. 1, because I already applied. I wasn’t angry at the guy because it was probably a poor kid doing a work study in the admissions office but I do wish that the staff would’ve taken things more seriously and gave off the impression of being unorganized and made me worry about the status of my application. I personally didn’t like advertising phone calls because I feel like they would always call at dinner time or during class.

Next, the emails. I understand reps have loads to do but I really hated when I’d email a general “admissions.xyz.edu” to get a general question answered and I’d be redirected to the person assigned to my region. If the person otherwise didn’t have the answer to my question and I needed to look elsewhere but then got redirected back to square 1, it was annoying. Normally when the email is redirected it takes even LONGER and I also hated when I wouldn’t get replies at all.

110

I have put in requests to several state colleges, asking for more info as I could not find what I was looking for
on their websites. Cal State Berkley, Humboldt State, U/Wyoming, U/NV-Reno, U/NV-Las Vegas, and U/Utah. No response. And this is going back to April of this year. Yet ITT and Brooks Institute, two private collges that do not have the lines of study that I want, have no problem in e-mailing and calling. Brooks is, to date, the worst. Repeatedly calling me, even though I tell them I’m going after engineering.

111

I really liked Columbia’s emails. The “What defines a Columbian” were cool, but I especially liked the one from the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee that had links to all their social media as well as to a bunch of different stuff for the college and to get more information. I know I also looked at the social media and websites of colleges. How updated they were had a big impact on how I felt about the college.

112

I got a really cool set of business cards from The Miami University that had my name on them as if I was a future CFO, food chemist, head of policy in a company, etc. That really sparked my attention

113

Offers for merit scholarships would get our attention!

114

My daughter finds anything on most social media sites trite and lame. She would watch a You Tube video through after an email with a link.

115

Hand written notes after a tour really stood out. We also had a few come before a tour (though I recognize that is only possible with a smaller school!). Letters or emails that were specific as to how they got her name (e.g., based on your excellent AP scores, etc) were also noted.

116

-Notre Dame sent me a puzzle to solve, and had a whole hashtag dedicated to people who solved the puzzle on Twitter. The thing about this puzzle was that no two results would be same. Basically, you just had a find a way to put all the pieces together. Cute, creative things like this that bring students together are really nice. It shows me that they cared enough to send thousands of students a puzzle that 1) probably cost around 5-10 dollars to make with no guarantee that they’d actually do it and 2) allows for them to know how our minds work (how long it took us to solve the puzzle, what we did, different methods, etc.

-The University of Chicago sent me a sheet of paper with random facts about Chicago and the school. I can’t really remember the facts nor can I find the letter, but I remember it being funny, quirky, and relatable-and devoid of any stupid statistics I can get from a US News and World Report.

-Don’t say things I already know about the college in mail/email. I’m one of few that actually READS the propaganda I get, and they say things like “Sarah Lawrence is a liberal arts college with small classes” and “Columbia University has top programs in science.”

-Stanford invited me to participate in online high school. The cost was more than I’d pay for in-state tuition at the University of Michigan. (Okay, this didn’t necessarily deter me from my interest in Stanford, but if that’s ALL I knew of the school, that wouldn’t be attractive to me. It makes them look like they’re using a logo and people with Ph. D’s to rake in money from high school students and parents.)

I think schools should focus less on the stats and instead find ways to bring the personality of the school to light in their ads. They should write their ads the way they expect us to write essays for them, and not contradict themselves by doing exactly what they tell us NOT to do. “Don’t show off how high your grades and SAT scores are in an attempt to wow admissions officers in your essays,” they say, but that’s exactly what THEY’RE doing when they tell us about all their high rankings in EVERY EMAIL.

I mean, seriously Sarah Lawrence? “A few days ago, The Princeton Review confirmed what we already knew: classes at Sarah Lawrence are the best. In their 2016 rankings, Sarah Lawrence College was ranked #1 on their list of colleges with the “Best Classroom Experience.””
(That was actually a direct quote.)

117

I came upon this late but thought I’d throw in my 2 cents. I am someone who studies college statistics carefully. The usual marketing strategies mean absolutely nothing to me. I pay/paid attention to schools with high average SATs and high graduation rates. Those are by far the most attractive features of a school to me. Of course, they have to also offer the right major. Sticker price did not deter me from applying because I wouldn’t know real cost until April after financial aid offers come in. I used sources like US News and IPEDS to get statistics. The US News rankings got my attention because they seem valid.

118

By valid do you mean they were what you expected? :wink:

119

Ha. By valid I mean that the rankings seem to correlate with objective measures of quality such as SATs, retention, grad rates, and so on. This should not be surprising since US News mostly uses objective criteria and has made its ranking formulas explicit. And, yes, they mostly agree with what I expected with a few exceptions. Although not itself objective, the peer assessment correlates highly with objective measures.

120

How do SATs reflect on the quality of education received? Do most applicants agree with the weighting factors chosen by magazine editors? Peer assessment must be the weakest part; most respondents will know hardly anything about most schools.