Why Scoir Isn't Your Typical College Student Recruitment Tool

Did you know that approximately 60% of high schoolers enroll in college? Of those that go to college, only about 60% graduate. 

12 years ago we set out on a mission to expand access and improve outcomes for high school students.

We started by offering tools to students and high schools to support the college search and selection process. It’s been just over 3 years since we launched Premium Presence for colleges to help the right students connect with the right colleges.

Since then, over 1,700 colleges have partnered with us to rethink their recruitment strategy and change the conversation around the admissions process. In the past 3 years, 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 it's driving results. Here's how.

1. Being Truly Student Centered

At Scoir, we take a truly student-centered approach to admissions marketing. 

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.

Back in January 2021, 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. The Search Cliff points to a changing admissions process where student data is protected more, pushing colleges to pursue other avenues to reach students.

At Scoir, we don't sell student PII. Instead of focusing on generating as many top-of-the-funnel leads as possible like many enrollment marketing tools, we connect colleges with high-intent students who are already expressing interest. 

And it works. Starting in 2020, 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.

Another college we partnered with saw a 32x ROI on their investment in Scoir in just 1 year, achieving an even more impressive Message open rate of 76% on their very first Message. 93% of the students that applied to the school on Scoir were admitted. 

Curious to learn more? Read more Scoir success stories.

2. Actionable Data-Powered Insights

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 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. A Mission That Makes all the Difference

Our mission at Scoir is to build powerful software that expands access and improves outcomes. 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. 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 changing college admissions for the better.