4 Responses

1. Karine Joly

   September 25th, 2006 at 3:48 pm

   1

   I guess you meant: Bob Sevier of Stamats - big name in higher marketing. He writes the marketing column at University Business.

   Staymates is really nice though I kind of like it.

2. Sam Jackson

   September 25th, 2006 at 7:12 pm

   2

   Oops, thanks for keeping me on my toes. If it helps, NPR spelled them both wrong first… here’s my little source: http://www.google.com/search?q=staymates (see the listing for the NPR page I link to; it lists it as “severe” and “staymates” in google’s cache !)

3. Brian Niles

   October 14th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

   3

   Interesting points about colleges starting to recruit students earlier. I work with about 450 colleges in communicating with students and I find about 95% of them can’t handle communicating with students before the middle of their junior year. I suspect students and their families are the ones starting the search early - not necessarily because of what the colleges are doing. An exception might be the best of the best colleges, but same goes for the best of the best students too.

   This was the first year that 50% of the PSAT takers were younger than their junior year in high school (2% were 8th graders!).

   Question to you: should colleges be more proactive in pursuing students in their sophomore year?

4. Sam Jackson

   October 14th, 2006 at 6:18 pm

   4

   Thanks for stopping by, and a special thanks for that mention yesterday! The traffic reminded me of those heady days of August…

   My answer to your question is perhaps not what you would like to hear, but we’ll continue regardless.

   I don’t think colleges should be pursuing students in their sophomore year, from the standpoint of the student. I don’t think it’s healthy. I agree with Marilee Jones on that account.

   The next question is: but does it work? And that I can’t answer–that’s something that I think a lot of statistics and time could tell us. I don’t know if I agree with Sevier that it is necessary to get us “as puppies” to really cement brand image.

   What I do know is that growing up in Newton, MA and going into Harvard Square, going into Boston, going into Cambridge… I dreamed of going to Harvard ever since I was very young. I was taken into the city before I could even walk and would go in every day thereafter, more or less–god bless the T–so I don’t even know how long that was for. It just fit into my “perfect life” sort of fantasy–a familiar story, I’m sure.

   I am still interested in Harvard, but now there are lots of places that I feel could be just as good for me–some maybe even better!

   Obviously Harvard is in a… special place, in terms of brand. Should others try to emulate it, or hold a candle to its crimson torch of prestige marketing? What’s more, Harvard never did anything to market to me–nothing directly, at least. Society did all the work.

   I hear that WashU is notorious for trying to get students interested very early (and sometimes dashing their hopes?). But the end-all here is that without having experienced this or having any particular even second-hand knowledge of it, I can’t really speak to it on any scientific level.

   I don’t think starting things earlier does very much to “smooth out” the process and make it perhaps less arduous by virtue of its early beginnings. It might be that it starts accelerating early and just gets worse than usual. Colleges marketing themselves to sophomores leans too much towards tobacco industry type techniques, in my mind. It’s not so obviously exploitative, but I don’t know that it is a sound choice from the sophomores perspective (to repeat myself). I don’t know that it would be money well-spent, either.

   That PSAT figure is horrifying, by the way. I just sigh when I talk to the 10th graders who are soon to take the PSAT. “It doesn’t really matter for anything, nor is it helpful. You know it only is offered to earlier years because some smart person at College Board realized they could double their revenue…” and they’ll admit that, yes, they’ve been duped, but “it won’t hurt” or “whatever” or “was only __ dollars.” Yet they complain that they have to get up early on parent’s weekend.

   What a long-winded and circuitous answer! By the way, I got your e-mail–I will get to it shortly, but it merits serious pondering and I’ll devote a whole post to it, I think. I took the SATs today so I’m still in ‘relax’ mode for a little while yet.