An article in Science News describes how researchers at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon used high-dimensional geometry to analyze the results of US News & World Report’s college rankings. What they found wasn’t that the rankings are based on flawed criteria (they didn’t address that question) but that the rankings shift dramatically depending on how you prioritize the seven factors USNWR considers.

The researchers argue that the magazine has prioritized these factors arbitrarily, which biases its rankings. Their goal was to see what the rankings looked like if the data were analyzed in ways that took this inherent bias into account.

After reverse-engineering the USNWR data, the researchers mapped the schools onto a seven-dimensional space correlated to the seven criteria. (And that will be the last we speak of seven-dimensional space.) This kind of arrangement viewed all seven categories equally, so the researchers avoided any ranking bias.

Then they examined the schools, ranking the seven criteria in every possible combination. In other words, they modeled all of the possible priorities prospective students might have (and not just the set of priorities USNWR assumes they have, whatever that might be).

The results? They found that the top schools were unaffected—Harvard, Yale, Princeton still rate the highest since they score the highest in all criteria.

Schools that were a bit more uneven could vary wildly, though. Penn State, for example, was 48 according to the magazine’s criteria, but it could also be as high as 1 or as low as 59. That variability evolves because Penn State is the best at making sure students graduate, … but weaker in other aspects. UC Berkeley, on the other hand, was strong in most categories except for one: alumni giving. … As a result, although U.S. News rates UC Berkeley as 21, the university could go as high as 14 or as low as 36.

The researchers suggest that USNWR publish a variety of rankings that reflect representative sets of priorities to combat this bias.

–Taylor Trussell, Stein

To piggyback on Kathryn’s post about the social media session at NACAC, I wanted to mention a blog called Servant of Chaos by a fella in Australia named Gavin Heaton. Gavin describes his blog as an “interactive diary capturing my thinking on branding, digital strategy and the art of storytelling.”

Gavin’s post from September 3rd is focused on best practices in social media. He shares a list of best practices compiled from a variety of sources and adds a new one of his own: Tell a story.

Those of us working in higher education marketing embrace storytelling in the publications we create, the web sites we manage, and the blogs we write…. and this now carries forth into the myriad other social media options available. His succinct list of best practices is definitely worth a read as you continue to build your brand online.

– Jenny Brower, Stein

Bright and early tomorrow morning, I hop on a plane with my colleagues, bound for Seattle, WA. I’m excited about this trip for two reasons: (1) attending NACAC since I had to miss it last year while preparing for maternity leave and (2) visiting Seattle for the first time. My career has provided me with the chance to travel extensively throughout the United States, yet until now, I haven’t stepped foot in the Pacific Northwest.

NACAC is always a great experience. It’s a chance to catch up with folks we only get to see a few times throughout the year – our wonderful clients, friends at institutions we may not work with but always enjoy seeing, and friendly competitors who share the same mission we do – to help our clients in the education market achieve their goals, engage and inspire prospective students, articulate their brand to their many constituents…

As NACAC progresses, we’re going to keep our colleagues back in Atlanta in-the-know as well as our contacts on the institution side who maybe didn’t make the trip to Seattle for NACAC this year or work outside of the admissions area. Last year, grounded in Atlanta, I had to make do with living vicariously through the photos our team posted to Flickr. This year, the ante has been raised and you can stay abreast of NACAC activity in a number of ways. In addition to our blog posts, you can follow us on Twitter or if you’re a Facebook member, check us out there! If you’ll be in Seattle, please visit us in the exhibit area — booth #712.

Signing off. Back to packing…

 – Jenny Brower, Stein

My colleague, Jennifer Bagley, brought a  New York Times article to my attention this morning about Unigo.com. Learning about Unigo.com reminded me of a quote by Marcus Aurelius I’ve always liked: “Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.”

Unigo.com is a brand new web site geared toward prospective college students and their families. Unigo is a free site with student-generated content and, in theory, serves the same purpose as the comprehensive college guidebooks published each year. The difference is, of course, the fact that the content is 100% student generated and completely free for the user. The good, the bad and the ugly are reported — along with all the positive, glowing impressions a student might have. The site is populated with content through a student-focused grass roots movement rather than enlisting the help of admissions and marketing professionals at colleges and universities it reviews.

Although the concept of student-generated content is not new, the approach and scope of Unigo could be ground-breaking. Unigo’s momentum is building, so if you haven’t encountered it yet, don’t be surprised if your current and prospective students begin talking about it soon…

– Jenny Brower, Stein

Contributed by: Taylor Trussell
Strategic Consultant, Stein Communications

Many books dissect and analyze the Millennial generation, and the views expressed run the gamut from the starry-eyed boosterism of Strauss and Howe’s Millennials Rising to Huntley’s paradoxical conclusions in World According to Y to the sophomoric psychologizing of Generation Me by Twenge. It’s easy to find profiles of this generation, but divining how to translate these profiles into useful marketing strategies isn’t.

