Teens Reveal College Choice Tipping Point- Stamats Higher Education Marketing Blog

Aug 13th 09 Posted by Eric Sickler in Featured Articles, TeensTALK

Teens Reveal College Choice Tipping Point

Looking back, perhaps I shouldn’t have been as dumbfounded. But then again, these are extraordinary times. Below is the SUMMER TeensTALK® finding that rocked my world.

If you’re reading this blog for the first time, let me bring you up to speed. The chart below demonstrates a collection of discoveries from Stamats’ SUMMER 2009 TeensTALK® study, a national telephone survey of traditional-age prospective undergraduates. About a month ago we asked students across the country to identify the single most influential consideration they weighed as they made their final college selection.

Now, it’s important to understand that we asked about their final choice…not the many considerations that have influenced them all along the recruitment process.

Given the prevailing economic winds, and considering the fact that prospective undergrads (and their parents) have demonstrated increasing practicality in their decision-making over the past several years, it’s no wonder that graduates’ career placements weighed so heavily in 2009 college-choice decisions.

I’ve come around to believing that in this sound-byte world of ours, it’s really less about your schools’ placement metrics and statistics, and more about where your grads are employed that matters most to prospects. It’s co-branding, plain and simple.

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So my advice to your school based on these findings: throughout the recruitment cycle, but especially after aid packages are distributed and students are making final choices (a.k.a. “Yield Season”), make sure you highlight the recognizable brands associated with where your graduates are employed. And perhaps most important, focus less on their job titles and more on the names of their employers.

If you co-brand your institution with the Disneys, Cokes, Nikes, Apples, Microsofts, Wells Fargos, ESPNs, CNNs, Starbucks, and any other undeniable mega-brands, prospective students will notice, remember, and with any luck, tell their friends.

Make sense?

***Interested in TeensTALK research? Check out Stamats’ 2009 SUMMER TeensTALK® Findings Webinar. This is one Webinar you won’t want to miss!***

Photo by: guiguis

http://www.varsityoutreach.com Mark Rothbaum

This is really interesting. It’s good to see students are focused on outcomes when it comes to their college decision.

However, I wonder how students make this assessment. Is it based on a school’s brand/reputation, their rankings? Or do they talk with people in their desired field to guage the value of a degree from a given institution?

Very few schools put out data on outcomes (e.g., what percent get jobs within 6 months, what percent go on to grad school). You don’t see it as part of the U.S. News Rankings. One classification of schools that does a reasonable job with this is MBA programs. Many release data on job placement within 6 months of graduation, salary and bonus for new graduates, and fields that new graduates entered.

I’d be curious to get the answer to the question of how high school students determine whether a school’s graduates get good jobs.

I think your recommendations make a lot of sense, focusing on top-notch companies that graduates are working at. If you’re an engineering school, names like Google, Microsoft, Boeing, and General Electric may resonate with admits.
http://www.stamats.com/staff/stafflisting.asp?Employee_ID=89 Eric Sickler

Right on, Mark! While I don’t have specific findings to cite regarding how high school students “research” the specific jobs graduate land from a specific school, I’ve done enough focus groups over the years to suspect they draw BIG conclusions from just a few bits of information. My hunch is that a handful of well-placed, high-profile employer mentions throughout a school’s promotional messaging will have a mighty influence on shaping what a student perceives and believes about placement success.

Also, use this market research to leverage your career services, placement, and alumni offices to do a better job of collecting and sharing graduate’s placement information.
http://www.ithaca.edu/gps Charleen Heidt

For prospective UG students who are eventually graduate school bound, publishing the names of the grad schools that a school’s UG grads get into works in much the same way. Today’s HS students are quite savvy and many of them know that they’ll be going onto grad/professional school at some point. They want to know the caliber of grad and professional schools that accept UGs from a particular institution.
http://www.stamats.com Eric Sickler

Exactly, Charleen! HS students are discriminating shoppers who pay as much (maybe more) attention to the company colleges keep as they do to the party lines we send their way.
http://buildingmarketingstrategies.wordpress.com/ Rick Hardy

Eric, good post! I agree with the co-branding concept, and put it to use in the past. I agree that this consideration in the college search process is tied to economics. It is a way for families to justify in their minds the expensive decision that they are about to make. Colleges should have been talking investment for years now. Your recommendation is a practical way to give examples of how the investment plays out.
http://www.kwbrand.com Kyndra Wilson

Eric,
This is a really interesting post and an interesting research result. As a big ol’ liberal arts fan (and alum) I find it likely, but sad, that the “outcomes” proof-point of “graduates get good jobs” has to be linked to recognizable brands when so many of us a) work for small companies and/or, b) have satisfying career paths that leverage the flexible and integrative approach to learning that we got from college. Do you have any thoughts on how to promote the “good job” outcome while also tapping into the benefits and values of a liberal arts education?