By Jeremy Tiers, Vice President of Admissions Services
3 minute read
According to our latest Tudor Collegiate Strategies data, only 12.6% of students said their parent(s) or guardian(s) didn’t help them with one of more things during their college search.
Wishing you could get more students to sign up and/or show up for campus visits or open houses?
Want to increase your FAFSA completion percentage this year?
Interested in decreasing your “melt” percentage with this next class?
The solution to all three of those things involves parent(s) or guardian(s).
Figuring out financial aid and planning campus visits remain the top two things that students indicate their parent(s) or guardian(s) assist them with.
Here’s another interesting stat for you. Over the past two years, 83.5% of students said the college or university they chose was either their #1 choice when they applied, or it was in their top group of schools.
All of that begs this question – What kind of personalized outreach have you done for the parent(s) or guardian(s) of your early applicants and admits? The most important word I used in that question was “personalized.” We continue to find that the majority of schools don’t have a dedicated communication plan for this group that feels personal. Instead it’s a lot of generic messages and/or Cc’ing them on emails that are sent to students.
If you’re not already doing it, please, please allocate time each week for building and strengthening relationships with a student’s number one influencer.
In terms of a starting point, if you haven’t do so already, step one is to introduce or reintroduce the parent(s) or guardian(s) of your applicants and admits to their admissions counselor. Make it clear the counselor is there to support the entire family throughout this process, and that he/she understands the important role that parents and guardians play. As a call to action, depending on what you already know or don’t know about the student and/or parent(s)/guardian(s), ask a direct question that seeks to uncover how the parent(s) or guardian(s) feels about some aspect of your school, the college search, or the college decision.
A couple examples are:
“How are you feeling about… (pick one – the cost of college; the financial aid process, or maybe the location of our school?)”
“When you talk about <Your College’s Name> as a family, what’s something that you think makes us a good fit for <Student’s First/Preferred Name>?”
“What’s the biggest concern you have about <Your College’s Name>?”
After that message has been sent, once or twice a month you should include an email to the parent(s) or guardian(s) that covers some aspect or topic related to your school’s student experience or the college decision-making process.
Parents and guardians will often give more detailed, intelligent insights, and most will follow-up in a timelier manner on action items you bring to their attention. They’re either your biggest asset or a major obstacle, plain and simple.
Which one are they for you and your school?
If you have follow-up questions related to parent communications I’m happy to connect and chat. Simply reply back, or email me here.
And if you found this article helpful, please forward it to someone else on your campus who could also benefit from reading it. Sharing is caring 🙂