Recruiting (and Keeping) the Best of the Best

Enrollment Management in a Digital Age

by Suzanne Petrusch, Vice President for Enrollment Management

High school students are bombarded every day with text messages, online banners, TV commercials and more. Easily they consume many more bits of information than any previous generation. So how can you be heard through all the noise?

Today, college recruitment professionals are dealing with how to recruit the best and the brightest whose attention is in constant demand. Add the competition between schools to finding a diverse and well-prepared group of students, and recruitment becomes very complicated.

But St. Mary's is staying on the cutting edge by focusing efforts and using new media to reach prospective students. That translates into enrolling and keeping the best of the best at St. Mary's.

Then and Now

College recruitment has changed drastically since the 1970s. St. Mary's, in its quest to recruit qualified students, is operating in a hypercompetitive environment that extends beyond the local and regional markets. Many states have decreasing populations of high school students. Colleges and universities in these states are looking to Texas, where the number of students is projected to grow 40 percent by 2018-2019.

However, the growth is generally among those least prepared to tackle the rigor of a four-year university curriculum. We would be mistaken to assume that more graduates will easily translate into higher enrollment.

When we talk to our colleagues about their schools' enrollment goals, everyone says some variation of "we've been charged with enrolling more students with higher test scores, better grades and class rank, and who reshape our demographic profile with increased racial/ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic diversity." Compound this with the rule in Texas that dictates admission for applicants graduating from public high schools in the top 10 percent of their classes, and you see that schools are all vying for the same group of top students.

Even in a competitive arena and with current economic challenges, St. Mary's is weathering the storm.

Freshman applications are at an alltime high, totaling nearly 3,600 by early May 2010, a 55 percent increase compared to this same time last year. Prospective students are applying to more schools, but the application growth we are experiencing surpasses even national trends. The biggest factor contributing to the explosive growth in applications for the next freshman class was our decision to become part of the common application for the state, ApplyTexas.

With the ease of applying through this new channel, we recognize these applications will be softer—a term commonly used in admission to describe students who will have a lower propensity to enroll at St. Mary's—than what we would receive through our traditional application methods.

Building Relationships is Key

While we cannot directly apply our historical models to predict enrollment, even if we experience a lower enrollment rate among ApplyTexas applicants, we strongly believe our presence on the site keeps the St. Mary's name in front of more college-bound students.

To successfully market St. Mary's to prospective students for whom we believe the school offers an outstanding fit, we must excel in building relationships with our desired constituent group. While we must address the facts and figures, from size of the student body to the price of attendance and demonstrated return on investment, it is incumbent upon us to elicit an emotional response from each contact with the prospective student.

Marketing to the mind and the heart is the most effective way of creating a bond that helps prospective students understand what makes St. Mary's special.

Recruiting 2.0

Every recruitment cycle, we refine our comprehensive communication plan. When we remain agile enough to deploy data-driven changes during any given cycle, we perform at our best level. Our multi-channel communication mix continues to expand. Beginning with Student Search, the process by which we communicate with thousands of high schools students whose names we purchase from a combination of testing agencies and research firms, we use targeted print and electronic communication to drive students to a landing page that contains interactive features including a scholarship calculator and video clip. Students can complete a traditional business reply card, a short online inquiry form, or confirm their interest via text. Students who are part of the digital generation overwhelmingly choose the technology-based options.

Our new recruitment endeavors in 2009-2010 include a presence on YOUniversityTV.com, a site that offers online video tours of colleges and universities nationwide and the launch of Mobile Updates, an opt-in text message service for students and parents. The average teen now sends or receives almost 3,000 text messages per month compared to 191 calls. Texting has increased 566 percent in just two years, and nearly two-thirds of all U.S. teen mobile subscribers say they prefer text messaging to calling. Thirty-four percent say texting is the reason they acquired their phone. (Source: Nielsen 2009, "How Teens Use Media")

Ten years ago, some enrollment marketing professionals predicted that print publications would become obsolete, but we find the tactile experience of holding a glossy viewbook in your hand cannot be replaced. Instead, print materials should continue as an important and relevant component of the overall communication mix. Partnering with The Lawlor Group, a leading enrollment-focused communication solutions firm, we completely redesigned our two primary print publications for use in recruiting the class of 2010. We invite you to access the Gold & Blue Web Extras so you can browse a PDF of the vibrant new viewbook.

Making College Accessible

It is one thing to recruit new students to the University. It is another to demonstrate our commitment to recruiting future St. Mary's alumni. The powerful impact of Access St. Mary's on the outcome of our 2009 recruitment efforts was widely touted. We knew it would be critical to help these students make a smooth transition from high school to college. Under the creative leadership of Rosalind V. Alderman, Ph.D., assistant vice president for Retention Management, we sought faculty to serve as Faculty Academic Mentors to host Access students for meals several times during the semester. The opportunity to make a connection with at least one faculty member outside of class can influence a student's decision to stay at an institution.

"Because of the Access St. Mary's program, I am able to attend a school I could not have afforded otherwise," said Brenda Montoya, a student in the Access St. Mary's program. "The experience has enabled me to try my hardest to keep my grades up and to be an example for others."

Brenda is also in the new Rattler Success program – designed to offer support to students who did not meet the qualifications for scholarship renewal at the end of their first year. Read about her and other students in the Gold & Blue Web Extras.

Students in Access St. Mary's had a fall-to-spring retention rate of 98 percent compared to a retention rate of 93 percent for the entire fall 2009 freshman cohort. There is a long road ahead of Brenda and her classmates, but they are one step closer to walking across the stage at graduation with a St. Mary's degree in hand. We will be cheering as loudly as their families.