Then there’s Lisa Johnson’s Mind Your X’s and Y’s: Satisfying the 10 Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers. What makes this book so different is that it gives you a veritable road map for marketing to Millennials. (While the X in the title obviously refers to Generation X’ers, Johnson maintains that X’ers are more or less following the Millennials’ lead in terms of what’s hot.)

The ten fundamental cravings of this generation, according to Johnson, are:

• Personalization
• A sense of adventure
• Less formal, more focused communities
• Good design
• Ways to filter information
• Peer-to-peer recommendations
• Participation rather than mere consumption
• Brand experiences that create emotional connections
• A sense of spirituality
• Giving back with their time and abilities

All of these have clear applications to educational marketing, but in the interest of space, I’m going to focus on only those cravings most readily adaptable.

Personalization
At first glance, this one seems obvious. Everyone knows you have to personalize. But here’s the twist: Johnson’s point is that mass personalization — pulling names from a database — doesn’t cut it anymore. These kids are used to feeling like the center of attention and tapping into that sense requires personalization that clearly shows a living person was paying attention to them.

Now, of course, you don’t (and, realistically, you can’t) produce genuinely personalized materials for every prospect. Johnson suggests developing ways to personalize materials for “bull’s-eye customers.” How do you deliver a personalized message to bellwether students in new markets, for instance? Or, perhaps you target high school teachers with personalized messages.

A sense of adventure
“Adventure” here doesn’t mean learning to street luge. Rather, there is a craving for engagement that goes beyond everyday experience, and it comes from the fact that experience functions as social currency. Remember, this is a generation that notifies the world of their every move via Facebook and Twitter — uncommon experiences impart cachet, especially among undergraduates, who are really just stepping out into the larger world.

What is your school doing that takes kids out of their ordinary zone? And before you say internships or foreign study, keep in mind that every school can claim these in one way or another. These are requisite experiences, so unless they’re unusually prestigious or exotic, they’re not going to stand out. More importantly, how are you communicating these experiences?

Good design
Today, it’s all about design. Good design has become a competitive edge insofar as good design connotes the good life; it creates an emotional attachment. Just look at the iPod’s following. How many technology companies are churning out me-too products on the basis of Apple’s design?

You’re never going to have to design consumer products, but what Johnson is emphasizing is the high expectations this generation has when it comes to design. Strong and consistently designed communications are key to resonating with your audience. They build confidence in the very idea of your school.

Peer-to-peer recommendations
With so much marketing clamoring for our attention, the old push approaches are no longer as effective as they once were, especially among this generation of prospects who have been imbibing advertisements since birth. Instead, they’re sidestepping the usual channels and going straight to the source — their peers, your students. (Oh, and by “usual channels” I’m including the students blogging on your Web site.) They’re turning to Facebook and Flickr for an uncensored (in every sense) view of what it’s like to be a student. They’re using the recommendations on College Prowler and College Confidential to gauge how well they’ll fit in. And it’s not just your students — parents are also relying on Web forums to get an idea of what their child can expect.

This is a reversal from the traditional marketing formula of loud, often, and always positive. Now, the point is to recognize that there are conversations about you taking place, and if you’re not a part of them, you’re at the mercy of every ill-informed but opinionated joker with a Web connection. By joining in (or by having a work-study student join in) and offering a candid view of your school, you can build tremendously positive word of mouth.

Participation rather than mere consumption
With a reliance on peer recommendations comes the expectation that peer-generated content will flourish. Your audience has grown up using digital media to create and express themselves — whether they’re posting music videos to YouTube, blogging, or posting on friends’ Facebook walls. Organizations that embrace the participatory aspect of online communications engage their consumers and create trust. If I see that someone is so invested in her school that she’s shot a video herself and posted it on TheU.com, I’m going to feel a stronger pull toward that institution than I will from simply watching a Flash introduction on the same school’s Web site. Participation validates a sense of authenticity.

This is a difficult leap for most schools to make, in large part because an architecture of participation requires self-governance and openness, and schools are most comfortable with clearly defined hierarchies. But without self-governance, there’s no ownership; and without ownership, the community lacks the self-monitoring and self-repairing nature that makes them so dynamic.

How can you create participatory communities? What areas can you open up to let your students participate in the content generation? How about a turning your student life pages into a wiki?

There is much more here than these brief summaries suggest. The book is a terrific analysis of the mindset of your market. Johnson explains each craving and offers reasons for why a craving is so prevalent. She also provides numerous case studies to illustrate her points, and to make the application of these points even clearer, she ends each chapter with a “Workbook” section devoted to questions you should be asking yourself. More than a broad analysis, Johnson provides an idea generator and critical tool that will help you orient and evaluate your marketing efforts.

