Improve the Campus Visit Experience
Despite the widespread availability of information on the web, most students review the campus visit as a top resource for making their college choice. Furthermore, as yield rates continue to decline, the value of the campus tour has never been more important than it is now. Colleges and universities must ensure that prospective students and parents have an exceptional visit experience. The campus visit, however, has been slow to evolve.
Assess your registration portal
The campus visit experience begins long before prospective students step foot on campus. In many cases, your visit registration system is often the first interaction they have with the institution, and visitors subconsciously compare the scheduling experience to other online transactions and registrations.
Read our expert insight to make sure the process of registering for a visit is designed for optimal usability and ease of completion.
Reevaluate the standard campus visit agenda
The status quo campus visit model features an information session either preceded or followed by the traditional campus tour. With 84% of schools following this structure, it can be difficult to differentiate your institution. Consider restructuring the schedule of your campus visit, innovating the time and place of the campus tour framework.
Additional strategies to innovate your campus tour
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Invest in campus tour staff
When considering possible innovation, invest in campus tour staff to best meet the needs of an expanding campus visit experience.
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Create unique offerings for specific student groups
Looking to innovate without restructuring the tour itself? Create unique offerings for niche groups that might be unable to participate in basic tour days.
Redesign the post-visit survey
While many admissions teams administer a post-visit survey, few invest meaningful time to ensure the data is as useful as possible. An effective campus visit survey can shed light on the quality of tour guides, reasons for visiting, and overall experience, but it can also uncover broader trends (such as longitudinal changes in what draws visitors to campus).
Administering a survey that supports the data your team is interested in collecting is essential for ongoing campus visit improvement.
Partner with other campus departments for better visits
It is imperative for a successful campus visit program to have support from institutional functions beyond enrollment management, yet few enrollment management shops have formal relationships in place to support that. Facilities, IT, academic faculty, and non-teaching staff are four constituencies on campus with critical involvement in ensuring a positive campus visit.
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Partner with facilities
Many bad visits can be partly attributed to the physical campus and its state of repair. Facilities and maintenance professionals are key strategic partners for improving campus aesthetic and overall experience.
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Partner with faculty
When asked to engage with prospects, top complaints from faculty include scarce time, the lack of value for their participation, and bad past experiences with recruiting. Learn to give faculty the tools they need to support recruitment efforts as you build their future classes.
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Partner with IT
Often the IT department isn’t included in the campus visit conversation until there’s a need for tech support. Learn how IT can advise and talk strategy when implementing new campus visit initiatives.
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Partner with campus staff
Visitors interact with up to half a dozen university or college staff members before they make it to the campus visit itself, and each of these encounters informs their overall impression. Without sharing campus visit goals with those on the front lines, a campus tour can quickly become a negative experience for guests.
Now that you've read the roadmap
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