News & Insights

Several years ago “stealth applicant” became the buzzword in undergraduate enrollment offices. As they struggled to deal with the dramatic rise in prospects that applied without having contacted the school before, admission professionals began searching for ways to communicate with these elusive students. Since we work across all areas of campus, we were able to see that while undergraduate offices were plagued by this phenomenon, graduate offices were experiencing it on a much lighter scale.

Deposits are in! Cheers to you, if you’ve hit your numbers, proving all those recruiting efforts paid off! But like many admission folks, you may have goals that were left unmet. Now you’re wondering, how do you fill those gaps going forward, and why were there gaps to begin with? But there is a silver lining to all this: you have data! You now know exactly where your admission goals fell short and can begin to target those prospective students for next year with a brand-new digital strategy using audience segmentation.

What is Penguin? If you are at all involved with a website for your college or university, you should know about Google's Penguin updates. In March 2012 Google released an algorithm update aimed at targeting sites that overdid or "over-optimized" their SEO. Matt Cutts, "The Google Guy" and Google's head of webspam, said, "We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over-optimization or overly SEO—versus those making great content and great site."

From NAGAP to TACAC to SACAC, this season is just full of conferences! It's such a great time to connect with old colleagues, network and meet new ones, and pick up a few new tricks of the trade. That's what we exhibitors hope for you—that you'll learn something new . . . maybe even from us! You'll find a Carnegie person at just about every conference we can get ourselves to. And for us, exhibiting at these events is very similar to those admission teams standing behind the tables at college fairs. We look for ways to stand out amongst our competitors, just like you and your staff. We are eager and excited to share some of the new things we can offer our clients, the same way you have amazing opportunities to offer incoming students. Sure, we can give you a flyer or send along our media kit, but that's just like you sending a student or parent home with a view book without having a conversation to see if your institution is truly a fit!

We keep hearing about stealth applicants or visitors not doing what you hoped when they come to your site. And it’s true: tracking what’s going on is tough. Gone are the days where comparing first-source inquiries to matriculants one-to-one is the only measurement you use. Marketing plans are more complex. Students have access to more information than ever before—and are getting it without you knowing! But the good news is data still tells a very reliable story.