The focus for recruiting high school students to Syracuse University is shifting away from the northeast, as studies predict there will be a decline in the region’s college-age population over the next decade.

In addition to recruiting more in the West and Midwest, SU will also employ more digital strategies when trying to attract students to the university, said Donald Saleh, vice president of enrollment management.

The goal of SU’s new focus is to decrease the number of SU students from the Northeast from 75 to 70 percent in the next four to five years, Saleh said.

While 75 percent of current SU students are from the Northeast, Saleh said the university anticipates a decrease in the number of high school graduates from this area within the next few years. As a result, SU will communicate with more students from areas such as Illinois, Georgia, California, Colorado, Texas and Florida, where there will be a buildup of high school graduates, he said.

There will be 10.2 percent fewer public high school and 20.5 percent fewer private high school graduates in the Northeast by 2014-15, according to research conducted by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, among other studies.

The university saw a record number of applicants this year, Saleh said, with 23,000 submitted. Thirty-five percent of those applicants were from students outside of the Northeast, which is a 10 percent increase from previous years.

The acceptances of students who may be entering SU in fall 2010 reflect the university’s efforts to bring more geographic diversity to the campus. There has been a 35 percent increase in acceptances of students from California, a 24 percent increase from Texas and a 44 percent increase from Georgia, Saleh said.

“These are examples of what we know we can do when we pay attention and increase our marketing and recruiting efforts in specific areas,” he said.

SU is revising its marketing strategy to be as cost-effective and technologically savvy as possible, said Daeya Malboeuf, the director of communications and creative services.

“It’s been several years that we’ve been putting together plans to concentrate on different areas of the country,” Malboeuf said. “We are reaching out a lot more electronically and through social media.”

Students are using social networking websites to figure things out for themselves, Malboeuf said. They are communicating with other accepted students or with students who already attend SU to get an idea of campus life and are taking advantage of the virtual tour to help visualize campus, she said.

The university will rely less on printed publications, Saleh said, and there will be a decrease in the number of times SU visits high schools in the Northeast. This is not because SU is losing interest in those high schools, he said, but because the university is becoming more dependent on the Web and alumni contact.

Contact between students and alumni, especially if they are from the same part of the country, is also an important source of communication, Saleh said. Potential students will have more opportunities to hear from SU alumni through the Internet and at events in their towns, he said.

These new efforts will help potential students, especially those from outside the Northeast, become more aware of what SU is about, its academic programs and campus life, Saleh said.

“While distance from home matters a lot to the students”‘ he said, “we are finding that students will be mobile and willing to travel across the country in order to get the college education they are seeking.”

 

Published on March 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm