Same Household, Different Audiences: How Colleges Navigate Appealing to Both Parents and to Prospective Students

How safe is your campus?

What opportunities will I have to get engaged in campus life?

What jobs are graduates landing after graduation?

What is the average student debt upon graduation?

What support services does the college offer?

Cindy Peterson, Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Enrollment at Piedmont College says these are questions both prospective students and their parents ask. With such a large decision at hand, it’s no surprise that trends would arise among students and families trying to determine what’s best for them. Perhaps most challenging to the college marketing professional is this reality: students and parents don’t necessarily see the college search through similar lenses.

Students typically ask the now – or nearly now – questions. What will life on campus be like? Do I think I’ll be successful (or hard will I have to work)? Do I relate to the students in the admission viewbooks?

Meanwhile, parents often muse over the intersection of affordability and value: “OK, we can afford this place, but is it worth it? Put more bluntly, brand and reputation matter (including what other parents think). There’s a fear among some moms and dads that the very survival of their child hinges on which college is selected. A quick review of the alma maters of this country’s leaders reveals a diversity of private and public, small and large, and name brand and less well-known institutions.

A college choice, of course, isn’t just a college choice, it’s a life choice. It’s a future choice. And while the future can’t be predicted in its entirety, many students and families hope to gain whatever knowledge they can about how both their short-term and long-term futures may look based on their college decisions.

What is critical, though, to any student recruitment or marketing plan is distinct messaging for students and parents. Merely copying parents on what is sent to students misses a great opportunity to acknowledge parents as a unique and highly influential audience.

Brittani Watkins, Charleston Southern University's Assistant Director for Traditional Admissions, said she often hears,

What kind of financial aid can your institution offer my student?

What job opportunities are available within my major of interest?

Where are your alumni currently working?

How will I gain field experience for my resume while I am a college student?

How do I cover a remaining balance after my financial aid is applied?

On the one hand, these collaboratively asked questions may seem to cover all of the bases when it comes to college admissions. But there’s so much more going on behind the curtain within homes of graduating high school seniors, and savvy enrollment professionals like Peterson and Watkins know how to navigate these linked, but contrasting audiences.

“We must also be careful not to assume students and parents have conversations at home comparing and contrasting what each is looking for in the college search,” said Dr. David Mee, vice president for enrollment management at Campbell University. “Indeed, there may actually be two quite different searches occurring simultaneously.”

Both Peterson and Watkins pointed out that, while students may ask about career outcomes, it’s much more likely to be a higher priority for parents. Or, while parents may ask about residence life, students are more likely to have detailed questions about campus living. So, how do professionals like Peterson and Watkins differentiate their approaches to people who live in the same household and are making a major decision together?

The key is listening and giving thoughtful responses to what they hear.

One of the basics of solid communication with both parents and students is listening to their shared and unique questions and answering them with respect and helpful information. Everyone walks into an admissions office, or picks up the phone, or answers a Zoom call with different stories. Maybe a parent didn’t attend college and the financial ramifications seem daunting, while their student feels nervous about campus life due to their parents’ inability to share stories from their own pasts. Maybe a student wants to pursue a highly specific career path, while their parent is a public safety professional, concerned about campus security.

These perspectives are simply that—perspectives. They’re not inherently in conflict with each other. They simply reflect differentiated priorities among people of different ages and states, and for whom the college decision will mean different things. For the parent, this decision is one of helping their child launch into their adult life, a meaningful and often frightening concept. For the student, this may be a time of anxiety, excitement, or even apathy.

By taking the time to address individual concerns and questions in personal conversations, and through strategic messaging campaigns based on trends among parent and student questions, colleges and universities can communicate their passion for student success during the pre-enrollment and enrollment processes.

Messages for Moms and Dispatches for Dads: Communicating with Parents of Prospective Students

“Parents want to know about value and the benefits of attending a private liberal arts college,” said Peterson. “They want to be involved in the process with their child, so communications about next steps, expectations for their students, etc. are helpful.”

When a global pandemic and political unrest have many parents feeling fearful about sending their children to college, taking the time to articulate campus safety measures can go a long way. Piedmont College, for example, shares the following statement on its webpage specifically devoted to parents:

“Piedmont College has the safest campus in America according to Niche, a popular website that researches and rates colleges, schools, neighborhoods, and companies. During a time of pandemic and uncertainty, safety is a growing concern with students and parents.

