To a certain degree, higher ed enrollment is a numbers game. If you're an admissions head and you can increase the size of your applicant pool, you can be more selective in creating your incoming class, thereby improving your national rankings and helping to raise academic standards.

But you don't want just any applicants in that larger pool. You're hoping to add applicants who know enough about your program to understand how it differs from others and who have chosen to apply based on a strong, natural fit between your institutional strengths and personality and their interests and desires.

Our ongoing research for this top professional school has helped its admissions and marketing teams at both full-time and part-time programs identify and focus their resources on attracting the right group of applicants to the school — prospective students who will mesh productively with its culture, benefit from the unique strengths of the program, and be less likely to criticize those areas in which it may not be as strong as some other programs.

We uncovered several areas that were major strengths of the school but which prospective students didn’t recognize as such. Because we asked prospects and admits about their perceptions of both our client and the other business schools in their decision set, we were also able to identify areas in which the competitors were perceived to have an edge. 

Over a three-year period, the marketing department strategically adjusted its message to these prospects in its in-person communications, web content, advertising, and other communications. They were able to take more ownership of the programs' strengths and bring additional evidence to bear on the few areas of perceived (or misperceived) weakness. 

Those shifts led gradually but directly to a much better alignment between what the school is and whom it attracts. Satisfaction and enagement have improved, along with other indicators of a thriving, well-suited learning community. In the coming years, we expect to see beneficial effects on alumni committment levels and general brand perceptions, as well.

One of the most rewarding aspects of our work with this institution is that its leaders take smart, confident action on our recommendations and make changes that have an immediate impact on enrollment, yield, and the quality and diversity of the student body.