We’re in the midst of an interesting trend in higher education marketing, specifically college admissions marketing. After a significant and worrisome dip in college applications during the COVID-19 pandemic, applications have risen significantly in the last two cycles.
The fall 2023 recruitment cycle saw a significant surge of applicants to four-year institutions, and early indications are that applications have risen even further in this cycle.
But not all that glitters is gold. The enrollment cliff is still among us. And enrollment in four-year degree programs dipped once again in fall 2023 despite the strong application numbers. The disconnect between these two data points shows one thing above all: quality matters more than quantity in admissions marketing, now more than ever.
More, in other words, is not always better. Applications have become less predictive of enrollment. That means focusing on your highest-quality applicants is a crucial piece of the equation for a successful recruitment strategy. It’s time to build your college application strategy accordingly.
The Potential Harm of Low-Quality Applications
Every admissions marketing strategy tends to have a simple common goal: to attract as many quality applicants as possible to fill the incoming class with students who are a great match for the institution. Part of that includes generating a high volume of applications to choose the best possible candidates.
But what if the applications coming in no longer represent high enough quality for that goal to be easily possible?
Low-quality applications can be a significant drain on admissions and recruitment resources. They require significant attention to chase supplemental documents for completion, personal follow-ups from admissions counselors, and more. And that’s before we even discuss the resources spent on app generation that doesn’t keep quality in mind.
Of course, and as any admissions and recruitment marketing leader knows, college admittance tends to be a zero-sum game. Spend too many resources on low-quality applications, and those resources won’t be available to find, chase, and attract high-quality candidates. That’s especially significant considering the growing gap between quality and quantity in this arena.
The Growing Gap Between College Application Quality and Quantity
Continually rising college applications seem to be in direct contrast to declining enrollment numbers. But this trend, termed “application inflation” by the New York Times last year, actually has a surprisingly simple reason. More and more students are hedging their bets, taking advantage of an ever-increasing simplification of the process on the institution’s side.
It began during COVID-19, when institutions began to move to test-optional admissions criteria. Then, application fees were discounted or removed. The concept of a ‘holistic admission decision’ swept higher education institutions across the nation.
“Holistic Admission Strategies,” Good or Bad?
At first glance, these developments are by no means negative. Holistic admission processes are proven to reduce the biases that can come with standardized tests. Removing or reducing application fees increases accessibility for students.
The reality, however, is that these changes have not resulted in more students applying to college. Instead, they have resulted in students applying to more colleges. It’s no longer uncommon to see a single student apply to 10 or more institutions, with services like the Common App further simplifying the process.
Naturally, students want to leave their options open. But for institutions, that means a college application in the system is no longer as meaningful as it used to be. When a student has submitted similar information to all of your competitors, you cannot take the application as a clear indicator that they are strongly interested in becoming a student on your campus.
Application quality, then, is lowering not because the students applying are submitting worse scores or essays. Instead, it’s lowering because every application becomes less of a predictor of enrollment.
That’s why applications are rising even as confidence in higher education and high school graduation rates continue to decline. And it’s also why focusing on quantity over quality in your admissions marketing can be a crucial mistake.
The Continued Need to Prioritize Application Quality over Quantity in Admissions Marketing
For years, admissions marketing strategies have prioritized bringing in as many applications as possible. But increasingly, given the growing gap between the two, a shift to focusing on more quality applications has to take center stage. Prioritizing application quality over quantity comes with four core advantages:
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Focus your resources on the most relevant enrollment opportunities. First, and as mentioned above, bringing in fewer but higher-quality applicants means focusing most of your resources on the prospects most likely to become students. Especially as higher education budgets continue to decline, a tighter focus on students with the highest chance of conversion can make a major difference.
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Create a better experience for students who want to enroll at your institution. Focusing on high-quality applicants also means shifting focus to students who already have a stake in interacting with you. You’re able to spend more time and attention on students who might have questions or visit campus more than once, creating a better applicant experience in the areas where it can make the most impact.
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Build more relevant enrollment models and forecasts to allocate future resources. When the applicants in your enrollment funnel are high-quality, they also become more predictable in terms of enrollment chances. If you are able to confidently determine that a specific percentage of your applicants tend to yield and eventually become students, you can build better forecasts of future classes to help with budgeting and resource planning.
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Help your recruitment staff focus on opportunities they’re more likely to convert. Finally, don’t underestimate the potential power of giving your admissions staff prospects to work with who have a good conversion chance. Continually calling and emailing non-responders can get frustrating. A better pool of high-quality applicants provides frequent “wins” that keep your staff motivated to continue converting prospects.
Each of these advantages on its own might be enough to prioritize application quality over quantity. Combine them, and they build a powerful argument as to why simply bringing in more applications is not enough to ensure, predict, or work toward enrollment success.
Balancing Application Quality and Quantity for Admissions Marketing Success
Add it all together, and the need to focus on quality applications even as nationwide college applications continue to rise becomes evident. But of course, that concept can easily be taken to its extreme end, as well. Especially for schools that don’t have the luxury of selectivity, a steady volume of applications needs to be part of every enrollment cycle for consistent success.
And then, of course, there is the political need to continue bringing in application volume. In the midst of a cycle, before yield rates begin to reflect the focus on quality over quantity, showing lower volume in reports seen by executive administration of faculty can cause high-value stakeholders to lose confidence in the admissions staff or capabilities, which becomes counterproductive for current and future partnerships.
To be clear, none of these scenarios are reason enough to prioritize quantity over quality in your admissions marketing. They are, however, enough to be cautious about going to the extreme on either end. Instead, balancing quality and quantity is the only way to build a sustainable admissions and recruitment effort for the next few years.
Yes, efforts to bring in more applications continue to be valuable. But targeting those efforts in the right spots, and building the right follow-ups, are just as important in any effort to have enough applications in the pool and have enough quality applications to yield them at steady rates.
A few tips can help to build that balance:
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Target admissions marketing and recruitment efforts specifically to students who are likely to enroll based on their geographic, demographic, and psychographic profile.
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For applications coming in from external sources like the Common App, consider requiring another step (such as submission of your admission essay) to be counted as an app.
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Create post-application automation that ensures your follow-up with all apps does not require significant staff time or resources.
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Consider scoring your apps based on their criteria, following lead scoring best practices to focus your manual follow-up efforts more reliably on high-yield prospects.
Steps like these build the balance you need to avoid low-quality apps draining your resources and potentially causing you to miss or deprioritize high-quality candidates. They also ensure that, as application volumes continue to rise while enrollments decline, your admissions strategy continues to focus its resources beyond the statistical noise of low-quality applications.
Automate Your Admissions Marketing With AtlasRTX
As applications continue to increase, you don’t want to ignore potentially interested students. But you also have to focus your staff time and resources on the most high-quality prospects. Enter AtlasRTX, an AI-enabled digital assistant designed to automate many of the initial conversations.
AtlasRTX can interact with your applicants on their terms and time. It will answer common questions and keep the conversations going. What happens when the conversations get too in-depth? The conversation can naturally flow to a human staff member to continue building value.
As a result, your team can focus more specifically on the highest-quality enrollment opportunities even as all of your applications, regardless of quality, get the attention they deserve.
Interested? Get a demo for AtlasRTX and see for yourself how this powerful tool can help you focus on quality and quantity of applications.
