Insights from the Inside: If You’re Guessing What Students Want, You’re Already Wrong

A student’s decision to apply or enroll can pivot on a single click, a single unanswered question, or a single moment on campus. But when you zoom out, it’s the accumulation of dozens of touchpoints that shapes their choice. Every email, webpage, ad, and conversation adds up—not just in what we say, but in how students experience our marketing and recruiting efforts as a whole. But too often, our efforts fall short because they’re built on institutional assumptions instead of real student priorities.

Recent research and case studies reveal opportunities for rethinking digital and on-campus experiences from the ground up by stripping away friction, designing around what students actually want, and creating emotional moments that stick.

Here are five of them.

1. Build from what matters most to students, not what you assume they want

A recent ADV Market Research/Echo Delta study using a Top Tasks methodology found that when students visit Admissions & Financial Aid pages, seven of their top eight priorities are about cost. And yet, cost information is often buried, overly technical, or split across multiple pages.

The same study revealed payment plans ranked as the second most important task on those pages. Yet, few schools feature them prominently or position them as part of the financial aid conversation.

For academic program pages, students want practical, life-fit details (modality, time to completion, schedule) and specific outcomes (career paths, employment rates, alumni stories from your program). This is where many institutions misfire by showcasing content like generic labor market stats instead of answering the question: What happens to students like me who graduate from here?

The kicker? When higher ed professionals were asked to predict student priorities, they were only right about half the time. 

Similarly, RNL’s Dr. Raquel Bermejo found financial anxiety is the top factor stopping students from applying or completing applications. If all students see from you are transactional reminders (“Your transcript is missing”), you risk missing the real barrier.

The takeaway is clear: we need to let real student behavior and needs guide content and experience decisions. 

Do This: Put payment plan info front and center on Financial Aid pages, in plain language.

Not That: Hide it three clicks deep in a PDF or scatter it across multiple pages.

2. Make your website fast and frictionless

Angelo State proved how transformative this can be. By redesigning their program pages to support a natural, intuitive student journey, they saw a 370% increase in requests for information (RFIs) in just one month. 

The team prioritized prospective student needs first and layered in content for parents, reducing clutter and restructuring pages to answer top questions in real time. They embedded short, program-specific RFI forms directly on each page to make it quick and easy for students to take action, and added clear financial aid and scholarship information so affordability questions were addressed without extra clicks.

Think of your program pages as your 24/7 digital recruiters. They need to anticipate questions, answer them clearly, and give students a reason to take the next step.

Do This: Anticipate and answer student questions. Deploy tools that can help you make traditional forms more dynamic and behavior-driven.

Not That: Make students dig through menus to find tuition info or contact forms.

3. Rethink your email strategy: less is more

As consultant Jeremy Tiers points out, longer emails tend to get ignored. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are used to quick, to-the-point communication. Overloading them with paragraphs of copy, multiple links, and competing CTAs isn’t just ineffective, it’s overwhelming.

Instead:

• Focus on one key message per email
• Keep it scannable and short enough to read in under 30 seconds
• End with a direct, specific question to invite a reply (“What’s the one thing you most want to know about our nursing program?”)
  

Shorter emails don’t just get read more. They also build a communication brand that promises students you won’t waste their time.

Do This: Send a 3–4 sentence email with a single, relevant CTA.
Not That: Overload with multiple paragraphs, links, and competing CTAs.

4. Use progressive profiling to connect every interaction

From the first form fill to later-stage outreach, progressive profiling ensures you’re collecting the right information at the right time. The team at Purdue University's Mitch Daniels School of Business shared in a recent podcast that the goal is to build a complete picture of each student’s interests and intent over time, without causing form fatigue.

Start with easy, non-intrusive questions (intended major, biggest college concern) in your earliest touchpoints. Use their responses to trigger more personalized follow-ups. By the time they’re deep in your funnel, you’ll have rich insights to guide one-on-one conversations and targeted content.

Do This: Ask “What’s your intended major?” in the first form, then follow up later about career goals.

Not That: Ask for everything (address, GPA, test scores, extracurriculars) in the first interaction.

5. Make in-person visits an emotional turning point.

The most effective visit days aren’t just tours and info sessions; they’re choreographed moments that immerse students in stories they can see themselves in. 

That means having current students share authentic, unscripted experiences that speak to prospective students’ hopes and fears, designing spaces and activities that bring your brand promise to life (think a collaborative classroom, a service project, or a hands-on lab demo), and ensuring every person they meet, from faculty to financial aid, reinforces the same core messages they’ve already seen online.

This approach works just as well for virtual visits, where those same authentic moments can be repurposed through short videos, live Q&As, and informal student-faculty conversations. When the digital journey and the in-person visit feel connected and consistent, you create the emotional momentum that turns “I’m interested” into “I’m enrolling.”

Do This: End a campus tour in a bustling student space where visitors can chat with real students.

Not That: Rely only on a scripted info session and a walk across campus.

Students aren’t comparing your institution to just your competitors. They’re comparing it to every frictionless, personalized, emotionally engaging experience they’ve ever had. When you design every touchpoint with their real priorities in mind, you don’t just inform them, you move them.