Newport, R.I.—The dynamics of recruitment are changing. Old strategies for attracting applicants no longer work as well as they once did. And in an era of tightened budgets, understanding the return-on-investment for each enrollment expense is crucial.

So said attendees here at the New England Association for College Admission Counseling's annual conference. On Thursday, admissions officials discussed how admissions representatives could plan their recruitment trips more efficiently—and effectively.

"We have a tendency to keep traveling the way we've always been traveling, and if it has worked, we figure it must be working," said Cheri Hurtubise, assistant director of admission at Simmons College, in Boston. "We need to travel smarter, not harder."

Among the factors complicating questions about the effectiveness of admissions travel: a weak economy, the changing demographics of...

Six years ago, Lloyd Thacker became a familiar name in higher education. Since then, he has been described in many ways. As the savior of college admissions. As a hopeless romantic tilting at ivory towers. As a voice of calm in a world of admissions angst. As a guy who can't accept that higher education is, among other things, a business.

A former college counselor, Mr. Thacker is the founder of the Education Conservancy, a nonprofit group that opposes "commercial interference" in college admissions, and the editor of College Unranked, a book of essays about admissions. On Tuesday, I caught up with Mr. Thacker to ask him about his organization's evolution, including its two new partnerships with the College Board and Consumers Union.

When you started the Education Conservancy in 2004, even some of your strongest supporters worried about your ability to sustain the organization and its ...

This year, American University received a record 17,000 admissions applications, a 13 percent increase over last year. With quantity came quality: by various statistical measures, the university will admit its most accomplished, most diverse class ever this fall. And American's admit rate fell to 43 percent from 53 percent this year.

In the numbers-driven realm of admissions, all this is good news, a sign of rising fortunes. But it's also a complicated development. For one thing, applications have swelled at so many selective colleges that the meaning of such an increase can be difficult for a given admissions office to interpret (increases this year could portend increases next year—or not). Moreover, as colleges become more selective, they often find themselves competing with institutions a rung or two higher on the ladders of selectivity and desirability, at least for the top student...

A majority of students and their parents have ruled out colleges based solely on published sticker prices without considering how much financial aid they might receive, according to a recent survey of college applicants. Most students and parents said they had not used online financial-aid calculators to determine how much they would need to pay at different colleges.

The findings come from the latest installment of Student Poll, a collaboration between the College Board and Art & Science Group, a firm that specializes in strategic marketing and planning for colleges. The survey, conducted in late November and early January, was designed to reveal how students' perceptions of affordability had shaped their thinking about colleges.

Above all, the survey's results suggest that many families make college choices without accurate or sufficient information. Fifty-nine percent of students...

Mary Beth Kravets has a rule: those who visit her office must leave certain things outside. Among them are the words "ranking" and "tier."

Ms. Kravets, a college counselor at Deerfield High School, in Illinois, has long encouraged students to look beyond top-25 lists of colleges, beyond the shimmer of prestige. To that end, she asks parents where their doctors attended medical school. "Ninety-five percent of them have no idea," she says.

If mothers and fathers are willing to put their lives in the hands of those who may or may not have attended a famous college, then why do so many fret so much about where their children will enroll? The answer, Ms. Kravets knows, is complicated. Over the last three decades, she has seen the admissions atmosphere change, and the barometers of pre-collegiate angst go off the charts.

Recently, Ms. Kravets announced that she will retire at the end of the...

In some ways, the admissions interview is a dinosaur in this age of high-tech "touches." To conduct interviews is to devote time, money, and cranial energy to the old-fashioned task of listening to another human while taking a hand-cramping amount of notes.

When that's all done, evaluations must be coded and filed for a later date. In the end, what's gleaned from an interview might help an applicant get an admission offer—or it may make no difference at all.

In an admissions world that spins faster than ever, are these grueling exercises worth all the toil and trouble?

Like so much else in this complex field, the answer depends on where you stand. In an article in this week's Chronicle, my colleague Beckie Supiano and I write about the many meanings of the admissions interview, which remains a fixture in some corners of higher education. As evaluations go, interviews are notoriously...

Maybe it's that today is Friday, or that I don't get out enough, or that college admissions is often dry and serious, but watching two admissions officers ham it up in this new YouTube clip made me chuckle.

First, the background. On Monday, the National Association for College Admission Counseling plans to begin a big advocacy push for better access to counseling. In its "national action week," the association will urge its members to send messages to Congress in support the Pathways to College Act. The legislation would provide more money for counselors in the neediest school districts.

To mark the occasion, the Wisconsin Association for College Admission Counseling has produced a video explaining how supporters can, through the "magic of the Internets," convey their support for the Pathways to College Act. The video stars Ken Anselment, director of admissions at Lawrence University, ...

The Ivy League's eight colleges enroll just about 60,000 undergraduate students, a statistical drop in the nation's bucket of 15.6 million undergraduate students. That's according to Chronicle data. Nonetheless, those eight institutions are the subject of 87.634 percent of the angst and obsession associated with college admissions. That's according to me.

I thought about these statistics (scientific and otherwise) while reading an amusing article in today's Washington Post about the "Ivy roots" of the current roster of justices. If the U.S. Senate confirms Elena Kagan, the Ivy League's dominance of the Supreme Court will be complete: Each of the justices will have attended law school at either Harvard or Yale University (Ruth Bader Ginsburg earned her degree from Columbia University after transferring from Harvard).

"So much for public education," the authors write, "and boohoo for...

University Park, Pa.— As labels go, "adult learners" is impossibly broad. One person who fits that description may have little in common with another. Such students might be 25 or 35 or 65, with different backgrounds, skills, fears, goals, schedules, and financial concerns.

The complexity of this vast and growing body of students was evident here at the Hendrick Best Practices for Adult Learners Conference on Monday. Educators from throughout Pennsylvania State University's system gathered to share ideas on recruiting and retaining so-called nontraditional students. Amid increasing competition, several experts said, the university must become more creative—and nimble. And they insisted that Penn State's 24 campuses must not adopt a one-size-fits-all plan for serving such students. After all, what's true of students is true of Pennsylvania's communities: Their needs vary.

Moreover, the ...

This week admissions officers and high-school counselors throughout the nation received a survey about "America's Best Colleges," U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of colleges. The electronic survey was sent by an ad hoc committee whose members represent the National Association for College Admission Counseling and U.S. News. In other words, one very large membership organization and one very controversial player in college admissions.

The committee's chairman, Peter E. Caruso, explains that the committee isn't a partnership—just a joint attempt to spark a continuing dialogue about the magazine's influential rankings. Last year the committee met at the association's annual conference, in Baltimore. There was no shortage of critiques, to say the least. For instance, NACAC's members raised concerns about the rankings methodology, the integrity of the peer-assessment survey, and...