“So let me put colleges and universities on notice:  If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury. It is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.”

If you heard those words live during the president’s State of the Union speech last week, there’s a good chance something inside you stirred. Politics aside, the president trained yet another excruciatingly bright spotlight on higher education’s ever-increasing price tag.  And it’s safe to say those of us charged with managing already shrunken marketing budgets shudder to think about yet another charge to do more and better with even fewer resources.

We can wring our hands and shake our heads, or we can recognize that this kind of scrutiny isn’t going away any time soon.  As critically important cogs in our schools’ leadership machinery, marketers have a responsibility to knock off our all-too-comfortable, business-as-usual, we-did-it-this-way-last-year-and-something-must-have-worked planning strategies in favor of conducting market research and ongoing critical self-assessments that serve as the foundation for making smart(er) marketing decisions.

Dr. Mark Putnam, president of Central College (IA), delivered an extraordinarily compelling keynote at the AMA Higher Ed Symposium in Chicago last year.  He charged some 600 of the nation’s college and university marketers to become more actively engaged in discussions about institutional fiscal sustainability, and to shout more boldly about the value of higher education in all of our communication efforts.  “We cannot discount and borrow our way to success.   We cannot rely on consistent external funding sources….Relevance is the key to effective communications. We must speak to the needs of our society and the world,” Dr. Putnam urged.

We couldn’t agree more.

Here at Stamats, we’re about to launch fieldwork for the 2012 TeensTALK® survey. And in light of what promises to be a long, long road ahead for college and university sustainability, we’re going to pay particular attention to gathering block-and-tackle information from the nation’s college-bound teens that will help you make smarter recruitment marketing investments this year, and for years to come.

The most important role you can play in your school’s fiscal sustainability strategy is to constantly strive to increase the return on your marketing investments (mROI). And while no national study can provide definitive advice for your school’s unique clientele, the 2012 TeensTALK® findings should be a catalyst for your own critical assessment of your marketing program.

For example, in a couple of months we will let you know which communication channels teens prefer when exchanging information with your school, so you can make smarter decisions about investing in social media versus publications versus advertising versus events versus…you get the picture.

We’ll also reveal the topics and messages that are most relevant to college-hunting teens right now, so you can more effectively connect with prospective students about the stuff that matters to them (and not waste your time, talent, and treasure on the stuff that doesn’t).

And among a host of other data points, the 2012 TeensTALK®  will deliver immediately useful guidance to the nation’s recruitment marketers about the relative impact of a host of influencers—parents, guidance counselors, friends, and others—on a prospective student’s final college choice.

There is still a window of opportunity for you to weigh in on questions you’d like the 2012 national TeensTALK® study to address. But let me know quickly. President Obama’s spotlight is getting hotter by the minute, so I’d appreciate hearing from you today.

When building a strong case to support doing something new or different, humans working in an organization usually default to building a laundry list of associated benefits. For example, “We should do a capital campaign so we can build a new Student Center.” Or, “We should revamp our core curriculum so our students will graduate with a skills set that will make them more immediately employable.”

 In my April 21 Stamats webinar titled, “Thinking Inside-Out; Successful Marketing Always Starts with an Amazing Internal Launch,” I’ll present a number of compelling benefits your campus community will enjoy as a result of engaging broad internal buy-in for marketing projects, then launching them with a big internal bang.

 But I’ll also discuss the hard-learned lessons some schools have suffered when they’ve rolled out major changes or promotional efforts to the world without first giving internal stakeholders a sense of ownership and a formal preview before sharing it with the world beyond the campus.

 In a nutshell, skipping the internal engagement and launch step of just about any major institutional initiative can put the project at extraordinary risk. This hazard has been heightened in recent years by the mind-boggling persuasive power of social media, which one of my favorite and astute clients has dubbed “The Idiot Pulpit.” In the blogosphere, criticism gains traction with exponential speed. So announcing any major institutional change to the world today WILL open the door for spirited (and very public) online dialogue.

A few of the other hazards to carefully consider when deciding whether or not to broaden ownership or do an internal roll-out:

• You’ll likely perpetuate—even nourish—existing rifts that may exist between and among students, faculty and administration;
• You’ll devalue the personal investment and commitment of your most important  asset—your employees;
• You’ll deflate the sense of “community” that you’re likely touting as a great strength;
• And you may end up adding significant cost to whatever change or program you’re rolling out as you manage disaster control.

