This year—maybe because I have more high school seniors in my personal orbit—I’ve been surprised at how many still have not decided where they will enroll this fall. But, I’m reminded when looking at MARKETview that about 32% of ultimate deposits occur in the final two weeks of April, which always makes for a stressful sprint to the finish.
What if I told you your destiny is more within your control than you may realize?
From optimizing communications to managing outreach at scale, it’s easy to overlook one of the most powerful (and measurable) signals you already have in front of you: campus visitors.
Yes, those prospective students walking your quad, sitting in on info sessions, and chatting with tour guides could be your most underutilized asset—not just in influencing yield, but in reducing the guesswork and nail-biting that often define this season.
Quick Question #1
How does your overall yield rate from last year compare to the yield rate of students who visited your campus? The answer can be quite telling.
How students engage with your institution matters, and visiting campus—as we know—is a strong show of interest. Among MARKETview partners, the average yield rate was 16.2% for the Entering Class of 2024. However, students who visited campus yielded a full 21 percentage points higher at 37.4%.
The percentage of admitted students who have visited campus has been very consistent over the last three cycles, hovering around 27%. There is a slight dip in visitor percentage this cycle (26.4%), driven by a 3.6pp increase in admit volume.
Quick Question #2:
How many admitted students visited campus for the first time in the final month leading up to May 1? The MARKETview data tells us that most of the time, it’s a very small percentage.
Only an average of 3% of admitted students wait until April to visit for the first time (though this varies for institutions that draw from farther distances). So, while you may be feeling unsure about how your class is shaping up, a significant portion of the students who will ultimately enroll have already given you a major signifier of their likely deposit behavior—whether they visited your campus or not.
MARKETview Enhances Your Vision Into Visitors
Ask yourself—what else do you know about your visitors? Are you analyzing the composition of that pool?
With MARKETview’s support, our partners are further dissecting their visitor pools to be sure certain populations critical to reaching both headcount and revenue goals are well represented.
For example, not all segments of students contribute to revenue generation equally. Do you think about this equation when analyzing your visitors?
MARKETview’s consumer data shows students from households earning more than $200,000 annually visit at higher rates. However, they are experiencing a larger drop this year in terms of the percentage of admitted students compared to students from lower-income households.
Perhaps you have a goal to grow your in-state enrollments … or maybe you want to expand your out-of-state markets. How is visit volume trending for those populations? What about as a percentage of your admitted pool? These questions are more critical to reaching your goals than you may realize, and MARKETview can provide the answers in a matter of seconds.
Prioritize Visitors in Your Last-Minute Yield Strategies
With limited time to tip the scale in your favor, prioritize late-stage investment of staff time and financial resources on high-yielding visitors, specifically within the populations that give you the best chance of reaching your goals.
Ultra personalized communication such as follow-up emails from admissions counselors, peer-to-peer calls from current students, handwritten notes from faculty, exclusive invitations, and/or other creative engagement strategies will go a long way.
Additionally, Admitted Student Events are a fantastic opportunity to engage repeat visitors and their parents/guardians in a different-in-kind way.
As the final weeks of the enrollment cycle unfold, every moment counts—and so does every interaction. For enrollment teams anxiously watching their class come together, now is the time to lean in, not sit back. Taking strategic action with your most critical populations can shift the outcome in your favor.
Don’t underestimate the power of those who have previously visited campus in this final stretch—they’re not just data points; they’re signals of intent and provide the best chance of taking control of your destiny