By Jeremy Tiers, Senior Director of Admissions Services
In our second annual spring survey of high school juniors, Tudor Collegiate Strategies and Niche received feedback from 9,461 students.
Almost all respondents have been actively researching colleges, with the majority telling us they started searching before their junior year even started.
I hope this national overview is helpful and gives you a better idea of what you can do now to better connect with this next class of students and meet your enrollment goals.
Key Takeaways:
- 79% of students said that personalized and relevant outreach influences their interest in a college. Only 16%, however, thought that the communications they have received have been very personalized and relevant; 21% thought that they all look and sound the same.
- Current students at a college are the most influential to a prospective student’s consideration of a college, even more than an admissions counselor, family, or friends.
- 69% of students said that a college’s name recognition and brand are important to them. Almost all students—97%—will consider applying to a college they hadn’t heard of before, so long as certain conditions are met. The majority said that a conversation with someone from a college they hadn’t previously heard of would make them consider it.
- The percentage of students eliminating colleges from consideration based on the total cost rose sharply from 75% this fall for the class of 2022 to 91% for the class of 2023. Less than half of students say they would consider a college whose total cost is over $40,000 per year. This is felt even more strongly with first-generation students and those from low-income families.
- 72% of juniors started actively researching colleges as a freshman or sophomore, up from 56% last year.
- The majority of juniors are comfortable again with in-person recruitment activities—71% say they will definitely visit a college campus for an official visit in the future. Most juniors also report that they plan to attend at least one college fair or meet with admissions counselors who visit their high school