By Jeremy Tiers, Senior Director of Admissions Services
2 minute read
One of the primary jobs throughout the year for a territory manager or recruiter involves determining if a senior inquiry, applicant, or admitted student is probably going to choose another college at the end of the day.
Doing that on a regular basis will help the counselor or recruiter prioritize future outreach.
Besides predictive modeling/scoring, one of the best ways involves building trust with a student, asking them direct questions, and making it clear that there are no penalties for being open and honest about how they’re feeling, why they haven’t done something, which way they’re leaning, etc.
Below are some additional indicators that, according to our research, mean a student is probably avoiding telling you “no”, or at the very least, their interest is declining:
- If they visited campus more than 60 days ago and still haven’t started their application.
- If they started their application more than 45 days ago and still haven’t finished it.
- If they tell you they’re going to get a copy of their transcript (or other paperwork) to complete their application, but don’t.
- If they get admitted, have yet to visit campus, and they tell you they’re planning to visit or come to one of your admitted student events and multiple opportunities pass without them signing up.
- If you ask them how they feel about your college’s location (i.e. “Walk me through why our location feels like it might be the right place for you”) and they struggle to provide an answer with substance.
- If you send them an email or text message and offer to get them connected with a current student (ideally one in the same academic area of interest or one with a similar background) and they don’t take you up on your offer.
- If you see a significant drop off in the amount of emails they open.
- If they don’t respond to a direct question after multiple attempts via email and/or text.
- If you email their parents separately and they don’t respond to a direct question after multiple attempts.
To be clear, I’m not saying you immediately stop communicating with these students, but I am saying you probably need to take some of them off your priority outreach list, at least temporarily.
Got a question, or would you like to talk about something I said in this article? I’m happy to connect. Just reply to this email, or email me here.
And if you found this article helpful, forward it to someone else on your campus who could also benefit from reading it.