Graduate student enrollment has become increasingly important for universities. At the same time, competition for graduate students has increased, and the way those students search for programs of study has changed dramatically in the digital era. How can your program adapt and reach its graduate enrollment goals? This benchmark survey report…

This report is organized around 10 challenges (and associated solutions) based on data from a survey of 1,609 survey respondents, each of whom was screened to ensure that they had firm plans to enroll in a fully online program in the next year (online course takers in otherwise hybrid or classroom programs were not eligible). They also had to be…

Graduate student enrollment has become increasingly important for universities. At the same time, competition for graduate students has increased, and the way those students search for programs of study has changed dramatically in the digital era. How can your program adapt and reach its graduate enrollment goals? This benchmark survey report…

Graduate student enrollment has become more important than ever to overall enrollment growth. But there are also more institutions and programs than ever vying for a finite number of graduate students. How can institutions compete more effectively for these prospective students? The survey of more than 1,500 prospective graduate students that…

As the student search process becomes more digitally driven, are colleges and universities aligning their marketing and recruitment practices with the students they are targeting? This college recruitment practices report discusses which strategies and practices are most used and rated as the most effective. This report surveyed 151 four-year…

What is the competition doing? How is technology changing things? And where are the gaps in today's outreach? To explore these questions, undergraduate officials from a broad cross-section of colleges and universities participated in a spring 2018 poll to produce this report. Data in this report reflect responses from 115 nonprofit four-year…

What is the competition doing? How is today's outreach changing? How are best practices evolving? To explore these questions, undergraduate officials from a broad cross-section of private and public U.S. colleges and universities participated in an April 2017 poll that produced this report. Data in this report reflect responses from 91 nonprofit…

Recent research suggests that the use of student search services is an effective part of a college's student marketing and recruitment strategy. What is not clear, however, is whether participating in a search service is an effective part of a student's college search strategy. To address this question, we exploit a recent change in the choice…

For its 16th annual Application Trends Survey, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) gathered and analyzed data from a total of 641 graduate business programs located at 306 universities worldwide to understand application volume, the applicant pool, and special efforts being made to attract candidates to graduate management programs.…

What's working in student recruitment and marketing at the undergraduate level? To find out, Noel-Levitz conducted a 97-item, Web-based poll in April of 2011 as part of the firm's continuing series of benchmark polls for higher education. Among the findings: (1) The "top 10" most effective practices in 2011--across public and private, two-year and…

This paper presents the appendix to "Marketing and Student Recruitment Practices for Master's-Level Graduate Programs, 2012" report. Included in this appendix are: (1) Ratings of the primary practices measured in this study, displayed by institution type; (2) The practice of purchasing prospective student names and addresses; (3) Ratings of…

Communicating with prospective students has undergone a profound transformation in the past ten years. Campus marketing--like marketing for any organization--had to adapt first to the Internet and e-mail and now to new social media formats like social networking and blogging. A recent survey of 1,000 college-bound seniors, however, shows that…

To effectively communicate with potential students, it is important to utilize their preferred information sources. Survey data were gathered from 716 high school students who planned to attend college. There were communication source differences based on race and intent to attend two-year vs. four-year institutions. Important information sources…

This report presents 228 tables detailing findings concerning management practices of marketing programs at 68 colleges and universities. Highlights of this report include: a mean of 5 employees regularly visit high school guidance counselors; only 5 percent of the colleges sponsor campus visits for select applicants; 24 percent of the colleges…

In 1986, Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) conducted a marketing review to assess the achievement of marketing objectives, identify the most effective marketing activities, assess the community's awareness of and the image of NVCC, assess the perceived quality and appropriateness of the college's programs and services, and formulate…