It’s very likely that your institutional stakeholders—employees, students, their parents, and alumni—are not nearly reaching their potential for being engaged, equipped and inspired cogs in your school’s marketing machinery. Recognizing and understanding the importance of orchestrating internal engagement and executing substantial internal launches will go a long way toward expanding your marketing program’s impact without throwing hundreds of thousands of additional dollars at it.

 To learn how to engage your campus and launch with verve, sign up for the webinar.

This post appeared originally on the Broadband for America blog <http://www.broadbandforamerica.com/blog>. Broadband for America is a coalition of 300+ members who aim to make broadband access to the Internet available to every household in the nation; to provide data transfer speeds to make that broadband experience valuable to users; and to provide the bandwidth necessary for content providers to continue to make the Internet a cultural, societal, and economic engine for growth.

 According to The Neilson Company, the average teenager in America will send or receive almost 3,000 text messages per month.  Not over his or her lifetime, but over the course of a single month. The most recent Noel-Levitz E-Expectations study reports that 41% of prospective college students find their schools via Google or another search site.

 College and university recruitment marketers across the nation—and around the world—think more carefully now than ever before about the issue of how, what, and where to communicate effectively with prospective students. Complicating those once-simple (send a letter, visit a high school, hand out a brochure, and follow up with a phone call) decisions are the myriad tools and channels now available via broadband access to the Internet.  While nurturing a meaningful relationship with a prospective student remains the ultimate goal of any recruiter, the opportunities for doing so are significantly enriched today by the availability of new digital channels and venues. Particularly through the use of social media tools, colleges and universities are able to develop richer connections with prospective students—as well as with their enrolled students, alumni, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders—to  build communities with which they can sustain highly efficient, remarkably economical ongoing conversations.

 When the Internet was still relatively young, one website for a college or university was considered very forward-thinking. Many of us can still remember those days. Today, however, we are developing multiple websites, microsites, proprietary social networks, and social network pages and groups devoted to specific marketing campaigns for numerous marketing efforts, all for a single college or university. For example, it’s now quite common for an institution to mount simultaneous drives to: 1) increase participation in alumni activities, 2) bolster annual fund donations, and 3) build a case for capital campaign support going on at the same time as complementary digital marketing campaigns to 4) increase applications for the admissions office, 5) build a sense of community among newly admitted students, and 6) keep an entire campus community informed about enterprise brand management activities.

 High-speed Internet access allows us to develop these kinds of multi-faceted campaigns for our college and university clients that effectively engage their stakeholders through social games, digital events, photo and video sharing, and location-based marketing. While the Internet has presented us with new tools, the job is the same: to work as hard as we can to match the right student to the right institution, effectively “creating” outstanding alumni whose lives are changed for the better by the experience.

 And while the beginning of that metamorphosis may still come down to a high school student and her parents sitting down at their kitchen table pouring over financial packages and the relative merits of College A over University B, it’s crystal clear that digital communication is one of the newest important keys to that prospective student’s front door. With that, the need increases to bridge the remaining digital divide, particularly in rural states, to ensure that all college-bound students have access to the benefits of broadband.

Photo By: William Hook

In response to a flurry of national attention about Drake University’s new “Drake Advantage” creative concept, Des Moines Register columnist Marc Hansen recently interviewed me via e-mail. The Drake Advantage concept is symbolized by a stylized “D+” that features the school’s distinctive “D” mark. Thought you might enjoy seeing the bits and pieces that didn’t make Marc’s final story:

Q: Who came up with the D+ theme and how?

A: Stamats’ creative team (principal writer Vinu Warrier, principal designer Chris Reese, and myself) studied Drake’s current promotional materials, strategic plans, and recent market research. Then we interviewed prospective Drake undergrads, along with current Drake students, faculty, staff, and alumni on campus. This background all fueled a creative brainstorm that resulted in the development of several break-through-the-clutter creative concepts, two of which we presented to Drake for a final selection.

Q: I read about the response in the Chicago Sun-Times while I was there for the Labor Day weekend. Were you surprised by the reach?

A: Because we work exclusively with colleges and universities, we knew this concept had a special edge that would command prospective students’ attention, and that’s exactly what it’s doing for Drake’s prospective students. They get it, and they love it, according Drake recruiters. The alumni and faculty response is powerful testimony to the passion the larger Drake community feels for this really remarkable university. And thanks to this concept, a lot more of the world has heard of Drake right now. When they go to Drake’s website to find out more about the place, I know they’re impressed. This really is one of America’s great universities.

