Getting the Most Out of Your School’s Third-party Rankings and Recognitions

Every school knows that highlighting third-party rankings or recognitions can be a powerful, persuasive tactic. Rankings offer prospective students and parents a third-party signifier—an unbiased indicator of quality when it comes to academic rigor, affordability, extracurricular opportunities, academic quality, and more.

While many schools know these can be an important aspect of their marketing efforts, there are certain things they can do to get the most out of these well-earned rankings and recognitions. Below are three ways to help ensure rankings and recognitions are serving your marketing efforts and being seen—and appreciated—by prospective students and their parents.

Unpack What Your Rankings and Recognitions Mean for Students

Many schools simply cite their rankings and recognitions on their website or printed material—with a graphic or logo—in order to indicate third-party approval. Often, schools will include them on their website homepage to immediately engage visitors.

While this can be effective, it can be helpful to also draw your rankings and recognitions into a larger narrative. True, it’s valuable to cite a ranking or recognition in an easy-to-understand, concise way, and a well-designed graphic can certainly do that, but it’s better to go a step further.

Instead of just including ranking about affordability on your financial aid homepage, how about accompanying it with copy that unpacks why your school has been recognized? Instead of merely citing that your faculty have been recognized for their outstanding teaching, what about explaining how their classrooms are set apart?

Why? Because students are used to seeing a hodgepodge of rankings and recognitions on school websites, often glancing over them without really understanding how this or that particular ranking matters to their personal college experience.

Share Your Rankings and Recognitions with Strong Messaging through Multiple Channels

Some schools only include their rankings and recognitions in a single place, like their homepage or the back of a primary undergraduate admissions brochure. But there are many other channels where awards can be shared, though you’ll often need to dress them up with strong messaging and storytelling.

For example, you might ask a student to write an article about how their personal experience has helped them understand for themselves why the school has been recognized as a great teaching institution or having a campus committed to sustainability.

Or you could send out a mini email campaign unpacking a specific recognition in which you detail the various initiatives that have resulted in this particular recognition. The key is adopting the point above—unpacking why your school has been recognized and how it affects students—and then sharing it on as many channels as you can, like Abilene University, who covered their rankings in straightforward news articles as well as creative social media posts.

Lipscomb University promoted a similar news story that goes even deeper. The story includes quotes from current faculty about how the recognition reflects their nursing program. It also details unique features of the program, including its simulation laboratory and Christ-centered approach that allows students to join in medical mission trips and other international educational experiences.

Think Beyond U.S. News and World Report

The U.S. News and World Report rankings tend to be the most popular. They’re a valuable tool in your marketing arsenal, and it’s worth promoting them if your school has earned a respectable ranking in one of its many categories.

However, there are other ranking and recognition sources out there—and some might actually be a better fit for the features and offerings that best encapsulate your school’s mission. Since many faith-based schools are smaller and tend to be more committed to teaching than research, they may be at a disadvantage when compared to larger public or private schools when it comes to popular rankings like that of U.S. News and World Report.

The good news is there are other legitimate third-party rankings and recognition services out there. For example, Colleges of Distinction is a third-party organization within higher ed that focuses on recognizing smaller schools according to four distinctions: Engaged Students, Great Teaching, Vibrant Community, and Successful Outcomes.

As mentioned above, while simply including a graphic indicating a specific ranking or recognition is fine, it can be more compelling to integrate rankings into your messaging and storytelling across multiple channels. This is especially the case when you’re citing a recognition that, while worthwhile, may not be as easily recognizable to the majority of prospective students and parents.

Of course, it’s important to do due diligence when considering lesser-known third-party ranking and recognition organizations to ensure they are legitimate and have a clear, refined process for evaluating schools. You can do this by looking to see what other schools have been recognized as well as asking the organization how it determines its rankings or recognitions.

Ultimately, by explaining why particular rankings and recognitions matter to prospective students and their parents, using strong and compelling messaging across multiple channels, and considering other third-party ranking and recognition organizations, you can help boost your marketing efforts – leaving current students feeling a sense of personal benefit, prospective students with piqued interest, and all constituents proud of your school’s accomplishments.