Noel-Levitz Study Finds Higher Education is Employing a Wide Range of Online Technologies to Recruit Prospective Students
Coralville, Iowa (PRWEB) May 16, 2014 -- Noel-Levitz has released its 2014 E-Recruitment Practices Report with the latest campus rankings of common and less widely used strategies and tactics for electronic student recruitment employed by U.S. colleges and universities. The report is based on a national electronic poll of college and university enrollment and admissions officers across the United States in March 2014.
This year’s report ranks the frequency in which colleges and universities are using various types of social media as well as 28 other online recruiting outreach methods. The report also compares higher education’s student recruitment practices to prospective students’ habits and expectations based on a parallel study of graduating high school seniors also conducted in March 2014.
A few highlights:
• Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were higher education’s most popular social media for online recruiting among 21 types examined. These four social media were also the most popular among graduating high school seniors.
• Snapchat—a newer social media platform—was used by fewer than three percent of colleges and universities for the purpose of student recruitment, yet 39 percent of graduating high school seniors reported using it.
• Fewer than 13 percent of colleges and universities reported using Google+ for student recruitment, while more than 31 percent of graduating high school seniors reported using it.
• Website recruitment pages, email, and online calculators were higher education’s most popular online recruiting practices among 28 online recruitment methods examined beyond social media. Other popular practices include videos embedded on campus websites, analytics resources such as Google Analytics, and special landing pages for email campaigns, according to the poll respondents in 2014.
• Website spending has increased among four-year private and public colleges and universities compared to the last time this study was conducted in 2012.
• Forty-four percent of four-year private institutions and 32 percent of four-year public institutions reported providing cell phones for their admissions counselors versus just 11 percent of two-year public institutions. The report examines several ways these phones are used, with the most popular being to remain in contact with prospective students while traveling.
• Only 54 percent of four-year private institutions, 47 percent of four-year public institutions, and 23 percent of two-year public institutions reported having a mobile-optimized website. In contrast, 71 percent of graduating high school seniors reported having looked at college websites on a mobile phone or tablet.
The new study, titled 2014 E-Recruiting Practices Report for Four-Year and Two-Year Institutions, is the latest in a series of polls and surveys that Noel-Levitz has conducted to help higher education decision makers. For a full copy of the study, including rankings of 23 features on website recruitment pages and the frequency of posting 13 types of actionable online forms, visit http://www.noellevitz.com/BenchmarkReports.
Watch for the complete findings of the parallel study of prospective students’ online habits and expectations, titled 2014 E-Expectations Report, to be released in July 2014 as a joint project of Noel-Levitz, OmniUpdate, and CollegeWeekLive.
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Noel-Levitz is a recognized leader in higher education consulting and research. For 40 years, they have partnered with more than 2,800 campuses to optimize enrollment management and student success through experienced consultation, advanced analytic tools, and campus assessments.
Pam Jennings, Noel-Levitz, http://www.noellevitz.com, +1 (800) 876-1117, [email protected]
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