Did you know only about 30% of high school graduates become college graduates? Ten years ago we set out on a mission to expand college access and improve collegiate outcomes
We started by offering tools to students and high schools to support the college search and selection process. It’s been just over a year since we launched our enrollment marketing solutions for colleges to help the right students connect with the right colleges. Since then over 160 colleges have partnered with us to rethink their recruitment strategy and change the conversation around the admissions process. In the past year, we’ve learned a lot about what differentiates our offerings from the status quo. Importantly, we don't sell targeted advertising anywhere on our platform. We provide tools for students to discover the right college, based on their interests and preferences, and engage with the schools they’re interested in without selling personal data. Students are in the driver's seat at Scoir and we don't compromise that, even with our offering for partner colleges. We’re doing things differently and its driving results. Here's how.
1. What it means to be truly student centered
At Scoir, we take a truly student-centered approach to admissions marketing. How? We don’t send colleges names to drop into email workflows. We help best-fit students discover colleges by dynamically surfacing their existing content that’s relevant to each individual student's preferences. Then we provide the tools for schools to meaningfully engage with interested students and their families in the space where they’re focused on all things admissions.
In January, we hosted Dustin Lynn from Battleground Academy on the Inside Admissions podcast to talk through why colleges should reconsider name buys. Students may not know what they’re consenting to when signing up for tests and services that sell their data. Already overwhelmed by the college admissions process, students' inboxes become inundated with emails from colleges that they never expressed interest in. At Scoir, we don't sell student PII. Instead of focusing on generating as many top of funnel leads as possible like many enrollment marketing tools, we connect colleges with high intent students who are already expressing interest.
And it works. We partnered with a small, selective private college and they saw a significant increase in student engagement with an average open rate of 51% for prospecting messages on Scoir versus an average open rate of 35% for emails. That same partner college was also able to increase their applications through Scoir by 160%. That translates to more enrolled students. On average, the yield for Scoir students who read a message from a college is 12% higher than the typical college yield.
2. Data powered insights you can act on
Ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of data in your CRM? At Scoir, we empower you with unique, actionable insights about your prospective students in an easily digestible dashboard. You can track audience growth over time, identify where you have the most interested students to expand your geographic reach, and make strategic planning decisions based on student interests.
Our emphasis on data ties back to the first point about students being at the core of everything we do. We collect rich data about students to provide a more personalized experience throughout the platform. Our content management system (CMS) surfaces relevant content about colleges to students based on their preferences, so students don’t have to dig for information about what’s most important to them. This data is presented in aggregate to partner colleges so they know where to focus their efforts, whether it’s adding content or creating new messages about a trending major or popular interest. Ever wondered what the top interests are for your prospective students living in the Northeast or how the interests of first gen students differ? We can provide those answers!
The best part? Our data-driven services provide results. One of our partners, LSU, broke through the top of funnel noise by utilizing the CMS and outreach messaging to scalably create personalized experiences for students earlier in the college discovery process. As a result, they increased their yield rate by 16% for students who read messages on Scoir and 9% of their incoming class in 2021 were students on Scoir.
3. Mission matters
Our mission at Scoir is to expand college access and improve collegiate outcomes by simplifying the admissions process. We believe students are more than their test scores and colleges are more than their rankings. That’s why we’re creating the tools for students, high schools, and colleges to make meaningful connections beyond numbers. And because we believe the college search and selection process should favor every student, we're free for students and offer a significant discount to Title I eligible schools. Since our founding, we’ve provided free access to the platform to over 800,000 students at Title I eligible schools. We take that further with our college offering by providing a discount to reward colleges who are also focused on expanding college access. The more Pell eligible students colleges enroll, the greater the pricing discount.
Why are we focused on expanding college access? Higher education is the gateway to expanded opportunities for advancement, yet far too many high school students fail to realize those opportunities. Only half of high school graduates go to college. Of those students, 27% transfer and 30% drop out. And as we opened this blog with, only about 30% of high school graduates become college graduates. We set out to fix a flawed college admissions process to help students find the right college the first time and persist to graduation. With the help of our college partners, we’re starting to initiate change.