Contributed by: Denis M. Stokes
Director of Admission, Christ School

From Part I of this marketing article, we know that marketing is multidimensional, consisting of Product, Place, Price and Promotion. In the first article, we focused on Product and Promotion. From that discussion, we know that marketing is outward looking — recognizing unmet needs or underserved needs in the marketplace and the decision to meet those needs. And, we know that Promotion, while an important dimension of marketing, is just one dimension and thereby complemented by and dependent upon the other dimensions. In this article, we cover the remaining dimensions: Place and Price.

When discussing Place in marketing it is often in the context of distribution points for a consumer good or service. If you are selling a grocery store item, context of place is not only maximizing the number of stores carrying your brand — unless, of course, your strategy calls for somewhat exclusive availability — but it also pertains to product positioning within the store. Likewise, there may be other channels of distribution that add to the places at which your product is available.

With education, and particularly so since Place of our institutions is well established long before our arrival, our influence over this dimension is limited. This is not to say that we cannot influence availability of our service. Consider what some colleges and universities have done with distance education, for example.

The fact that Place for our service is well-established may or may not be a limitation. Is New York University’s location in Greenwich Village of Manhattan appealing to all? Is Swannonoa, North Carolina, home to Warren Wilson College, appealing to all? The point is to acknowledge that place is an important dimension and influences the very experiences we offer.

Leverage your Place as effectively as you can and let it naturally influence the experience offered. Know, too, that while important, Place is traditionally the dimension over which we have least control.

Price, on the other hand, is something over which the institution yields much control. One way to consider Price is to look at your institution in relation to your competitors using two dimensions: Price and Quality. (This graph and its analysis below is also considered a market positioning map; that is, an illustration of your institution’s position in relation to your peer institutions — your direct competitors.)

Positioning Map observations: Institution A is at a quality deficit in relation to its competitors. Institutions B & C, while perceived to be of equal quality, Institution B is priced at a premium. Institution D is positioned most favorably in relation to its competitors — its quality is strongest and its pricing is in line with relative alternatives. In this example, Institutions A – D are boarding schools, while Institution E is a day school, which explains the significant cost differential between a day school experience and a boarding school experience.

As the admission director at a boarding school, I must consider as competition my peer institutions — other boarding schools against which we compete directly — but I must also consider independent day schools and, to a lesser degree, parochial schools. The key here, in my case, is to recognize that we cannot compete with day schools on price. Therefore price, for me, is only a potential point of differentiation when I compete directly against peer institutions.

While Price should be reflective of the cost of delivering your service, it is also commonly used to position an institution within the marketplace. The ideal is to be positioned within proximity to your direct competitors. Being conspicuously more or less expensive than your direct competitors is seldom a wise strategy.

Education is an interesting service in that — with the exception of state-supported universities, which often represent tremendous educational value — pricing below what is expected for quality education can create negative connotations of perceived quality. Thus education is a service where price is an inverse relationship to quality. Two additional points about pricing and positioning:

While families take pride in gaining admission to the most expensive institutions — oftentimes the brand-name schools — and some readily pay the premium for the unique experience provided, there is evidence that families do respond to a lower price through acceptable ways of discounting, i.e., scholarships.

On positioning: Note the entire educational marketplace consists of schools ranging from perceived quality of 1 through 10 and the graph above simply looks at a segment of the market. Thus, unless your school is in the top tier, as you consider repositioning your institution, consider the related dynamic of how your institution may be repositioned. Note the second positioning map below, an example of a school desiring to compete against more selective schools (i.e., schools with more resources and with notably more selective admission standards).

Repositioning Map observations: Repositioned Institution A is now at a quality deficit compared to schools to be of perceived significantly higher quality. The outcome: It will be very difficult for Institution A to capture market share against its new competitors. Institution A is simply picking a fight it is likely to lose more times than not. If a school wishes to reposition itself, its best hope is to first assure that it is a recognized regional leader or market segment leader.

Each dimension of marketing plays a key role in your institution in advancing its mission. It is important to note that while a well-planned marketing strategy is necessary, such must be preceded by an honest institutional assessment of its strengths, weaknesses — things over which the institution has control, and its opportunities and threats — things over which the institution has no control other than to attempt to anticipate.

Marketing is discussed at great length on many campuses today. As an admission professional, it is important for you to not only be a part of that discussion, but to lead it, to foster it and to make known that true marketing goes well beyond cutting-edge Web sites, viewbooks, and fancy advertising campaigns.

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Denis M. Stokes is Director of Admission at Christ School, a traditional boarding and day school for boys, affiliated with the Episcopal Church, just south of Asheville, North Carolina.