Q: Has Amherst called yet?

A: Nope.

Q: The dialogue has been interesting. Some say, we’re talking about it, so it worked. I think I read somewhere that since the launch in July, student inquiries have been way up.

A: The most recent report shows that since the creative concept rolled out, Drake has seen a 63% increase in inquiries over the same two-month period last year and a 22% increase in campus visits. Any admission director in the country would be dancing over those results, trust me. A one-month (August 2-September 2) comparison of website traffic to the undergraduate admission landing page between last year and this year shows that page views have more than doubled. In higher ed marketing, that’s almost unheard of.

Q: Others are hung up on the D-plus as grade part. Did you anticipate any of the negative backlash and what do you think about it?

A: This concept is built on the understanding that any cognitive dissonance, especially the ironic kind, prompts people to react. Purposefully connecting a less-than-stellar grade with an extraordinary university is the irony. Those who know Drake see the disconnect. Those who learn about Drake for the first time from this creative concept wonder, “What kind of school would do this?” And answering that question is as simple as Googling “Drake.” We knew reactions would likely be all over the map. Drake asked for a break-out creative concept, and we knew it couldn’t be a reckless effort. All of the pre-launch testing that was conducted gave us confidence that the target audience, smart and tuned-in prospective Drake students, found the Drake Advantage message platform engaging… it made them want to know more about Drake.

Q: How should we judge a recruiting campaign?

A: Ultimately, a recruiting campaign is only successful if it helps the college or university achieve its enrollment goals, both in terms of student quality and quantity.

Q: I have a feeling, and I might be wrong, that Drake’s president might have been wishing for a do-over at the beginning.

A: Not at all. Dr. Maxwell has been listening to the dialogue carefully, and he remains a confident advocate for letting this concept focus a spotlight on all of Drake’s advantages… it’s many, many pluses.

Read Marc’s final column here: http://tiny.cc/DrakeAdvantage

Photo provided by Drake University

Findings from the 2009 FALL TeensTALK® study, administered in November to 500 college-bound high school students across the country, reveal some critically important strategic advice for recruiters who want to make sure they’re sending the right messages to prospective students at the right time.

Faithful TeensTALK® blog readers may recall that a few short months ago when the 2009 SUMMER TeensTALK® study was conducted, 18% of prospective undergrads told us the most influential consideration for them in making a final college choice was a school’s placement record—specifically the quality of jobs recent graduates were securing.  On the heels of that consideration was “net cost after aid,” followed by “quality of faculty as teachers and mentors.”

2009 SUMMER TeensTALK® Findings: Share of Importance in FINAL Selection Decision

In the recently completed 2009 FALL study, however, when asked to identify the most influential factor in determining which schools to consider (at the beginning of their senior year), fully 20% of prospects cited “quality of my preferred major,” followed by 17% who identified the quality of the jobs landed by recent graduates from the college or university. Issues of “fit” and “net cost after aid” also scored at the top of the scale, but paled in comparison to the influence of perceived program quality.

2009 FALL TeensTALK® Findings: Share of Importance in Determining Which Colleges to Consider

There are at least two major takeaways from these findings:

1. This is clear evidence that in order to connect most effectively with prospective undergraduates, recruitment programs must alter their messaging strategies to accommodate the particular interests demonstrated by prospects at different points during the senior year. Interestingly, Stamats clients who surveyed their own prospects in tandem with the TeensTALK studies discovered their clientele didn’t necessarily demonstrate the same levels of factor importance as the national sample identified. So they’re adjusting their messaging strategy accordingly. [See information below about the newly available TeensTALK® Focus project.]
2. Your school’s career planning/career services/placement and alumni offices are arguably as important to recruiting prospective undergrads as your admission office is. Why? Without current, accurate data about the good jobs your recent graduates have taken, your recruitment program can’t convey a critically important—and highly influential—piece of information to your prospects!

I assume you’ll see other surprising findings in the comparative data in the two charts above. Let me know what you discovered, why it surprised you, and most important… what you’re going to CHANGE about the way you communicate with your prospective undergrads as a result of this fresh market research.

