The Cringiest Thing to Cut From Your Campus Recruiting Visit
Prospects tell us there are a few things that just don't matter much when you're hosting them on campus. So why is it so hard for coaches to eliminate them?...
If you read our Tuesday College Recruiting Weekly email newsletter that arrives in your Inbox - and you should - you have noticed the graphic of a stat that we’ve talked about for several years. In case you missed it, here it is again:
Whenever are at a college leading our recruiting training workshops and we talk about this, along with the other things visiting prospects say are non-factors or real negatives when it comes to choosing a college they are visiting, coaches cringe. And if any admissions department personnel are in the room, they really cringe.
"Don’t have a visiting prospect sit in on a class?…eliminate the meeting with the professor?… “but we’re a college, this is a place of higher learning. They’re going to spend a lot of time in class, with professors, so why wouldn’t they want to see and hear examples of what they will get to be a part of once they’re here?”
Makes sense to me. I mean, I’d want that if I were going back to school and visiting a campus. Then again, I’m in my late 50’s. And while I do have some eligibility left, I don’t think you want me on your team at this point.
So, the question is, why isn’t this important to your prospects?
First of all, let me point out that there are prospects who want to sit in on a class, and meet with a professor. Or, at least they wouldn’t mind it. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-37% of prospects say they’d be fine with those meetings. For those prospects, they should get those meetings on their itinerary.
But that should be the exception, not the rule. At least according to years of research and real time feedback from prospects who are about to go on their campus visits, as well as the new freshmen athletes on your team who just got through doing a bunch of them as a part of their decision making process. Why? Because 63-65% of your recruits - almost 7 out of 10 - don’t care about it. Sitting in on a class and meeting with professors doesn’t move the needle. You’re boring them.
Why is that?
Most tell us they wouldn’t be on your campus unless they had at least a reasonably good idea that it would be the right academic fit.
Most tell us they are there as athletes first, students second. *Cringe* I know, I know…that’s not how they should be looking at this, in most cases. But they do. And your job is to sell them on your program and campus now, which means you need to meet them where they’re at when it comes to the factors they are using, or not using, to make that decision.
Most tell us sitting in on a class is boring, and prevents them from getting a ‘feel’ for the rest of campus. For them, as incoming 16, 17 and 18 year old college prospects, they aren’t looking at everything logically (as you may have noticed). Sitting in on a class just isn’t ranking high on their list.
Most tell us meeting with a professor is intimidating, and they struggle with coming away feeling like they held their own in the conversation. Some even talk about how it made them question their ability to handle college work, and even more talk about professors explaining how hard it’s going to be to participate in both athletics and keep up with college classes.
A different way to approach these mainstays in college visits
When we talk to coaches about this whole concept, most of them get it. You remember what was important to you, and what you were trying to get a feel for, when you were visiting campuses: What does the coach think of me? Does the team seem to like me? How do I like the overall feel of campus? Do they want me here?
If those are the main drivers in decision making - and make no mistake, for the vast majority of your prospects regardless of what division level you coach in, they are the main drivers - should you devote time to sitting in on a class, and meeting with a professor? Especially on a one day visit, where you literally only have a few hours to showcase those key areas they care about?
That’s up to you - and admissions, and your athletic director, or anyone else who has some say over what goes into your visit itinerary. But if you’re wondering how to approach this proactively, in a way we’ve seen be successful, here are some ideas I’d recommend implementing:
Ask your prospect what they want before they come to visit - but probably not like you may be asking now. Most coaches and admissions departments will ask a
prospect before they get to campus, “Would you like to sit in on a class and meet with one of our professors?” Or if they don’t ask, they’ll just add it to an itinerary because that’s the way they’ve always done it before.
Instead, I’d encourage you to ask your soon-to-be-visiting prospect, “When you come for your visit, tell me the top three or four things you’re really wanting to get to do here.”
Here’s the key difference: If you ask them the previous question about sitting in on a class or meeting a professor, recruits have told us they feel like they are supposed to give you the ‘right’ answer, which is of course, “yes, that would be good.” It’s the ‘right’ answer because in their mind it says that they’re serious about academics, and every prospect you’re talking to doesn’t want to cause a you or your admissions department to cross them off the list for giving you the ‘wrong’ answer.
