With the increasing amount of time students spend online, it is not difficult to see how technology presents new recruiting challenges for Bluffton's admissions office. According to a 2005 survey of 1,000 high school juniors conducted by the National Research Center for College & University Admissions, high school students are spending more time on the Internet, doing research for school (91 percent), instant messaging (81 percent), researching colleges and universities (74 percent), reading the news (72 percent) and playing games (65 percent). With 67 percent owning cell phones and 80 percent using the Internet at least once a week, admissions officers need to create new and exciting ways to stand out on the crowded information highway.
“There's no doubt that the Web is changing how we market Bluffton," says Chris Jebsen, director of admissions. "The electronic age is changing our traditional ways of reaching out to prospective students."
A change in strategy
The traditional practice of purchasing prospective students' mailing addresses has given way to purchasing e-mail addresses. “Last year for the first time, we purchased only names that included e-mail addresses," says Jebsen. “E-mail is quicker and more cost effective." Jebsen says his office has no intention of abandoning direct mail, print and phone contacts, but that the way high school students communicate calls for a higher priority on electronic communication.
“We are now collecting cell phone numbers and instant messaging screen names, and our counselors are communicating through individual Facebook accounts," says Jebsen. “We recently sent out a postcard with photos of the counselors, their e-mail addresses and AOL Instant Messenger names, and suggested students look them up on Facebook." Facebook is an increasingly popular online social network that allows users to create profiles, post photos and send messages to other users, essentially an online yearbook or scrapbook.
Shannon Hedrick has worked in Bluffton's admissions office since graduating from Bluffton in 2000. “I never would have imagined that we'd be using students' cell phone numbers and instant message screen names to contact them," she says. "E-mail has long been a key way of contacting students but it's already less effective than it used to be." Hedrick says that within a week of her postcard being mailed, potential students had added her to their AOL Instant Messenger buddy lists and made her their friend on Facebook.
In addition to Facebook, the admissions office has begun using web blogs to attract potential students. First-year student Anna Pawsey (Clyde, Ohio); sophomore Jordan Zickafoose (Lima, Ohio); and junior Mary Eckert (Fort Wayne, Ind.) make regular posts about their day-to-day lives as students at Bluffton. Eckert recently talked about the fun she had during Spiritual Life Week and at Winter Formal, while Zickafoose discussed walking around campus in the middle of a snowstorm and weekly Grey's Anatomy parties. Their blogs provide potential students with insight into what it is like for strangers to become best friends, to attend class and live in residence halls. Visit www.bluffton.edu/admission/journal/ to learn more from these Bluffton bloggers.
Increased competition
With easy access to the Internet, prospective students consider many more schools than in the past. "In the past, students went to college fairs and visited their guidance counselors, who looked over their applications," says Jebsen. "Now students are applying online and with the ease of applying online, they're applying to more places." Last year, 75 percent of students who applied to Bluffton did so electronically, a huge increase from 27 percent who applied online in 2001, the first year the technology was available.
"We're getting a lot more applications, but many aren't completing the entire application process and that's because it's free to apply online at many institutions," says Jebsen. While this provides more names of interested students, it means more work for the admissions staff as they must process more applications for follow up. It's a double-edged sword," says Jebsen. "But, we have more names of prospective students who are clearly interested in us enough to apply." Jebsen adds that the ease of online application also heightens the sense of consumerism and competition in the process. students are able to compare more detailed information on more institutions. As a result, institutions must invest more on differentiating themselves in a crowded marketplace.
Jebsen observes that another challenge presented to admissions counselors is the amount of connectivity today's students have with their parents. "High school juniors and seniors are more connected to their parents than ever before," he says. As a result, "We know that we're marketing to the parents as well as the students. Fortunately, we have a mission and an environment at Bluffton that is highly receptive to parents."
With new communication capabilities arriving on campus, Jebsen notes that technology will not replace one-on-one relationships that he and his counselors seek to build with prospective students, but rather enhance them. "Our goal is to continually seek out the most effective ways to reach prospective students," he says, "and the immediacy of technology presents us with new and exciting options" - options that will present more potential students with the opportunity to begin their own individual Bluffton experiences.
