How To Figure Out Why Your Inquiries Haven’t Applied

They seemed excited during the high school visit or college fair. Some have even visited campus. You’ve started to build a relationship with them but a bunch of inquiries haven’t taken the next step and started filling out their application.

As a counselor, recruiter, and territory manager it’s now your job to try and determine the why.

The most common approach I continue to see many take is to email or text a question like, “What questions do you have?” Or, “Is there anything I can answer for you?”

As I’ve outlined in previous articles like this highly read one, questions like those are not effective outreach strategies with this generation of students.

Instead, you need to better understand the student’s mindset and determine who's still interested enough but needs help with something or has a concern that they just can’t shake.

Here are a few ways you can do that.

• Instead of asking in your email or text, “Can I get you more information on something?”, ask “What are you still wondering about or wishing you knew that would help you decide if you’re going to apply to <College Name or Acronym>?”

• Instead of asking those who have visited campus, “What was your favorite part when you visited?”, ask “What’s one thing about us that you’re still not totally sure about?”

You could also say to the student “<Student’s First or Preferred Name>, I’m curious, what’s been holding you back from starting your application because I really think you’d fit in well here and enjoy being part of our community.”

Or you could ask them, “What do you see as the next step in your process?” Framing it that way can reveal where a student is at in their process, and/or what they feel still needs to happen before they ready to apply.

Each of those questions will get you insights into what some of your inquiries are really thinking, and you’ll also get them to reveal some of those hidden objections that may be floating around in their head.

Try them out and let me know how they work for you.

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