Students no longer search like they used to
Three years ago, enrollment teams were already adapting to a more complicated college search. Students moved among social media, counselors, virtual tours, college-search platforms, and .edu sites, and institutions were working to reach them across each one.
Since then, the challenge has fundamentally changed. AI tools increasingly shape which colleges students discover, privacy changes have made traditional targeting less reliable, and more of the search happens before a student ever identifies themselves. As the Director of Marketing for Appily, I’ve seen these shifts firsthand. The strongest strategies we’ve observed give each channel a clear role and connect those touchpoints into a cohesive experience that helps students move forward.
Here are four lessons we’ve learned since launching Appily in 2023.
Lesson 1: Students no longer enter through your ‘front door’
The path to an inquiry used to be comparatively straightforward. A student Googled a college, visited its .edu site, completed an inquiry form, and entered the recruitment funnel.
Today, discovery rarely follows such a clean path. Students discover colleges through social media, digital ads, news and advice content, virtual tours, counselor recommendations, college-search sites, and AI-generated answers. In EAB’s 2025 national survey of more than 5,000 high school students, 46% said they used tools such as ChatGPT in their college search. Our 2026 follow-up survey found that more than half of seniors were using AI, and most AI users were discovering schools that had not previously been on their radar.
Students do not experience these interactions in isolation. A student might first hear about your institution from a counselor, find one of your college-planning resources through search, see you on Instagram, and later click an ad encouraging them to apply. To that student, these are not four separate tactics. Together, they create one continuous experience that makes your institution more familiar and credible.
Define the purpose of each source. Not every source needs to generate inquiries on its own. Determine the role each channel plays, then make sure the channels reinforce the same institutional story and lead students naturally to the next step.
As you think about how students move toward enrollment, consider mapping out the places where students can first encounter your institution, then assess whether each offers a clear, consistent next step.
Lesson 2: A diversified channel mix protects against disruption
Recent years have shown how quickly policies and student behaviors can change. Heavy dependence on a small number of traffic or lead sources leaves a school vulnerable when costs rise, privacy rules change, or students start looking in new places.
It is tempting to find a channel that seems like the “next big thing” and shift a large share of investment there. But a more durable strategy is to build a channel mix that can adapt to change. To diversify effectively, identify the audience and role for each channel, monitor performance, and keep enough flexibility to shift resources when conditions change.
AI offers a useful example. As students increasingly ask AI for college recommendations and comparisons, institutions need to make the information on their site and college-search platform profiles easy for AI to find and understand. That means publishing clear answers to the questions students and families ask, keeping facts current across the web, and using structured, AI-readable information.
But don’t treat AI visibility as a wholly separate initiative. The same clear, current information should appear on your website, in digital content, in counselor resources, on profiles on college-search platforms, and in your direct outreach. Then, when students get an answer from an AI chat, they’ll see that information reinforced everywhere else they look.
One helpful step is to look across the sources in your recruitment pipeline to identify where you depend heavily on one platform or audience. Ask how you would maintain your reach if a major source became more expensive, offered less reach, or became less effective next cycle.
Lesson 3: Student information needs to be earned
Today’s college-bound students have grown up navigating online experiences, sharing information selectively, and making quick judgments about whether something is worth their attention (or their data). They’re unlikely to hand over their contact information simply because an RFI form asks for it; they need to understand what they’ll get in return.
When the value is clear, though, students are still very willing to share their information. A scholarship resource, personalized college matches, an immersive look at campus, or information that helps them make a decision can give them a meaningful reason to engage.
As third-party targeting gets more constrained, these direct relationships with students who have chosen to engage become increasingly valuable. Reaching a student is only the first step. You also need to give them enough value to stay connected.
In our work over the past three years, this has become one of the questions I return to most often: What are we offering on Appily that genuinely helps a student move forward in their college search? The strongest experiences are useful, engaging, and difficult to replace with a generic AI response. Interactive fit tools can help students clarify what they want from college. Virtual tours can let them explore a campus before they are ready or able to visit. Personalized resources can turn generic advice into a next step tailored to their priorities.
For example, Appily’s “Vibe Quiz” helps students identify the campus culture, setting, and social scene that may fit them best by answering a few fun questions. To keep generating inquiries, give students useful reasons to stay on your site and identify themselves.
Review each place where you ask students to identify themselves. Is the benefit more compelling than “learn more”? Does it help them answer a real question about cost, academic fit, campus life, or next steps? If not, make the benefit clearer to students and their families.
Lesson 4: Channels have greater impact when they work together
Similar channels can look duplicative at first. If students can find information about your institution on your website, for example, why invest in sharing that information on college-search sites?
The answer is that every student’s journey is different. Some students rely heavily on social media, while others favor AI, counselors, college-search sites, or direct visits to college websites. One student may find your .edu site easily; another may first encounter your institution through a comparison, virtual experience, or recommendation from someone they trust.
When EAB analyzed more than seven million student journeys, we found a clear benefit to reaching students through multiple source categories. Journeys that included one source category had a 0.7% deposit rate. The deposit rate increased to 2.6% with two categories and 12.9% with three or more—a deposit rate more than 18 times higher than that of single-source journeys.
No individual channel deserves all the credit. Together, the channels help students discover a school, build familiarity, gather information, and gain confidence in their decision.
Avoid treating every channel as a self-contained pipeline. College-search platforms like Appily can support early discovery and comparison. A college’s website can provide depth, proof, and a distinctive sense of place. Counselors, events, email, social media, and virtual experiences can answer different questions at different moments. These experiences build on one another rather than simply repeating the same information.
For example, Appily can build interest in college and in your school and provide highly engaged student leads. Social media ads can prompt action, while your .edu site remains the primary source for detailed, authoritative information.
How do your major channels hand students off to one another? Ensure they guide students toward a logical next step instead of merely repeating the same information in different places.
Looking to the future
Student recruitment will keep changing. AI will continue to reshape discovery, privacy expectations will keep rising, and student preferences will continue to evolve.
Schools will be better prepared if they diversify recruitment channels, give students genuine reasons to engage, and connect those channels through a consistent experience.
That is the biggest lesson from the past three years: the tactics will keep changing, but the work still begins with understanding how students search, what they need, and what earns their trust.
Let’s strengthen your student search strategy
If you’re assessing where your names come from, how diversified your discovery channels are, and whether your recruitment strategy supports the class you need to build, we’d love to chat about how Appily can help you diversify discovery and reach the students you need.
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