Summer 2004

Gaining quality students in a competitive marketplace

by Cindy McVey

Hobart and William Smith alumni/ae count a think-tank fellow, Nuremburg attorney and a Disney “imagineer” among their ranks, not to mention successful inventors, prominent journalists and authors, and groundbreaking scholars across disciplines. It takes a special student body to follow in such auspicious footsteps and meticulous recruitment strategies to bring those students to HWS.

Since 1999, there has been a noticeable increase in the quality of HWS applicants and, consequently, accepted and enrolled students. In fact, nearly every student in the entering Classes of 2008 comes from the top 50 percent of his or her high school graduating class—more than one-third are from the top 10 percent. More enrolled students have entered as “merit scholars,” recognized financially for academic excellence, artistic talent and leadership credentials established during the secondary-school years.

Don Emmons, vice president for enrollments and dean of admissions, attributes this to a greater awareness of HWS in the marketplace and, through that, getting first-rate students to enroll. “Quality attracts quality over time,” he says. “Through a very slow process, more quality applicants enter the pool.”

Anyone targeting a market population must know and address how decisions are made in order to close the deal. In the case of college selection, that means dealing with young adults and their families who are often looking at an investment of $40,000 a year or more. Unlike many who market to teens, however, colleges also are concerned with the caliber of the person buying their “product.” Therein lies the challenge—gaining not only a sufficient population of students, but one whose cultural, ethnic, geographic, academic and talent diversities will positively impact the institution overall.

“Hobart and William Smith Colleges provide superb education, and we want students who can make the most of that educationand improve our reputation in the process,” says Barbara Tornow ’65, member of the Colleges’ Board of Trustees and chair of its Admissions Committee.
So what are the Colleges doing to attract such a preferred clientele? Plenty, according to Emmons. HWS uses very aggressive recruiting strategies and is uniquely service-oriented.

Take the Colleges’ “Fox and Hedgehog” campaign. This unique approach was developed to create awareness and a lasting impression in the minds of those predisposed to taking full advantage of all this campus has to offer. Through the simple analogy of a fox, which pursues many diverse ends, and a hedgehog, which maintains a singular focus, the campaign communicates the multidimensional liberal arts tradition of HWS specifically from the perspective of the type of person who chooses to experience it here.

“The fox and hedgehog analogy is an appealing differentiator,” says Tornow, “and it’s very hard to differentiate yourself in a liberal arts college marketplace.”

According to Emmons, the fox and hedgehog is just the tip of the iceberg. He and his staff actively recruit two classes at a time, rising juniors and seniors, and are seeing an increase in recruitment activities with rising sophomores. By the time the first-year classes enroll in the fall, admissions has already had six months of recruiting for the next year’s classes.

Open Door Policy

The Colleges keep the admissions doors open virtually all the time, hosting open information sessions for juniors and seniors at the same time. HWS also has at least eight on-campus events each year—far more than other colleges in our comparison group, Emmons asserts.
“We recognize that the highest conversion of applications to enrolled students occurs for the student who has been on our campus or had personal contact with us,” he says.

The Colleges also encourage students to interview. “We like to get to know the whole person, the ‘fox,’ here,” says Phyllis Collins ’03, assistant director of admissions. “SATs and GPAs can’t totally reflect the quality of a student.”

Collins has just completed her first full year as an admissions coordinator. Hired by the admissions office last September, she has gone through Admissions’ main travel season and has been part of on-campus programs, dinners, interviews in prospective students’ hometowns, and pizza and wing sessions hosted by alums.

As an alumna herself, Collins stresses the importance of one-to-one connections with prospects. “As the first impression parents and students get of HWS, we in admissions have to embody the characteristics of our Colleges,” she says.

The Colleges also utilize two Accepted Student Open House events on campus, three online chat opportunities, six accepted-student celebrations off campus, sundry student-lead campus tours and a phonathon as opportunities for prospects to meet or talk with current students. Additionally, senior interns help with interviews and staff college fairs at high schools in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.

Alumni and alumnae in each region provide support by attending fairs or holding accepted-student events in their homes. Even parents of current students, who have experienced the process of enrollment themselves, participate in accepted-student events or phonathons.

“The better we broker these one-to-one contacts with the student and parents over time—by admissions staff, coaches, faculty, and alumni and alumnae—the greater chance we have of getting the quality students to apply and enroll,” says Emmons.

New Challenges

The arrival of the Web as an enrollment tool created its own set of challenges for the very interpersonal HWS admissions process. Emmons considers this to be one of the biggest changes in the past six years.
Families use the Web to filter through the colleges they want to consider, gather information, apply and even take virtual tours. The effectiveness of print publications in this environment, according to Emmons, is to affect the audience on an emotional level, usually visually, which leads them to the Web site for the information they seek.
Once the audience has been guided to the Web, they can view features such as the “Fox Gallery,” which profiles interesting personalities on campus, a quarterly Web-based newsletter and, new this year, a “virtual room” targeted exclusively to newly accepted students. Using a virtual residence-hall room, visitors are guided through typical social and logistical issues at the Colleges. The institution also utilizes e-mail to increase interaction with students, including a three-issue e-newsletter called the Fox Gazette.

“The Colleges’ use of the Web has been substantially enhanced in recent years,” notes Tornow. “The use of tools such as the virtual room is pretty exciting.”

Another challenging shift involves selection. In the mid-80s, fewer students graduated from high schools and entered college. Admissions offices across the country had to accept larger numbers of their applicant pools just to meet enrollments. Today, strategic recruitment efforts are used to try to enlist the best students. This more quality-oriented process is known as selecting a class.

“When you select a class, you actually turn away admissible students to build a community with diverse characteristics,” explains Emmons. “HWS has slowly moved itself to this strategy over time.”

As a result, the Colleges community is replete with athletes, artists, performers, socially-conscious individuals and outstanding students from a variety of cultures and in every discipline—often several disciplines at once. The mean SAT scores for incoming HWS students is 1177, an increase of 29 percentage points over the classes entering in the fall of 2000 and higher than the state and national averages by more than 100 points. More minority students applied to the Colleges in 2004 than in 2000, and more countries and states are represented in applications, with double-digits from Canada, Bulgaria and Jamaica.

Although the number of students graduating from high school has increased since the mid-80s, the competitive marketplace keeps schools on their toes as much as if there were fewer potential students to recruit.

“Even with the improved demographics of 17- and 18-year-olds graduating from high schools, in this marketplace you're not guaranteed that the kids will come to you,” explains Emmons. “You need a quantitative strategic plan in place that will be able to sustain high-quality enrollments.”

The difficulty with this new quantitative world is finding the balance necessary to attract, and not repel, parents and students. “If at some point we get too focused on the quantitative, we can lose focus of the fact that these are 17-year-olds making decisions. We need to balance information … with attention to the human-nature side and the stress parents and students go through,” says Emmons.

That comment comes not only from 25 years of experience in admissions, but from Emmons’ own experience as a father who has seen one of his three children already go through the process.
“We are fortunate at HWS to have someone who not only knows recruitment well, but knows the data and how to use it to project trends and develop strategies,” says Tornow of Emmons.

Even now, as the Classes of 2008 prepare to arrive on campus, Emmons and his staff are well into the development of strategies that will enable them to build the Classes of 2010. Rest assured that a number of their recruitment and retention ideas are sure to set HWS apart, making the Colleges clever as a — dare we say it? — fox.