This is an opportunity for readers of this newsletter to anonymously ask me a question about any aspect of student recruitment, leadership, and professional or personal development. Each week I’ll post my answer for everyone to read.
Q. An Associate Director asks:
“Do you think there’s a negative to doing more large group visit events? We’ve been doing more and our fall visit numbers are some of our highest ever.”
A. Thank you for your question! I think anytime you can get a prospective student on your campus, that’s a win. And I know that it’s tough to avoid one or more large group visits, especially on weekends in the fall.
My biggest concern is, the larger the visit, the less effective the emotional connection…which is unbelievably important!
I’ve been on, and read comments about in our surveys, bigger visit events where it’s difficult to hear the person leading the tour. Larger visits also don’t usually allow for in-depth, personal conversations to occur. Parents have actually told me they didn’t ask questions on purpose because they didn’t want to slow down the tour. In the end, people end up leaving campus with more questions than answers, which can be extremely frustrating.
If you’re going to conduct a larger event, make sure you staff it accordingly (too much staff is better than not enough), and make sure you’re intentionally creating multiple opportunities for those 1-on-1 connections to occur.
Good luck!