Last month, as the spread of COVID-19 forced colleges and universities across the nation to quickly close and transition to fully-online environments, Spark451 Research sent a brief survey to parents of current first-year college students. Our goal was to begin assessing the potential long-term enrollment-related effects of those changes.

In just a few days, more than 950 parents of first-year college students responded to our survey. To access all the results, download the full report today. You’ll gain valuable insights on topics such as:

How parents feel their children have adjusted to remote learning
Whether parents expect their children to return to the same institutions in the fall
If parents still feel they can afford to send their children back to school

If you’d like to discuss any of these topics further, feel free to reach out. We’d be honored to help you navigate any student search and enrollment challenges you may be facing as a result of COVID-19.

In the meantime, we hope that you, your loved ones, and your entire campus community are healthy and safe.

As the world continues to grapple with the economic fallout of COVID-19, now is the time to reconsider your approach to graduate recruitment. If history and the nation’s recent record-breaking unemployment numbers are any indication, we are likely to see a wave of recent graduates and mid-career professionals heading back to school as they wait out the volatile job market.

To help you prepare for this influx, we invite you to watch a recording of our recent webinar, “The Art and Science of Data-Enriched Graduate Student Recruitment.” During this session, Mike McGetrick, Spark451’s Principal, Creative & Interactive Services, and JC Bonilla, Element451’s Chief Analytics Officer, teamed up to discuss how you can use data to enhance your graduate recruitment efforts.

Watch the recording to discover how to:

• Build a data-enhanced pipeline using data enrichment, behavioral analytics, and persona development
• Create dynamic segments based on student behavior
• Utilize enhanced data to reach students via targeted marketing and highly-personalized messaging

Admissions pros know that parents play a critical role in the college search process, but it isn’t always easy to know exactly what these key influencers are thinking. To help meet that need, Spark451 Research recently conducted an expansive survey of parents of Fall 2019 college freshmen.

In our recent webinar, enrollment strategy expert Pete Colbert released the findings of the 2019–2020 College-Bound Survey: Parent Edition, which features feedback from nearly 900 parents from 46 states. Some of the results will be eye-opening for even the most seasoned enrollment managers!

Watch the recording to gain insights about:

• Parents’ perception of the value of print vs. digital communications
• Which communication tactics resonate best with parents
• Which application incentives resonate best with parents (and the potential impact of NACAC’s new rules)
• Whether most parents would encourage a child to transfer if they received a better offer from a competing school
• The timing of the search process and when parents helped their children commit to schools
• Whether the Excelsior program was compelling to parents in New York
• Plus: Hear emerging feedback about how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting parents’ and students’ enrollment decisions beyond this spring

You’ll also have the opportunity to download the full report!