Our success is due to having a faculty and staff take a genuine interest in our students both personally and academically,’ said Piedmont Police Chief Jim Andrews. ‘Piedmont is a community where people look after and out for our neighbors.’”

And Charleston Southern University offers a security section on the parent resources page—which also features sections like “Help Your Student Succeed” with subheadings such as “Allowing Independence, Be Encouraging, and Enjoy the Journey”—that describes the training processes for campus security personnel and gives information about security phones that are distributed across campus and on the campus grounds.

Mee pointed out that parents often have a future orientation—they want to know how the value of their child’s education will demonstrate itself after graduation. Similarly, Watkins said that they “gear the parent emails towards finances, career outcomes, campus safety, and residence life information.”

According to Peterson, the “enrollment rate for students with engaged parents is often much higher.” She also pointed out that “parents are ‘nudgers’, so communicating deadlines, actions needed, etc. allows them the chance to ‘nudge’ their student to complete required steps.”

So how can colleges engage parents who will then nudge their children along in the college decision and admissions process?

Watkins said that email campaigns with questions prompting direct contact with an enrollment counselor are an effective means of reaching parents. For the families of enrolled students, Charleston Southern University facilitates a parents program which “allows our parents and families to remain engaged and informed.” And their CSU Parent Council accepts nominations annually.

Mee said that he sends “separate, periodic videos to the parents of applicants.” In doing so, he can address their questions and concerns that may not be shared by their students.

When it comes to Piedmont College, Peterson noted that admissions events and opportunities for parents to engage with current students at regional and on-campus events can be especially helpful and effective. Peterson also moderates a Facebook parent group built on three tenets: “Communicate. Participate. Know.” The group “is available for parents, guardians and families of current students and alumni. This group has been established to provide the opportunity to connect, share experiences and ask questions about the college.”

Stories for Students: Communicating with Parents

While students certainly have academics and future job possibilities on their minds when choosing their schools and embarking on their college journeys, there’s another key factor that matters a great deal, too: belonging. In “College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective,” Maithreyi Gopalan and Shannon T. Brady found that “belonging predicts better persistence, engagement, and mental health even after extensive covariate adjustment” for students at four-year schools.

Similarly, Terrell L. Strayhorn wrote in College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students that “belonging—with peers, in the classroom, or on campus—is a critical dimension of success at college. It can affect a student’s degree of academic adjustment, achievement, aspirations, or even whether a student stays in school.”

These facts make it abundantly clear—students don’t just need individualized paths to future success. They need present-day, meaningful stories to be part of, and communities where they belong. As Mee observed earlier, parents tend to think about the future. But students consider the present.

In this vein, Peterson said that “messaging to [prospective] students should focus more on the emotional side, appealing to their sense of belonging.” And Watkins noted that Charleston Southern University’s prospective “student emails are about major exploration, financial aid and campus life.”

Piedmont College features residence life videos that show prospective students the inside of residence halls with fellow students ready to welcome them. They also offer a virtual visit that displays their care for keeping student well-being at the center of their college. The videos and accompanying easy-to-digest copy share messages like, “Just ask the 68 percent of Piedmont undergrads who live on campus each year. They will tell you it is the fun, friend-making, connected thing to do,” and “It takes only one walk through the new Student Commons to confirm the fact that Piedmont is student-centered in a big way.”

Mee said that an imaginative approach to reshaping the campus visit may serve both parents and students as well. At another institution he served, his team experimented with parent and prospective student tours, sending them out to see the campus in their own groups. “Students and parents alike seemed to appreciate tours geared toward their unique interests and questions,” Mee stated.

Through a brief degree matching survey, Charleston Southern University invites prospective students to find their fit in a college major and career path as well as within the university community. They also offer virtual tours and virtual open house experiences for students unable to schedule an in-person tour. The virtual open house hosted by the admissions department is also available on Charleston Southern University’s YouTube page. Students can also find program-specific open houses—such as Graphic Design, Nursing, and Public Health—the YouTube page, as well as departmental videos (“Department of Psychology,” “Department of Engineering,” etc.).

These offerings to prospective students help them imagine themselves as members of the school’s story. They can begin to see not only how their academic pursuits will benefit them for future jobs, but how their years in school can also give them friendship, mentorship, and community.

While college decisions are primarily about the student as an individual, wise admissions professionals recognize that it’s also a family decision. Students need to be empowered to pursue the best educational path for them—and one of the best ways to do so is by empowering their parents, too.