Recruiting for the fall of 2021 poses a thicket of problems. It’s hard for students to get to know colleges when Covid-19 prevents them from visiting campuses or learning about them at admissions fairs. And it’s hard for colleges to get to know students when canceled or delayed standardized tests, disrupted academics, and suspended sports and other activities thin the files on their achievement, aptitude, and interests.
Yet colleges’ financial stability, even survival, depends on robust recruiting. A new Chronicle report and a just-released survey of rising high-school seniors offer some strategies to make the best of a chaotic situation.
Nearly 1,600 rising high-school seniors responded to the survey, which was conducted by Carnegie Dartlet, a marketing and communications company. Some key findings:
- Three out of five said an in-person experience with a prospective college had “a lot of” or “critical” importance to them.
- Forty percent had taken part in a virtual tour and information session. Slightly more than half of those said it had been only a “somewhat effective” replacement for an in-person tour. Several said all the virtual tours they had attended “felt the same.”
- Satisfaction rates were similar among the 13 percent who had attended virtual college fairs. Their criticisms focused on insufficient depth and time.
- More than half were more concerned about paying for college since the Covid-19 outbreak than they had been before. One in four has had a parent laid off, and nearly the same share have lost jobs themselves.
- The respondents have experienced online learning, and they don’t like it. Only 11 percent preferred or were strongly considering online courses, while more than a quarter would not consider online education at all. Half said their interest in online learning had dropped during the outbreak.
Those and other data suggest that this group of students hungers for real, not virtual, experience and seeks a sense of where they’ll fit in on college campuses and how daily life there will feel. That will require colleges to couple cutting-edge technology with old-fashioned cold calls and customized recruitment.
They will need to complement polished, informative websites and virtual tours with quick, casual videos on social media that project energy and authenticity. And they’ll need to connect potential applicants to admissions officers, current college students, and faculty and staff members steeped in pertinent academic and other activities.
“The playbook goes out the window,” said Andrew B. Palumbo, dean of admissions and financial aid at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “It’s a scary thing on one hand, but it’s also somewhat refreshing. It opens us up to innovate.”
For detailed analysis and recommendations, and a fuller explanation of the Carnegie Dartlet survey findings, see “The Next Enrollment Challenge: How to Recruit for Fall 2021.”
