Colleges shouldn’t get into a “social-media-channel arms race” when communicating with prospective students — unless they want to waste time and money.
That’s one conclusion in a new white paper, “Mythbusting Admissions,” that provides a nuanced analysis of how well teenagers’ behavior matches up with the perceptions of those who recruit them. In short, what some admissions officials think they know about today’s app-happy, ever-texting applicants is not quite right.
Consider this oft-heard statement: “Facebook is dead to teens.” A third of admissions officials believe it’s true, the paper says. Yet two-thirds of teenagers consider Facebook the most valuable form of social media they used when researching colleges.
‘It’s not that teens totally discount what admission officers say, but there are other information sources that are much more important to them.’
The paper was written by Gil Rogers, director of marketing and enrollment services at Chegg, a student-services company, and Michael Stoner, president and co-founder of mStoner a marketing and communications firm. Their findings were drawn from recent surveys of teenagers as well as a survey of admissions officers that included “parallel questions,” which allowed the researchers to compare the two groups’ responses. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Stoner previously presented their findings at an enrollment conference last July.
The words that come out of admissions officers’ mouths are crucial, right? Most of them (71 percent) said their conversations with applicants had been important sources of information for teenagers in deciding where to apply. But only 37 percent of teenagers agreed. “It’s not that teens totally discount what admission officers say,” the authors write, “but there are other information sources that are much more important to them.”
Not Dead Yet
Print, as you might have heard, is dead, too. The truth, though, is complicated. Teenagers rated print — brochures, pamphlets, viewbooks — as the most effective way to get their attention. That was the case for colleges they had not heard of as well as those they had heard of but not considered. It’s also true, however, that many prospective students have little use for all of that paper: A quarter said they had never opened most of the mail colleges had sent them.
Oh, and before anyone goes overboard on that cool, new app all the kids have just started using, take a deep breath. Although 30 percent of admissions officials said social media was the most effective way for a college to engage students who had never heard of it, just 4 percent of students said the same.
Students ‘don’t necessarily want those who aren’t friends communicating with them through these channels and devices.’
Although today’s students might use their smartphones and social media constantly, the paper says, “they don’t necessarily want those who aren’t friends communicating with them through these channels and devices. So if they reach out to you, follow their lead — if they text you, you can text them back; if they contact you on instant messaging, you can IM them back.”
When considering recruitment strategies, it’s important to think of both what and when, the paper suggests. Students consider some tools valuable at one stage of the college-selection process, but not so much at another. Although 70 percent of teens said they had used a college’s website when deciding where to apply, for instance, only 30 percent said they had done so after being accepted. And while 64 percent of admissions officials said a college’s official social-media accounts were important to prospective students after applying, only 18 percent of teenagers said the same (compared with 35 percent of teenagers who used social media before deciding to apply).
In short, the wireless generation is complicated. Nope, teenagers haven’t ditched email (far from it, the findings show); but yes, many expect a response within 24 hours. “It’s more important than ever,” the authors conclude, “to question assumptions about what teens do and don’t do, prefer, and dislike, when it comes to their college-search and -choice process.”
