Over the past few years prospective students have become more comfortable receiving text messages from colleges and universities during their search. While that isn’t exactly breaking news, here are two things you need to be extremely mindful of as you continue to use this tool with traditional students. First, I think we can both agree that the overwhelming majority of Gen Z has email fatigue. If Higher Ed is going to avoid text message fatigue it’s essential to listen to yo

Raise your hand if you don’t enjoy making phone calls to prospective students. When I ask that question during a workshop or conference session I’m leading, 70-75% of the audience reaches for the sky. The most common reason? Hardly anyone answers their phone so it feels like a waste of time for the person making calls. Good news! That particular problem is easily fixable, just keep reading. Let’s start by discussing the latest data. According to my Top Tier Higher Ed research

It continues to be one of the biggest mistakes that many admissions offices and counselors make each year that negatively impacts their yield: Not communicating with parents in a way that feels personal and makes them feel like the important partner they are in the college search process. According to my latest Top Tier Higher Ed data, only 11.7% of students said their parent(s) or guardian(s) didn’t help them with one or more things during their college search. If you’re wo

A lot of admissions counselors like to email, text, or call and just “check in” with their students. On the surface that may seem helpful, but please understand that it’s a bad habit that needs to be broken.   Here’s the problem with that kind of outreach. When you use those two words students know what it’s code for – You want them to tell you something. But because you haven’t asked a direct question, they’re not really sure what they’re supposed to say, so most times they

Yesterday I had a quick Zoom chat with an Admissions Counselor who recently completed his first high school visits of the year. He reached out to get my advice on how to handle a couple of different situations that he experienced. One of those involved what to do when you have a group of students who despite being encouraged to engage, still don’t say more than a couple of words. The first thing I reminded him was that most students have no idea what questions they’re suppose

High school visits and college fairs have been popular topics these past few weeks during the 1-on-1 meetings I do with admissions counselors as part of the training workshops I lead. One of the most common questions has been, “How do I start the conversation?” I know it can be tempting to hand students some of your materials and dive right into the “spiel” – aka share a bunch of information about your school.   Don’t do it! That would be a big mistake.   Considering that mos

We all have bad days. This past Friday night I was sitting on board my first flight home from Madison to Detroit when the captain came...

“Stop sounding like you just memorized a script. It’s annoying! Just talk like a normal human.” Dozens of student quotes similar to that...

As you start communicating with this next class of students I thought it would be helpful to highlight two common mistakes I continue to...

Later this week is my favorite holiday of the year – Independence Day. Around July 4th we have multiple events in our neighborhood that...

In previous articles I’ve explained that prospective students will share all kinds of helpful information if you ask better questions –...

Finding out that a student has chosen another college can be hard, especially if you were feeling like your school was going to be the...

One small word can make a big impact: because. When used in conversations with prospective or admitted students, “because” gives your request purpose and boosts response rates. Whether encouraging a visit or nudging toward a decision, adding “because” provides context that motivates action. Try it in your next email or conversation—and watch how it opens the door to deeper engagement.