NOTE: TeensTALK® is Stamats’ three-times-per-year nationwide telephone study of college-bound teens designed to keep our (and your) finger on the pulse of the trends, attitudes, lifestyles, and knowledge that influence their college selection decision-making process. Findings from the 2009 FALL TeensTALK® Study are based on 500 responses from college-bound high school seniors; sampling was completed at random (probability sample) to provide a rigorous data set for accurate assessment of the college selection process. Stamats offers a companion TeensTALK® Focus study for colleges and universities that want to conduct a comparison survey of their inquiry pools and assess their peculiar institutional undergraduate recruitment challenges and opportunities against the backdrop of national findings.

Photo by aiesecinternational

Findings from Stamats’ SPRING TeensTALK® study are being double-checked and proofed as you read this, and I’m excited to share them with you on my next blog post. Until then, here’s a brief collection of unnerving teen-focused research you can use to impress friends, colleagues and family members…

Our friends at The Nielsen Company reported that during the first quarter of this year, teenagers sent and received an average of nearly 3,000 SMS messages each month. That’s about 100 text messages each day, just more than six text messages every waking hour… about one every 10 minutes.

Last week, the good folks at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reported on some research they completed in September. Their most recent teen-focused study revealed 26% of American teens with drivers licenses admit to having texted friends while they were steering 3,000 pounds of car down the road. Nearly half (48%) of all teens ages 12–17 say they’ve been a passenger in a car while a driver has texted behind the wheel.

If you spend any time at all with teens, you’re probably (justifiably) suspicious of these data. The numbers seem pretty modest to me. Teens all but live in SMS-ville, apparently making the concept of “defensive driving” more important than ever.

Teens’ younger siblings aren’t far behind in terms of their technical savvy. The 16 million kids (ages 2–11) online today represent nearly 10% of the active online universe, according to Nielsen. Five years ago, this age group spent seven hours online per month. In 2009, that number is 11 hours a month. Time spent online among kids has soared by 63% over the past five years, while overall time spent across all age groups is up just 36%, according to Nielsen.

The takeaway here is less an epiphany than a concrete reminder: one of our primary target audiences has redefined what it means to communicate by simply adding important new channels to the mix. And not only are the channels new and still a little foreign to some of us, the rules of engagement within those channels seem to be in constant motion.

Stamats’ advice:  If you’re older than 21, keep your eyes on this kind of research so you can keep your finger on the pulse of a communication playing field that shifts more quickly than we’ve witnessed in human history.

What’s your school’s position on incorporating SMS/text messaging into your communication protocol for prospective undergrads? Necessity, distraction, or somewhere in between? If you’ve chosen to integrate SMS into your communication funnel, what have you decided are appropriate uses and goals?

Photo by C y r i  l l i c u s

Moody’s Investor Service just released a “Special Comment” report on the findings of a recent survey of their rated private and public colleges and universities. Just more than 150 schools participated, but don’t let the smallish sample put you off; Moody’s interpretation and subsequent forecast will greatly shape the near-term financial future of higher education. Specifically, “…Moody’s anticipates new stress on revenue for a significant minority of private colleges and universities which could depress future operating performance.”

According to the survey, freshman applications to private colleges and universities rose 4.3% from fall 2008 to 2009. Fully 51% of private schools reported receiving fewer freshman applications than last year with the “biggest loser” reporting a 25.2% drop. One private school did, however, report a 175% increase in freshman applications. The median change in freshman apps was 0% among private colleges and universities.

Freshman applications to public colleges and universities rose 4.7% with 78% of schools receiving more applications than for fall 2008. On the high end of the scale, one public school reported a 47% increase in freshman applications. The median increase in freshman apps at public schools was 5.1%, with the biggest loser reporting a 20.5% drop.

From Stamats’ 2009 SUMMER TeensTALK study, we discovered that nearly one-third of college-bound teens (30%) applied to only one college or university during the last recruiting cycle, up significantly from 23% in 2007. The median number of applications submitted by college-bound freshmen was 3.2 for fall 2009 matriculation, down from 4.3 in 2002 and 4.2 in 2004.

It’s clear to us that significant numbers of prospective undergrads are making important application decisions long before schools begin any formal courtship through the admission or recruitment office. The rising number of “stealth” apps (a prospective student whose first recorded contact with a school is a completed application for admission) further corroborates this.

When considered together, these trends and survey findings frame up a very compelling case for schools to (1) challenge same-old, same-old search and application-generation strategies, and (2) to exercise extra creativity and innovation in terms of keeping institutional brands front-and-center when and where prospective students are whittling away at their college short lists.