But, when you ask them an open ended question with an answer that they get to construct, you’ll get a much, much more honest answer. And don’t be surprised when most, if not all, of their answers center around getting to know their future teammates, seeing your athletic facilities, getting one-on-one time with you, and getting an overall feel for the campus. Why? Because they’ve already checked off most of the logical boxes that make you and your program a consideration…if those boxes aren’t checked, they’re probably not coming on a visit (because why would I come to visit your campus as a prospect if you don’t have my major, aren’t far enough away from home, or not close to home, or cost too much, or too big, or too small?).
As a prospect, I’m coming to campus to get a feel for you. And to see if I feel wanted. And to understand how I might feel being a part of the team. So when you stick me in a class, or with a professor, and that’s not what I’m there to figure out and it’s not important to my decision making, you’re hurting your chances in getting me to choose you.
Now, if you ask me for three or four things that I want to see on my visit, and I tell you that I really want to talk to a biology professor because I’m thinking about going into medicine as a part of my post-graduate plan, and/or I really want to get a chance to sit in on that beginning kinesiology class because that’s the field I know I want to do after college, then ABSOLUTELY put it on the itinerary! 100% of the time! But including it for everyone on every itinerary every time doesn’t make sense. At least that’s my opinion after seeing all of our internal focus group research.
Focus on the stuff they haven’t been able to figure out prior to being on campus. The reason this strategy makes sense comes down to a really basic fact: As a teenage recruit, I can get a lot of factual information - really, all the factual information - I need from your website, Google searches, YouTube and all the different college search apps and resources I have available on my smartphone. I don’t need to be on campus to figure out a lot of the logical side of my decision making when it comes to deciding whether or not I should visit campus and take you seriously.
What I do need to be on campus for, according to the college freshmen we talk to regularly, is what I was just talking about: What’s the team like? Is the coach someone who seems interested in me? What’s the vibe on campus? That’s why I’m coming to campus, Coach - to figure that stuff out. So for the majority of athletes, when you take up valuable and finite campus visit time by sticking me in a class or set up a meeting with a professor I’m not ready to ask questions of, I tune out. And you as a coach lose major momentum as I go through my visit. Prospects are there to experience the ‘feel’ of all the different aspects of them being a student-athlete for you. Your opinion of whether that’s the right or wrong way to spend time on a visit is irrelevant if the priority is to give them what they need - according to their list of priorities - in order to start moving you through to the next round of their decision making.
When it comes to meetings, talking with deans and professors, or going over financial aid calculations, hand that off to their parents. I’ll keep this part short and to the point, but the logical on-campus visit priorities usually center around the parents. I’m one of those parents we survey: I want the long, history centered tour of campus…I want to pepper a dean or professor with lots of questions…I want to sit down with someone knowledgeable to try and figure out financial aid scenarios. My three kids who have all been on college campus visits didn’t have that as their priority. Surprise, surprise.
Another finding from our research: Most student-athlete prospects tell us they don’t really even want to be with their parents much of the time when they come for their visit (all the details on that here).
Creating a separate visit experience for parents is actually a very smart idea, so if you want to expand on this part of the equation as you consider how to tweak your visit (and eliminate some big cringe-points) grab our guide, Freaking Awesome Campus Recruiting Visits. It’ll go into a lot more detail on other strategies related to what we’ve been talking about, and what other coaches and campuses are doing effectively to increase the quality and quantity of interested recruits after they experience campus (if you want an interactive way of pulling-up really interesting information on this, go to https://dantudor.substack.com/archive and type in “campus visit” in the search bar, and take a deeper dive into other articles we’ve written).
The bottom line is simple:
You should want to create visits that prompt your prospects to want to continue down the road with you as not just a possible option, but the option they are seeing as their #1 choice!
They’re very clear on what leads to that happening, and it centers around what they experience while they’re on campus - and the feeling they come away with afterwards. Seriously considering a few of these simple tweaks will give you the best chance of removing the cringe, and letting prospects focus on how positively they’re feeling about you during their campus visit.