It’s natural to think of the admissions process from the institutional perspective. But as student expectations rise, it’s time to flip the script. It’s time to think about the admissions experience in higher education through the lens of your audience.
Today’s prospective college students have options in front of them. They also know what they want—and what they want tends to be a college admissions experience tailored specifically to their needs. That is an impossible feat unless you prioritize personalization in everything you do to connect with them.
In this digital age, students are looking for meaningful connections with the institutions they’re considering. They see these meaningful connections as enhancing their overall experience and will gravitate toward institutions that can satisfy this need. In this guide, we’ll outline exactly how you can personalize your college admissions experience to drive tangible enrollment outcomes.
The Value of Personalization in College Admissions
In today’s competitive higher education landscape, personalization is a critical part of the experience. Done right, it can differentiate your institution from others by offering an admissions experience in higher education that students want to engage with. Rather than an endless slog of mass emails and bland brochures, you can connect with your future students’ preferences and needs.
Studies repeatedly show that personalization is essential for Gen Z, the demographic cohort that makes up today’s high school and college students. In fact, they increasingly expect it to be a natural part of their online experience. Its importance will continue to rise as the investment becomes more significant.
Done right, it becomes a crucial differentiator. According to one survey, only 15% of students said colleges are sending them personally relevant materials. Meanwhile, 84% say their favorite brands treat them as individuals, not just another number.
Finally, personalization can become a core part of your brand promise. Especially if you are looking to convince students to attend through messages related to small class sizes and personal attention, what better way to prove the truth of your claims than by showing just how much you value each of your students as individuals?
Collecting and Utilizing Student Data to Enhance Your Admissions Experience in Higher Education
The why of personalization is core to prioritizing it as part of your college admissions experience. The how, on the other hand, has to begin and end with the data part of the equation.
Put simply, you have to collect relevant student data to personalize their experience. That data can come from a wide range of sources, including:
- Online forms, surveys, and other interactions that collect relevant data on student interests and preferences. For example, inquiry forms that ask for a student’s intended major or personal hobbies can lead to personalized follow-ups on those topics.
- Web analytics data hooked into your CRM. For example, you might be able to track the web pages a given student visits most frequently. This could trigger follow-ups that provide additional information in that area.
- Analysis of your existing student data. For example, geographic location data can help you decide what parts of your value proposition are most relevant. Local students will look for different considerations from those coming from out-of-state.
Each of these data points can lead to better follow-ups that respond to the individual needs of your prospective students. You can also go further. FlippedApp, for example, offers detailed student profiles that match your institution’s criteria. Then, you can personalize your approach from the start and focus on the students most likely to enroll.
Embracing Personalized Communication Strategies
With the right data in place, it’s time to build and refine the actual tactics that will tangibly impact the admissions experience in higher education. The more you can integrate personalization into your tactics, the more effective your overall enrollment and recruitment efforts can become.
That starts with customized email campaigns specifically designed to address your students’ individual concerns, goals, and needs. It can also include similar efforts in print, with visuals and text adjusted based on variables in your student database.
Of course, you can also go deeper. Personalized videos have grown rapidly in popularity, combining Gen Z’s need for personalization with a strong preference for visual content. Similarly, virtual tours tailored to different audience segments’ needs can help connect with your prospective students on a deeper level.
Building an admissions experience in higher education that is this personalized requires careful thought and planning. Segment your prospective students based on their interactions and preferences, then deliver personalized content to each segment accordingly. This type of “mass personalization” can effectively and efficiently reach your audience individually without a massive resource investment.
Enhancing the Campus Visit Experience Through Personalization
Ultimately, a student’s admissions experience in higher education depends on far more than just digital efforts. Campus visits remain a crucial part of the equation by helping students and families better understand the environment and nuances of what will be their home for the next few years.
Personalization can also make a massive difference here. Consider moving away from a single campus tour. Instead, tailor individual tours to showcase aspects of the institution that align with your students’ interests. A business student will likely look for very different parts of campus than an art student might, just as an athlete will have unique areas they’d prefer to tour.
Taking the concept further, consider providing personalized itineraries for each visiting student. Consider offering the option to meet one-on-one with faculty or current students as part of your visit signup, helping your students tailor their visit to their exact needs.
Finally, you can bring technology back into the equation. Virtual visit experiences that feel personal and engaging can help out-of-state students. They can also help students just starting their admissions experience get familiar with your university. When on campus, self-guided campus tours using your interactive map can help students find their way outside of regular business hours.
Building Long-Term Relationships With Prospective Students
From a student’s perspective, the admissions experience in higher education is ultimately personal. After all, they are not just buying a commodity; they’re making an investment that will rank among the most significant choices in their lifetime.
That, in turn, means building long-term relationships with prospective students has the potential to pay off big time. Personalized follow-up communications with students you know to be interested after their application or after a campus visit can make all the difference. Take the approach of helping your students make their final decision, not just convincing them that your school is the right decision for them.
It pays to expand that experience to your onboarding experience, as well. Summer melt means you can’t even count deposited students as guaranteed seats once the semester starts. Instead, you need to do what you can to ease the transition from prospective student to member of your incoming class and campus community.
Finally, the relationship you build with prospective students can also pay off as they transition into academic life. Direct outreach from professors and leaders of campus resources like the writing or tutoring center, designed to sell your school early in the enrollment funnel, becomes a valuable connection for students as they have questions during their first few days and weeks.
Measuring the Impact of Your Personalization Efforts
Finally, as with any tactics impacting the admissions experience in higher education, measuring your effort will have a massive impact on its success. Only tracking the effectiveness of your personalized strategies enables you to understand what works, what doesn’t, and where you should invest your resources.
Start by setting up the metrics and KPIs that help you evaluate the success of your personalization efforts. Beyond the big-picture wins like inquiries, visit signups, and applications, your engagement metrics can be particularly helpful in understanding how more customized messaging may cause your audiences to interact with your content.
Student feedback can be another invaluable tool. Survey your students after events like open houses or as part of a broader effort to better understand the information they’re looking for and how your messaging currently addresses those needs. Over time, you can use that data to build more relevant, customized efforts.
With a tool like FlippedApp, measuring the impact of your personalization efforts becomes even more straightforward. It provides actionable insights into the direct connections you can facilitate with your students, providing valuable learnings that directly impact your strategy and its success.
Personalizing the College Admissions Experience for Greater Long-Term Success
Personalization has become an increasingly core part of the admissions journey for both students and institutions. Through strategies like personalized campus visits, building long-term relationships, and effective measurement, you can enable this approach to work for you as you build better and more sustainable recruitment strategies.
The time to implement personalization in the new recruitment cycle and build stronger connections with your students is now. Learn how tools like FlippedApp can support your personalization efforts, enabling you to meet and exceed student expectations as they look to make their college choice for 2025 and beyond.