By Jeremy Tiers, Vice President of Admissions Services
3 minute read
Finding out that a student has chosen another college or university can be frustrating, especially if you were feeling like your school was their top choice.
Even if you do everything to the best of your ability, you’re still going to get some “no’s” each year because of the volume of students you deal with.
So, let’s talk about how to handle that situation as well as why it’s important to do self-evaluation at the end of every recruiting cycle.
Whenever a student lets you know, or you find out that they’re headed somewhere else for college, it’s important to have a communication strategy that attempts to gain some feedback surrounding their decision.
We continue to find that you’ll get the most honest answers from a student within the first 7-14 days when everything is still fresh in their mind. The key is using language that doesn’t feel judgmental or like you’re making them feel bad, but instead is congratulatory, respectful, and empathetic.
The steps are fairly simple, as are the questions you should ask them:
- Start by congratulating them on their decision. This can be done by text message or phone if you’ve built a good relationship with the student. Email would be a distant third option. The problem with both text and email is not being able to hear their voice and the tone in their answers.
- Ask “What did it ultimately come down to?” The goal is to get them to name one or two big things they focused on during their decision-making process. If you get one word answers like ‘Money’ or ‘Location,’ ask a follow-up question such as, “Can you tell me more about that?” If the student doesn’t provide some thought out context, that’s your red flag that the reason they gave may not be the complete truth and instead an easy answer.
- Next question: “When did know that our school wasn’t the right fit?” You always want to find out at what point you lost them. 80% of the time, you’re going to hear them tell you they actually knew weeks or even months prior to the final decision.
- Last question: “What were one or two things you wished you could have changed about us that would have made us your top choice?” You’re looking for those objections.
- Next, wish the student all the best and let them know that if anything changes, you’ll be here and would love the chance to talk with them again about their options.
- Finally, write a short ‘Congrats and good luck’ email to the student’s parent(s). That kind of professionalism is key because word of mouth (i.e. a positive experience even though the student didn’t pick your school) can help lead to future interest from other students. Plus, you may gain additional context about the student’s decision from their parent(s).
Onto a few words on the importance of self-evaluation.
Success is a process. There is rarely a quick fix that solves everything. It’s about developing a data driven plan, building and maintaining good habits, having the right mindset, having clear processes, and then taking inventory of things to figure out what worked and what needs tweaking or changing.
As an example – Earlier in #4 I mentioned trying to pull out a student’s objections. My advice is to log an ongoing list of objections that you get and use it for the future: The objections that turn out to be commonplace should be addressed earlier with the next class of prospective students.
It’s important to determine if students are choosing another school because of things that you can control (i.e. your customer service, your campus visit experience, your intentionality when you communicate, and making parents feel like a valued partner earlier), or for reasons out of your control like the location or size of your school.
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