The Prospective Student Survey™ in the Eduventures® Research App analyzes responses from the annual survey to better understand the mindsets, expectations, and desired career outcomes for the incoming class’s college experience. It is specific to your institution and therefore provides insights on the unique profile of your incoming student body. Using this report, your team will be able to build effective recruiting and messaging strategies that resonate with the career goals, preferred career development assistance, and desired professions of your prospective students.
Navigating the Report
The Tabs across the top of the report allow you to toggle through different pages containing insights and figures derived from the survey information.
- Demographics provides a breakdown of your institution’s survey respondents vs. our national data set of respondents by common demographic segments - GPA, State, Income, first generation etc.
- Mindsets provides a segmented view of your students based on Student Mindsets our researchers have defined to embody student goals, expectations, and decision making factors for enrolling.
- College Plans details how your students are conducting their college search and what types of institutions have peaked their initial interest.
- Academics shows the academic strength and potential major interests of your incoming class.
- Financials offers an in depth look at your students’ plans for financing college and how financial aid will influence their decisions.
- Geography displays the top institutions being considered by students in your inquiry pool or our national student choice data set.
- Ratings Comparison allows you to compare up to five institutions to understand how students rate their perception of quality and how likely they are to apply to the selected institutions.
- Word Association allows you to compare up to five institutions to understand how students perceive those institutions based on word association like religious, inclusive, well-rounded, or community oriented.
- The Peer Group Comparison allows you to compare your student responses for perceptions of quality to a peer group of institutions.
- Word Cloud provides a visual representation of how students perceive a prospective college by word association.
Within each page you will find filters that allow you to manipulate data within the tables and figures to derive specific insights for your needs. The filters are primarily located on the left side and customized to each page. As an example, Figure 1 is located in the Mindsets tab and would allow you to segment the responses to see the top 5 expectations for a college education of first generation college bound students.
Figure 1. Top 5 Expectations of A College Educations for First Generation Students
Top Insights By Tab
- Demographics
- What are the key demographics of your prospective students compared to the national sample?
- Mindsets
- What is your institution’s unique mindset profile?
- What is important for my prospective students to understand about my college when making their enrollment decisions?
- What outcomes and experiences are my prospective students seeking from their college education?
- Where does affordability and academic environment rank in my incoming classes priorities?
- College Plans
- What types of colleges are my prospective students considering applying to?
- Where are my students in their search process?
- What type of degree are my incoming students planning to pursue?
- Are my students more or less interested in online courses compared to last year?
- Academics
- Are my incoming students more or less academically advanced compared to the national average?
- What is the rigor of the coursework taken in high school by my prospective students?
- Which majors are my prospective students showing interest?
- Which professional programs should I be promoting to students of my incoming class?
- Financials
- How does my incoming class expect to pay for their education?
- Does my incoming class have realistic expectations for financing their college education compared to the national data set?
- Which areas of financial aid does my incoming class need the most assistance understanding to make an informed decision?
- Geography
- Where are my prospective students coming from?
- What other institutions are my prospective students considering?
- Ratings Comparison
- How do my prospective students think my institution compares to the other institutions they are considering?
- How do my prospective students this my institution compares to other comparable institutions?
- Word Association
- What characteristics differentiate my institution from comparable of competing institutions?
- The Peer Group Comparison
- What characteristics are most strongly associated with my school? How does that compare to the national data set or other comparable institutions?
- Word Cloud
- What are the top 50 words most closely associated to my school by students?
- What negative words or perceptions should I consider investigating to re-educate my incoming students of the value of my institution?
- What positive brand perceptions have I missed capitalizing on in my messaging?
About the Research
The Prospective Student Survey is conducted from December to the following January. Participation in the survey can be discussed with your Encoura® Regional Director or Eduventures Client Research Analyst directly, or by emailing contact@encoura.org.