The school personas shaping students’ college choices

This research introduces a new, student-centered taxonomy of four-year colleges and universities, based on a statistical analysis correlating student search behaviors with more than 80 different school characteristics across five categories: campus offerings (e.g., the number of student organizations), educational offerings (e.g., the number of majors), surrounding area (e.g., the warmth of the weather), affordability, and admissions accessibility.

More granular than other established systems of classification and centered on the student perspective, this new framing of the higher education landscape helps admissions teams identify their true competitor set—schools that attract students in similar ways—and benchmark against them to uncover strengths, address limitations, and seize opportunities within their market and beyond.

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