You may be weary of “brandspeak,” but one-third of today’s college freshmen applied to a single school based primarily on their perception of that school’s brand (and less on the impact of that school’s recruitment efforts).

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NOTE: TeensTALK® is Stamats’ annual nationwide telephone study initiative of college-bound teens designed to keep our (and your) finger on the pulse of the trends, attitudes, lifestyles, and knowledge that influence their college selection decision-making process. Findings are based on 565 responses from college-bound high school seniors; sampling was completed at random (probability sample) to provide a rigorous data set for accurate assessment of the college selection process. Stamats offers a companion TeensTALK® Focus study for colleges and universities that want to conduct a comparison survey of their inquiry pools and assess their peculiar institutional undergraduate recruitment challenges and opportunities against the backdrop of national findings.

Photo by Jeff_Werner

This week we launched the FALL edition of Stamats’ 2009 TeensTALK® study. As soon as findings are analyzed, I’ll share some juicy tidbits in this blog space. But for now, I’d like to share an interesting phenomenon that might change the dreams you have for the next incarnation of your student recruitment Web site.

In the last couple of months I’ve been approached by no fewer than a half-dozen chief recruitment or marketing officers who share a vision for their online virtual tour to look and act more like a “virtual world” than the interactive collection of photos they currently feature on their Web sites.  You may (or may not) recognize some of the most popular ones: Webkinz, Second Life, The Sims Online, The Active Worlds, Barbie Girls, Club Penguin, Gaia Online, Habbo Hotel, and RuneScape.

What’s a virtual world? The good folks at virtualworldsreview.com post this helpful definition: “A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. Virtual worlds are also called ‘digital worlds,’ ‘simulated worlds’ and the largest and most common type of virtual world, ‘MMORPG,’ which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.”

In theory, presenting your campus online as a virtual world where prospective students (and others) can meet, interact and even begin to build a sense of community among themselves makes perfect sense. I mean, how much more fun would THAT kind of tour be versus the traditional, nearly static click-the-photos-and-read-or-listen approach?

But earlier this month mediaweek.com reported comScore data that suggests Generation Y engagement with virtual worlds is waning. Formerly highly teen-populated virtual worlds have shut down due to seriously declining membership/participation, and media giant MTV is rethinking its virtual world strategy.

Why are teens not as engaged in virtual worlds as they were a couple of years ago when the craze launched? Analysts at Ypulse.com suggest they’re just too busy to invest the time required to create, customize and maintain avatars and virtual spaces, to figure out who’s online, to play a game or attend an event, etc.

Also, today’s teens grew up playing in kid-focused virtual worlds like “Club Penguin,” so they may equate virtual world play as too childlike to sustain into their teen years. It’s also worth noting that social networks like Facebook offer many, many more apps that effectively make the social network experience more “sticky” and virtual world-like for many teen users. Finally, teens who are in to console games find virtual worlds too social and more self-directed, quite unlike the highly scripted experiences their console games offer up.

So the takeaway here is simple: temper your enthusiasm for redefining your online campus tour to make it feel like a virtual world experience. Teens appear to be moving away from, rather than toward, this particular online gizmickery.

However, Stamats’ Senior Interactive Consultant Matt Arnold recently showed me some innovation in photo morphing technology that, I think, offers great promise for turning online campus tours into “wow!” experiences at a fraction of the price of hiring programmers to create your own virtual world university.

Stay tuned…

Eric (alongside many other higher education thought leaders) will dive deeper into Web topics, challenges, and concerns at Stamats Integrated Marketing: Technology Conference (SIM Tech) this coming November 10-12, 2009. Do not miss out on the discussion. Come join us. For more information, presenter bios and registration check us out at www.stamats.com/simtech.

Photo by jake durrant

A funny thing happened on the way to the campus visit. Well actually, it happened during the campus visit in a roundabout way. Findings in Stamats’ 2009 SUMMER TeensTALK® study shine a bright light on something you’ve probably assumed for years, but may have back-burnered for too long.

As college-bound prospective students sorted through their college options late last year, those who placed greatest value on finding a college where they felt a great “fit” placed highest value on (1) attending a class in session, (2) meeting enrolled college students who were similar to them, (3) interacting with a tour guide who not only knows about the school but is excited about it, and (4) spending a night on campus. All of these activities gave them a chance to see people just like themselves fitting in (or not) on a campus.

