St. Louis—People often talk about why students decide to apply to particular colleges, but perhaps it’s just as important to think about when they do so.
On Wednesday afternoon, Larry Erenberger, an enrollment consultant at the National Research Center for College and University Admissions, presented data on how high-school students’ awareness and opinions of colleges change over time. The research was based on information collected through the organization’s “My College Options” program, which asks students to state their top college choices. The study included 2.7 million “declarations” of interest in specific colleges made by more than one million students during the 2009-10 academic year.
A major finding was that big-name colleges lose “market share” as students progress through high school. During that time, students become more aware of lesser-known institutions—and find them more desirable.
Specifically, student interest in national public institutions decreases over time, while interest in large and small regional public institutions increases significantly as students near graduation. Meanwhile, student interest in national private colleges decreases significantly during high school, while interest in large regional private institutions more than doubles, and interest in small regional private colleges also increases.
The study also found that student interest in two-year colleges increases significantly during the senior year. Between the freshman and senior years, interest in historically black colleges increases by one third.
To some degree, those findings are intuitive. They reflect the natural progression of college selection: students adjust their lists over time as they learn more about various institutions, their odds of getting in, and the varied costs of attendance.
Yet Michael S. Kabbaz, director of admission at the University of Richmond, believes that colleges can draw insights from the data. “It reveals the fluidity of decision making among students,” he said. “Some places have more ability to influence student choices later in the process.”
In that, Mr. Kabbaz sees implications for dealing with “stealth applicants.” At Richmond, a significant percentage of students who don’t respond to the university’s traditional recruitment outreach go on to apply to the university. For that reason, his office continues to communicate with subgroups of students, with particular characteristics, even though they don’t express any interest in Richmond. In other words, there’s logic in treating some “nonresponders” as if they are viable applicants.
“Student behaviors have changed,” Mr. Kabbaz said. “The question becomes: Have we institutionally changed our habits of engaging these students?”
