[This is Part 4 of the Yield Enhancement Series: The Final Push, offering actionable and effective strategies for the closing weeks of the yield season.]
Right now, you are most likely having dozens of conversations every day with the students in your admit pool. I don’t need to tell you that those interactions are crucial during this pivotal point in the recruiting cycle. And, the most successful admissions professionals know that you are more likely to win more recruits if you frame your discussion of the value you provide by matching the unique attributes of your college to what is most interesting and exciting to the individual student.
Want to make those conversations more powerful? Try the technique of storytelling and you’ll find that you are able to spark a student’s excitement – to engage their emotional commitment to your college.
One of the best examples of this was shared with us recently on the east coast campus of a mid-sized college (let’s call it College “A”) where we were conducting an Interactive Counselor Training Workshop. The counselor was working with a student, Jamie, who had narrowed her college choices down to three options; College “A” and two others. The dilemma was that the student’s family had a last minute crisis that meant she would have to cancel her upcoming visit to College “A”, the only one of the three that she had not yet visited. Jamie told the counselor that she was leaning toward one of the other schools because she had felt a great connection with the current students she had met there.
Brett, the counselor, was sure that Jamie would thrive at his school if only he could give her a taste of the College “A” experience. What did he do? He pulled together a group of four current students that had some commonality with Jamie (one shared her major interest, two were active in a number of organizations she had expressed enthusiasm in, and the fourth had similar personality traits as Jamie) and he organized a Skype get together.
Here is the best part: Brett instructed the students to “tell stories about your life on campus and be completely honest.” That’s all. He didn’t even sit in on the session so that it would feel more natural. (Although he did confess that he could hear the laughter all the way down the hall on numerous occasions during what turned into a 2-hour session.)
You have probably guessed how this story ends: Jamie is now a successful junior at College “A,” and even serves as a student ambassador in the admissions department.
In this example, the counselor creatively used current students to tell the story for him, but you can, and should, use this technique to give greater emotional depth to the conversations you have with students and parents.
There is actually scientific research that delves into this subject. This excellent article from Lifehacker, “Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains” by Leo Widrich, COO and co-founder of Buffer, does a great job of explaining the science in laymen’s terms.
“If we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated. Scientists call this Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. Overall, it hits our language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning. And that’s it, nothing else happens.”
“When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.”
Storytelling serves as a powerful method of supporting your college’s claims of value. It not only engages the prospective student, it also personalizes what you are telling them. It makes it real and believable.
I’m sure your college has hundreds, if not thousands, of compelling stories that paint a picture of the many students who have had great and memorable experiences with you.
These stories need to be recorded and categorized so that they can be easily shared at the right time, in the right situation, and with the right student. Many of the colleges we work with actually keep a database by topic of these narratives and some have even hosted inter-departmental competitions to find the best student success stories.
We help colleges and universities with their recruiting efforts every day, especially now during yield season. If I can help you, please let me know.
Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Interactive Counselor Training Program, click here. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.
Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative and dynamic approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. Rick can be reached at 913/492.1265 x.708 or via email at rmontgomery@longmire-co.com.
