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Ghosting 101: 4 Ways to Re-Engage Prospective Students

by Sirley Carballo · Updated Mar 30, 2022

It's time to make it official. 2022 is the year of engagement. We make recruiting easier and the well-being of students a priority by helping you stay in touch with students regularly.

By anticipating needs, having answers to common questions, and providing value, you can drive engagement, streamline the recruiting process, and keep students (and parents) happy.

Forget theory. This blog kicks off an entire series about the actual tactics you can implement to drive engagement and make everything better in 2022.

Issue: Ghosting


When prospective students achieve a milestone (submitting an information request, having a conversation with a counselor, starting an application, etc.) and then go silent or disappear.

Female student sits at a laptop.

Remedies: 

1. Review your content and channels.
Is what you're sending out still relevant? Are you sending out the kind of information prospects (and students) actually care about? Equally as important, are you using the channels that drive engagement? SMS over email. Tik Tok vs Instagram. Online vs paper.

2. Try alternate senders.
Context is crucial, and this includes when sending any kind of messaging. Who is it that messages are coming from? Is it a generic address or a recruiter? Why not use a major department chair or someone more closely related to the student of prospects field of study. The who matters as much as the what.

3. Incentivize them to come to campus.
Nothing beats seeing a campus in real life and the level of control you have over the in-person experience. The key here again is to customize the visit to the individual. What do they want to see, what are they interested in? A generic tour just won't cut it.

4. Engage in affordability topics.
No one wants to be surprised by money or the cost of something. While it's easy to shy away from having hard discussions, everyone appreciates honesty. The sooner we have difficult conversations, the better things will work out.

An image of three students at a work table on their laptops laughing

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Tell Us What's Working

We've all had to deal with our fair share of prospects disappearing (ghosting). While it's impossible to get every lost recruit back, we're confident that if you try at least a couple of these ideas, you'll make a noticeable difference.

If you do, we'd love to hear about it. So drop us a line and let us know what worked, what didn't and if you have any new ideas to add (we'd love to include your school in a future installment of this series).


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