On the other hand, prospective students for whom “fit” was less important than other factors (i.e. cost, placement statistics, overall academic quality, or quality of faculty or facilities) also placed greatest value on (1) attending a class in session. But they were also primarily interested in (2) meeting a professor, and (3) interacting with an admissions counselor. So for these prospective students, seeing “their own kind” enjoying life on campus wasn’t all that important.

In a nutshell, these findings remind us that prospective students whose college choices are motivated by different considerations place differing levels of value on the experiences they have when they visit campuses. To assume a one-campus-visit-experience-fits-all strategy is fraught with risk in this highly customized world. A campus visit experience that isn’t perceived as highly relevant by a prospective student is likely considered a waste of time.

The key take-away: Encourage everyone who plays a role in your campus visit experience to begin each and every prospective student interaction (before, during, and after the visit) by asking, listening, and probing for clues about what that individual student values most as she considers her college options. Then and only then will your “visit machine” be able to deliver a genuinely effective and mutually productive campus visit experience to each individual visitor.

NOTE: TeensTALK® is Stamats’ annual nationwide telephone study initiative of college-bound teens designed to keep our (and your) finger on the pulse of the trends, attitudes, lifestyles, and knowledge that influence their college selection decision-making process. Findings are based on 565 responses from college-bound high school seniors; sampling was completed at random (probability sample) to provide a rigorous data set for accurate assessment of the college selection process. Stamats offers a companion TeensTALK® Focus study for colleges and universities that want to conduct a comparison survey of their inquiry pools and assess their peculiar institutional undergraduate recruitment challenges and opportunities against the backdrop of national findings.

Photo by Veerle De Troyer

For a bunch of years a long time ago I ran an undergraduate admission program at a really great, mid-sized independent liberal arts college in the middle of one of the toughest recruitment markets in the nation (because there were so many other really great, mid-sized independent liberal arts colleges within shouting distance of mine). And every spring, my super staff and I would agonize through yield season, quietly celebrating each victory…but painfully tailspinning into deep blue vortexes of doom with every loss of a much-sought-after prospective student.

It was our habit to probe fairly aggressively when a student advised she was going to one of our competing schools. And just like your admission team hears every year, “departing” prospects cited myriad reasons. Some were sound and logical, but most were just frustrating. The one that made me crazy went something like this:

“Well, you all did a really good job of recruiting me. In fact, I can’t think of anything you could have done better! And my campus visit was great. I really liked the dorms, and the food, and the professors I met. And my tour guide was THE best! And I want to thank you for such a nice scholarship. But I just fit at <insert college name here> better.”

If you’ve never been on the receiving end of this monologue, you haven’t recruited a student.

So in my personal lifelong quest to get to the bottom of the elusive notion of “fit,” this year’s TeensTALK® study asked admitted, decided college-bound teens across the country to consider the factors or characteristics that might help them determine if a college or university is the “right” fit for them. We presented a laundry list of possibilities, all gleaned from previous studies and years of qualitative research. Using a max/dif analysis, we pinpointed that attending a class in session weighs in with just more than a 20% share of importance, leading all other factors.

Keep in mind these findings were collected in the late summer after 96% of respondents had made their final college choices.  At different points in the recruiting cycle, other considerations surely played greater or lesser roles in determining fit. But as these students looked back on their recently completed college-shopping quest, it was sitting in on that class that most helped them seal the fit deal.

Does this mean you should require class attendance for every prospective undergrad who visits your campus? Or do you rely on other fit determinants to do their work in your favor?

If you’d like to learn more findings from Stamats’ 2009 SUMMER TeensTALK® study, I’m presenting a 90-minute Webinar Tuesday, September 1 at 1:30 Central time. Click here for details. (If you missed the scheduled Webinar time, it is available on demand. E-mail info@stamats.com for more information.)

It would be great to know you’re listening!

NOTE: TeensTALK® is Stamats’ annual nationwide telephone study initiative of college-bound teens designed to keep our (and your) finger on the pulse of the trends, attitudes, lifestyles, and knowledge that influence their college selection decision-making process. Findings are based on 565 responses from college-bound high school seniors; sampling was completed at random (probability sample) to provide a rigorous data set for accurate assessment of the college selection process. Stamats offers a companion TeensTALK® Focus study for colleges and universities that want to conduct a comparison survey of their inquiry pools and assess their peculiar institutional undergraduate recruitment challenges and opportunities against the backdrop of national findings.

Photo by: ThaRainbowRaider is away.