The College Visit
Often times in the college admission marketing world we get caught up with things such as the appearance of the literature and how much our respective institutions cost to attend. While these aspects are important, their is one factor that sometimes can be overlooked in the process. The college visit often times can be the single greatest factor in the college admission process for prospective students. According to the Princeton Review, "Many students change their minds [about a school] after the visit."
With so much attention being put on the visit by students, it makes sense that colleges should put a lot of effort into their visit programs. At my institution we utilize mainly two different forms of visits for visiting students. Individual visits and larger visit programs. The individual visits consist of two parts. The first is meeting with an admission counselor. In this section prospective students and their families have the opportunity to ask their admission counselors questions about the admission process and about the school in general. The next part of their visit is a campus tour led by a student ambassador. While this also serves as a great question asking time for families it does serve another purpose as well. It allows the university the opportunity to create a personal connection between the student ambassador and the family through an experience that will lost longer than an hour. This relationship has the ability to be long lasting to the family while meeting with a professional staff member will not have the same effect. This interaction between the student ambassador and the family can be very key in forming the families opinion of the institution. The second visit program as we previously mentioned is a larger group visit program. These types of visit programs take the rationale behind the individual visit and merely expand upon it. In this setting students and their families are still able to take tours and meet with admission counselors. To expand on this idea they are also able to sit in on classes and even stay the night with a current student. This allows the school to showcase even further to the student, truly what it is like to be one of their students.
Schools put a lot of effort into these different form of visit programs to ensure that students in their families have a positive experience and therefore have a positive association to the respective institution. On an even deeper level, schools are looking to form a relationship with that student. Institutions believe that the formation of these relationships are a major factor in a student enrolling in their institution. Many institutions see visits as the key channel to creating these relationships.
To a give a tangible example of these programs a link to my current institutions visit day page is listed below:
https://www.owu.edu/admission/visit/visit-days/
Sources:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/college-visits
With so much attention being put on the visit by students, it makes sense that colleges should put a lot of effort into their visit programs. At my institution we utilize mainly two different forms of visits for visiting students. Individual visits and larger visit programs. The individual visits consist of two parts. The first is meeting with an admission counselor. In this section prospective students and their families have the opportunity to ask their admission counselors questions about the admission process and about the school in general. The next part of their visit is a campus tour led by a student ambassador. While this also serves as a great question asking time for families it does serve another purpose as well. It allows the university the opportunity to create a personal connection between the student ambassador and the family through an experience that will lost longer than an hour. This relationship has the ability to be long lasting to the family while meeting with a professional staff member will not have the same effect. This interaction between the student ambassador and the family can be very key in forming the families opinion of the institution. The second visit program as we previously mentioned is a larger group visit program. These types of visit programs take the rationale behind the individual visit and merely expand upon it. In this setting students and their families are still able to take tours and meet with admission counselors. To expand on this idea they are also able to sit in on classes and even stay the night with a current student. This allows the school to showcase even further to the student, truly what it is like to be one of their students.
Schools put a lot of effort into these different form of visit programs to ensure that students in their families have a positive experience and therefore have a positive association to the respective institution. On an even deeper level, schools are looking to form a relationship with that student. Institutions believe that the formation of these relationships are a major factor in a student enrolling in their institution. Many institutions see visits as the key channel to creating these relationships.
To a give a tangible example of these programs a link to my current institutions visit day page is listed below:
https://www.owu.edu/admission/visit/visit-days/
Sources:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/college-visits
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