Each year, Academica releases the University/College Applicant Survey™ results.

In 2021, the survey reached over 42,000 post-secondary-bound students in Canada (including universities, colleges and polytechnics).

The survey aims to understand what drives applicant decision-making by asking questions about key decision factors, communications & marketing preferences, and the use of digital and social media.

*Source: Academica UCAS™ Webinar, January 2022. Image reprinted with permission from Academica.*

An institution-specific UCAS™ report is quite comprehensive (and I recommend it to any enrollment leader). For this blog post, however, I’m choosing to highlight key aggregate findings across the sector that:

surprised me (compared to past reports), and
have immediate channel & messaging implications for your enrollment strategy.

Key findings from Academica’s UCAS™ 2021 results

The average age of applicants is increasing and there are fewer direct entry applicants. More students are applying as transfer or mature. (Read more on this topic).
Academic reputation and career outcomes are the most important factors students consider when applying (this hasn’t changed in recent years).
Preference for online and hybrid course delivery is increasing.
Using viewbooks as a source of information dropped from a top-used source to the bottom of the list.
In contrast, connecting with current students or graduates climbed to the top.
Your website is still the most important source of information.

While these results may have different applications at your institution, depending on your strategic priorities, size, location, etc., I offer six strategic tips for your enrollment strategy.

5 tips for your enrollment strategy

Tip 1: Create and bring visibility to content for transfer and older students.

While residence and campus life is certainly important to some first-year students, even that is shifting with the preference for more online/hybrid experiences. Create and highlight more content for older students, transfer students, young parents, etc. and incorporate that more prominently into your materials.
Demystify and uncomplicate transfer student requirements on your website and make it as easily findable as requirements for other groups.
Provide more up-front (before application) access to counsellors to talk about transfer credits and transfer pathways.

Tip 2: Focus your content on academics and career outcomes.

In addition to (or instead of) listing faculty and program ranks and stats, showcase individual student and faculty stories.
When featuring students or professors, make sure your video content includes the answer to “why” and “how” questions. For example, if a student says “this internship was an incredible experience” make sure they answer why or how. Here’s what that looks like:

Instead of:
“This program gave me so many opportunities and helped me find my path.”
Ask them how and you get:
“When I was in my second year, I volunteered as social media coordinator at a local community centre and met a family that completely transformed what I thought I wanted to do with my career. Meeting them helped me realize I wanted to switch my program from business to sociology, and I was so grateful that I was able to make a plan with my academic advisor to do that. Two years later, I’m graduating this summer and I already have a job offer in that same centre, and I am going to dedicate my career to helping families that don’t have anyone they can reach out to when they need help.”

Tip 3: Take all the time and money you spend on developing and printing a viewbook and invest it in your website.

Invest in audience research, student journey mapping, user tasks, personalization, and copywriting. Much like institutions tried to differentiate themselves with entertaining presentations and beautiful booths in the past decade, your website is the space where you will compete for the next five years. It needs much more than an updated look.
Use plain language to support your EDI efforts in recruitment. Complicated language is a barrier for students and families from equity-deserving groups and from foreign countries.
Your website has to be usable on mobile devices, this means no more PDFs.

About digital viewbooks: The UCAS™ 2021 results show that many students used digital viewbooks as a resource last year. My theory is that they were used because that’s where institutions invested time and money to create relevant and easy-to-understand content. But a digital viewbook is not optimized for search engines and is probably not a very good mobile experience. My recommendation is: Don’t bother and invest in your actual website.

Tip 4: Incorporate peer-to-peer connections into your offerings.

Establish a student ambassador program or recruit student volunteers and allow prospective students to safely contact them directly.
Train your ambassadors as you would liaison officers, and then let them have unscripted, authentic conversations (no scripts).
If peer-to-peer connections are important in choosing where to apply, they are 10x more important in choosing where to accept. Set this up in time for conversion season (here’s how).

Tip 5: Keep offering online alternatives for everything.

The preference for hybrid/online is not just for instruction. Even after some of your in-person offerings resume, you must continue to offer webinars, virtual tours, chat, and online options for prospective students to learn about and interact with you.
Create presentations specific for a transfer audience and continue to offer those online after typical work hours.
Create flexible work arrangements for your customer service (admissions & liaison) staff and expand your service hours beyond the typical 9-5pm. Your nontraditional audiences need to engage with you after their work and home responsibilities; and your traditional audiences can’t reach you when they are engaged with school during the day. Be online when they are.

One final thought 💭

The responses you see in the survey are a direct result of what was offered. Virtual event attendance went up? Yeah, because that’s all that was available. Viewbooks were not popular? No, because they weren’t distributed (though my personal opinion is that it should stay that way).

In other words, these results measure how students used the channel choices you made, but that doesn’t tell you if those choices were correct. If you’re seeking insights on what channels and messaging will work for your audience and goals—well, you’ll need a whole separate research study to answer that question.

We can help.

Pickle Jar can help you turn insights into strategy. We can understand your students and how they use your channels, create and design content that works and converts, design beautiful visuals for print and online, and we can even help you with your online events. Check out our services or quick deliverables from the Pickle Store.

5 tips for your Canadian enrollment strategy based on Academica’s University/College Applicant Survey™ (UCAS™) 2021 results.