October. NACAC 2018 is over. Fall season recruitment for high school students now hits overdrive. Travel well. But, if you can, skip those high school lunch visits. Not many people at NACAC, it seems, think they are worth the effort. In early summer, Gerry McGovern asked at a higher education conference in Spain: “Where are […]
Yes, private sector admissions directors are stressed. With the start of the NACAC 2018 conference this week, arrival of the new Inside Higher Ed/Gallup survey of admissions directors was especially timely. Curiosity, of course, took me off to download a copy and read through the findings. With special attention to the results from admissions directors […]
“Estimate your cost in 3 minutes” at the Yale University undergrad admissions page Learning about what a particular college will cost is a Top Task for high school students and their parents. And yet most college and university admissions sites don’t give special priority to letting people complete that task quickly and easily. From a […]
Students, alumni rate individual academic programs on the Concordia website… innovation to impact student recruitment Today we conclude our interview with Seth Meranda, director of marketing and communication at Concordia University, Nebraska about the unusual step Concordia has taken to include real critiques in 11 areas with the website content for each academic program. From a […]
Annual Report Unicorn: Easy-to-scan format and easy-to-read contents The search this week for an Annual Report to use as the Link of the Week took me to over 60 examples in Australia, Canada, the U.K and the U.S. Just as I was about to turn back in what had become a unicorn hunt… I came […]
Individual academic program ratings by students, alumni at Concordia website Earlier this year at a conference in Spain for higher education professionals my colleague Gerry McGovern asked this question: “Where are the authentic student reviews on university websites?” At the time, I only knew of one example, at Western Governors University. That became a Link […]
Taking Best Advantage of a #1 Rating: 7 Reasons for the Golden Gate Ranking Just about every college and university can pick from a plethora of ratings to highlight something on the home page and elsewhere on the site. Problem is that seldom do schools bother to note the reasons for receiving a high rating. […]
September. Move-in days for new residential students are done. A new recruitment season for high school students moves with earnest into the senior cycle. Stanford University tells us they won’t tell us how many applications they receive. Will any others follow suit? New on my blog: “Take a 30-Day Branding Break: A 6-Step Exercise to […]
Consumer Information: University of Michigan-Dearborn Opens with College Scorecard With an growing focus on “transparency” as a valuable higher education attribute (see, for instance, “Reforms to Increase Transparency in Higher Education“) will “Consumer Information” pages play a more important role in providing information to potential students that goes beyond normal marketing fare? Time will tell […]
Bad Tactics Kill the Best Brand Strategy… A 6-Step Recruitment Review Yes, the little things can kill (or boost) your brand. That’s as true for colleges and universities as for any other organization striving for marketing success. In higher education marketing, this is the “branding era.” This 2017 “Five Strategies…” article is typical. Each of […]