Tips And Advice For Preventing Summer Melt

No matter how your numbers currently look, one of the biggest challenges over the next few months for admissions and enrollment marketing teams will be preventing ‘melt’.

Remember, many of your deposited/committed students won’t stop getting emails and texts from other colleges and universities. Their friends will also share thoughts and opinions on a student’s college choice, and families will continue to have conversations about cost, affordability, and fitting in with their future community.

My first piece of advice is to understand and review the timing and content of all the different communications that this group of students and their families will receive. Is most of that messaging completely transactional? If you answered yes, your chances for melt will increase.

Throughout this stage, students and families still need to feel like they made the right choice. Some also need help managing feelings of anxiety and nervousness. And, they want and need tips and advice to help prepare for the upcoming big transition.

Besides outlining next steps, your emails and texts to this group should reiterate your school’s strongest value points, and focus on the most relevant topics – both from the current student point of view (it's the point of view this group cares about most).

Examples could include what it’s like to live on campus or be a commuter; how getting involved in clubs and organizations will work; fun traditions that happen in the fall; where students like to hang out off campus; what students think about their classes and professors; as well as tips for adjusting to college level learning or dealing with being homesick.

Text messaging should be utilized for important reminders (dates, deadlines, and events), alerting students to emails they may have missed or missing items, and as a way to gauge how they’re feeling about singular things like moving away from home and starting college.

It’s also essential that you give your incoming students opportunities to engage with your community by asking direct questions in your messaging like, “What are you most excited about when it comes to being a student here?” Or, “What’s the biggest question you have when it comes to the classes you will take at the start?” Or, “What’s something you think you might need help with when you get to college?”

In terms of frequency, three or four emails/texts per month is sufficient.

I also encourage your campus to find other ways to connect your soon-to-be new students to your current campus community. Social media, in particular Instagram, is a great way to introduce and showcase some of the people, places, activities, and events that make your college or university’s student experience fun and enjoyable.

Don’t forget about personalized communication to the parent(s) or guardian(s). Email should be your primary medium, and your content should focus on many of the same topics I mentioned earlier but from a parent or guardian point of view. You’ll also want to reinforce key value points related to financial aid, the ROI of your school’s degree, and safety. From a frequency standpoint, communicating twice a month with this group is sufficient.

All that leads me to the important handoffs that occur at every school. If the handoff from admissions or any office to another campus partner is clunky or nonexistent, students, and parents or guardians inparticular, will notice.

Poor handoffs are a big contributing factor to melt. Nailing these exchanges are worth just as much as most yield campaigns. Ask yourself, are we providing smooth transitions, and are we sharing/utilizing information that we’ve gathered along the way.

When it comes to completing any forms and documents, do your best to spread those out as much as possible. Delivering a long checklist all at once is not the preference for the majority of students. That tends to create more anxiety.

One final tip: If you utilize portals, be sure and keep an eye on portal log-ins. Over the past few years I’ve seen more cases of schools discovering after the fact that deposited/committed students who melted were logging into their portal more than students who matriculated. If you see something, make it a point to reach out and ask the student or family if they could use some extra assistance.

DID YOU KNOW:

My summer calendar still has some open dates for training in July or August. Training is the not so secret tool that transforms your staff’s customer service, boosts their job satisfaction, and increases yield. Let’s start a conversation about how I can help you and your team grow.

Leadership, student recruitment, personal growth, failure, self awareness, and managing stress are just some of the topics that I’ve covered on my Mission Admissions podcast. All 88 episodes are free and can be found on Apple and Spotify.