The days of high school seniors visiting college campus before being admitted, or even applying, are waning, higher education officials say. "We're witnessing a real change in consumer behavior as it relates to how (students and families) are checking out the colleges they might attend," said Toby Arquette, vice president for strategic growth, marketing and digital transformation at St. Ambrose University in Davenport.
Rather than using college campus visits to gauge where they want to apply, more students are waiting until they're admitted before stepping foot on campuses. W. Kent Barnds, executive vice president for strategy and innovation at Augustana College in Rock Island, covered this topic in a Dec.
2 Inside Higher Ed column titled "The Campus Visit Is Changing." His inspiration for the article came shortly after meeting with 20 other college enrollment officials from across the county. "We were all talking about campus visits being behind, and it just sort of planted a seed in my mind," he told the Quad-City Times/Dispatch-Argus.
"That feels like a pretty significant shift in behavior." He wondered what might be behind this recent shift in students' campus visit tendencies and reflected on his nearly 30 years in higher education — and his own daughter's current college decision process. Barnds identified a few likely reasons in his column: increasing costs to travel for visits; seeing visits as an investment that makes more sense after being admitted; and having mor.
