Five Reasons Why Your School's Value Proposition is King

The impetus behind this post is important to understand, perhaps more so than any of the other prior posts. We have discussed enrollment management, strategic planning, the role of the admissions director, being more data driven – but this post on value proposition is probably the most direct approach to turning prospective families into actual applications. It cuts to the chase and allows you to begin an evaluation of your message and learn why you need to communicate it clearly. Each school’s identity is made up of several things: mission statement, history of the school, teaching philosophy, to name a few. These are essential elements that help make up a community of learners. They do not make up the value proposition; that stands by itself. A value proposition is a statement that speaks directly to the value of a school’s program. It highlights a school’s core values; it differentiates your school from its competition, and it identifies the benefit of enrollment. And they come in all shapes and sizes. But they are usually one paragraph, two at the most and are never labeled as “A Value Proposition” but they live on one of the main pages of the website close to the mission.

Here is why the value proposition is so important for schools in the 21^st century.

Some independent schools in our country were founded in the 1700’s. Many are over 100 years, 150 years, 200 years old. They have rich traditions and a school culture that spans back many years. Marketing is not one of those traditions. Rather, it is a new journey and one school’s do not do very well.

All schools have their rituals, routines and ruts. Rituals are never to be changed, like a graduation ceremony or the passing of the senior rings to juniors. Routines are more like dress codes or schedules: they change every so often to better reflect the times or new philosophy. Ruts are things that schools have done for so long and don’t even know they are doing them or that they don’t work, but they continue doing them anyway because that is the way it has always been done. Marketing in schools is a rut. For hundreds of years schools did not need to market their strengths. Family’s came every year and the applications followed. Seats were filled. Very little effort needed to be exerted to fill the seats. Times have changed and we now need to be more direct as ever, purposely working towards a full school. And it’s not easy. Schools cannot simply rest on their laurels anymore.

The top five reasons why your school’s Value Proposition is king:

1. Current State of Our Economy

We saw a tremendous downturn in our economy in 2008 and our enrollments suffered because families were scared to spend their money. After a recent, slight recovery, we are seeing that families are willing to spend their money again. The difference this time is that “value" is of the utmost importance. Millennials are value shoppers where they must be entirely convinced that they will get their money’s worth. Schools can communicate this through their value proposition.

2. Competition From Other Schools

The competition from others schools is tougher than ever. With more school options like other private schools with similar missions, Charter Schools, Religious Schools and the free, public choice down the road, parents have many schools from which to choose. Your School’s Value Proposition will differentiate your school from the competition.

3. Tuition Driven Budgets

The majority of independent schools are at least 80% tuition driven, which means every tuition dollar counts. For schools to deliver the program they market, they need to meet the budget. They need to train and pay those fabulous faculty members, have the latest technology, and support the infrastructure that every school must have. Your School’s Value Proposition will help solidify applications and turn them into active families.

4. Communication Has Changed

Our attention span has decreased dramatically over the years. Prospective parents read in sound bytes, which means schools have very little time to get their point across. And if prospective students are reviewing the website, you have even fewer moments because they don’t stick around long and want to be entertained. Videos that communicate your value proposition are very effective.

5. Families Are Value Driven

They can afford to be picky now because it is a buyer's market. Schools are competing for students. Our current, competitive culture has made our prospective families even more results driven. They want value in everything and they want to see results immediately. Your School’s Value Proposition can exhibit those results.

Adding Context to Data

Here is another excellent post from John Pryor. John offers his insight on how to analyze data and add context to make data more relevant. Gowan Group has recently been discussing this topic here on our own blog. While flawed in its research, the NYT article does reference some reputable independent schools that offer solid advice from their college guidance offices. Below is John Pryor's most recent post:

Too Many Applications? Think Again

John H. Pryor

November 21, 2014

"Do we have a problem with too many high school seniors applying to too many colleges?

That’s what the New York Times thinks.  A front-page article on Sunday (November 15, 2014) about college admissions (Applications by the Dozen, as Anxious Seniors Hedge College Bets) claims that a lot of high school seniors these days are applying to “more colleges than anyone would have previously thought possible.”  The sidebar proclaims that there is “a perfect storm of ambition, neuroses and fear among high school students.” Yikes!

Well, there must be pretty good data behind this, right?  It was on the front page of the New York Times, after all.

To shore up this claim, the reporter cites two high school seniors, one who applied to 29 colleges, and another who applied to 18. Two cases. An N of two.

OK, that’s the human interest side (we have names, a back story, and in one case, a picture of a young woman on her laptop, presumably writing application number 29).  What else? A high school staff member tells a story of one person who applied to 56 schools.  Naviance (a company that, among other things, has a web-based program that helps high school students with the application process) says that 1 student in the US has 60 colleges they are thinking about applying to.

So far I am not really impressed. Two interviews with students and two examples of hearsay.

Finally we get some actual data based on more than a few conversations.  The reporter tells us that the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has a survey that says that in 1990 nine percent of college freshmen had applied to seven or more colleges, and by 2011 (which the reporter tells us is the most recent data), this had risen to 29%.  Now we’ve got some data.

Only it’s not quite right, as this is not a NACAC survey, it’s the CIRP Freshman Survey, which NACAC clearly credits on their website as the source. It looked very familiar to me, since I directed the CIRP Freshman Survey for eight years, and provided the information to NACAC at the time.  We would typically have around 200,000 students represented in the CIRP Freshman Survey database each year (note to reporters, that is not a “2,” it’s “200,000”).

While the source is wrong, the numbers cited are correct.

Even though the reporter did not actually use the most recent data or the most relevant data.  Figures for the class entering in fall of 2013 (not 2011) have been released, and the percentage of four-year college first-year students who applied to seven or more schools rose to 31.6.

But wait, seven schools isn’t what this is about. It’s about 18, or 56, or maybe even 60 if that student using Naviance applies to all the ones being considered.  The CIRP data doesn’t tell us about such high numbers because we topped out the available responses by asking about 12 or more applications. And that’s at 5.9% of the college freshman for 2013.

So make a reasonable guess about how many of those are sending 18, or 56, or even 60 applications.  It’s not very many, is it?  And that same database tells us that the median number of applications per student is still just, well, four. Which seems pretty reasonable.

Why is this on the front page of the New York Times?  The headline was “Applications by the Dozen, as Anxious Seniors Hedge College Bets.”  And while the article does have quotes from guidance counselors that explain that this is not a good strategy, that wasn’t the headline, was it? Why not have a headline of “A Very Small Number of Anxious Seniors are Sending in Too Many College Applications in a Practice that May Actually Hurt Their Chances of Admission”? The message in the headline is that some seniors are hedging their bets by applying to a lot of colleges. Who doesn’t want to hedge a bet?  That’s good.

But this article is not good. It’s playing on the fears of already anxious students (and as a father with a high school junior, it’s scary to their families too). I expect better from the New York Times.

So, don't worry that we have hordes of students applying to 59 (or 60!) colleges. Worry how to pay for college these days. That's the scary part."

Visit John Pryor's blog at Pryor Education Insights.

How To Make College Better, And Why We Need To...

Yes, I know he is my brother, but John Pryor's ideas on improving schools make such sense and support my long-standing theories on 21st Century Skills. Spend the next 15 minutes listening to and learning from one of the greats. Enjoy. [embed]http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAomg-2Rsj8[/embed]