What Your Students Are Telling You

When I was leading the enrollment and marketing efforts at Lawrence University, I used to look forward to our annual summer road trips to the Human Capital office in Chicago to review the results of that year’s Admitted Student Research. 

A small crew from our admissions, financial aid, and marketing team and I would pile into a university van and head south for a day of digging into what our admitted students had just told us about how they made their college decisions—whether they chose to enroll at Lawrence or elsewhere. 

Most Human Capital clients didn’t get their results this way. But proximity made it easy for us to turn the day into a mini-retreat on wheels: a little bonding on the Wisconsin interstate, several hours digesting data together, and time to start shaping strategy for the coming cycle. 

It was a nerd fest of the best kind. 

Each year, the Admitted Student Research study offers a rich picture of how more than 100,000 admitted students nationwide think about their college choices: what mattered most, what tipped the scale, and which institutions earned their trust. 

We’ve shared several of those findings in a recent Human Capital post highlighting early insights from this year’s survey. (Human Capital also produces a parent survey report.) 

The descriptive data alone are fascinating, but the strategic payoff comes when teams dig into the results together and start asking deeper questions: 

• • What are students actually valuing when they look at our institution? 

• • Where are we over- or under-investing based on what they’re telling us? 

• • Which signals should shape how we talk about the institution going forward? 

• • What should we do differently because of what students are telling us? 

When leadership teams interpret these findings together—especially with the strategic guidance of a Human Capital enrollment expert—a few kinds of insights tend to emerge. At Lawrence, three in particular shaped how we approached the next recruitment cycle. 

1. What’s pulling students toward you … and where are you losing them? 

We already knew which students enrolled and where their areas of academic interest were. The research helped us understand why, and it sharpened how we talked about our academic strengths and clarified which programs were acting as genuine strengths. 

It also showed us where we were missing the mark.  

In one striking example, we learned that one of our strongest academic programs was disproportionately losing students to the competition. A deeper look revealed that our messaging wasn’t as clear as our competitors’. We clarified it significantly, and the following year, the program reached a 50:50 parity in deposits to declines. 

2. Where internal narratives don’t match student priorities 

Institutions usually have a cherished set of beliefs about what matters most to students. Sometimes those beliefs are right. Other times, the research politely points out that students care about other things.  

That feedback is gold. It helps teams redirect time, energy, and resources toward the themes that actually influence decisions—not just the ones we wish did. This can also provide powerful evidence for enrollment leaders to use when educating faculty, administration, and trustees. 

It’s one of the fastest ways to tighten institutional storytelling. 

3. Calibrating relationship temperature 

Enrollment teams want to signal care, attention, and support throughout the decision process. But the line between “supportive” and “overly eager” can be thin.  

Student feedback in the survey helped us find a healthier balance—ensuring our outreach felt like support without unintentionally creating pressure or fatigue. 

Good communication is not about volume. It’s about resonance and coherence.

Those summer sessions reinforced something I believe even more strongly today: the discipline of slowing down to interpret student feedback together is one of the most strategic advantages an enrollment team can have. 

The Admitted Student Research study gives a clear window into how students experienced their decision process and what ultimately shaped their choice. The strategic opportunity is to treat those insights not just as information, but as signals that can sharpen messaging, refine strategy, and better align institutional priorities with what students value. 

In a landscape full of assumptions about what matters to students, listening carefully—and shaping strategy accordingly—is the competitive edge.