E-expectations of parents
When I was at the eduWeb conference at the end of July, Noel-Levitz presented some information about the e-expectations of parents. Unfortunately, the presentation that was given didn’t spend enough time on the data that was collected. It was apparent that I needed to take a second look because there is some interesting information. I have been wanting to sift through the data for about a month now, but haven’t quite made it that far yet. Luckily Karine Joly of higheredexperts.com put the information together in an easy to read pdf.
Here is a quick highlight of what I found interesting:
- 80% of parents prefer to go to the Web site for information, but if it is a school they really like, they will call or read brochures to get answers.
- 56% of parents help their student with some of the research and paper work.
- 40% of parents have submitted a form for their student.
- 83% of parents would prefer to receive email messages to communicate with the institution.
- 88% expect their student to enroll during the fall semester.
- 91% of those surveyed had high speed internet
- 44% said they have not and would not like to read a student or faculty blog
The first bullet is particularly interesting since we currently don’t have any budget for our Web site. If 80 percent of parents are going to the Web site for information, we probably should invest some time and money into building quality into our content and using new tools to showcase the institution. Perhaps we need to refocus the publications budget 20 percent?
It is also particularly interesting that parents would prefer to receive email messages when communicating with the institution. We do a great job with the parents of our existing students. But there is a lot of room for improvement for our prospective parents.
The last piece that I will touch on are the student and faculty blogs. Obvisouly this is not the target audience for our bloggers, but it is particularly interesting that so many parents aren’t interested in a first-hand account of what it is like to be a student at a school they, or their child, is interested in.
The trend that we have known for a while now is that parents are becoming ever-more important in the recruiting process. It is also becoming apparent that print publications are no longer front and center as a primary information source. If parents are going to the Web for information, what can we do to cater to their needs?
