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Inside This Edition:

• Teenagers Need to Trust and Be Trusted: How Is Your College Doing?
• What "Customers" Tell Us About College Students
• Paper or Pixels in College Admissions: Findings of GDAIS

The Gallup Youth Survey asked 13- to 17-year-olds what are the very strong needs in their lives. Teens went straight to the emotional requirements. The "need to be trusted" topped the list, followed closely by the "need to be understood and loved" and the "need to feel safe and secure where I live and go to school." In all cases, girls were more likely to give the strongest rating (a 5 on a scale of 1 to 5), than were boys. (Gallup Briefing, July 23, 2002)

Observations and Recommendations
While colleges and universities cannot fulfill students' need for love, they all can demonstrate trust and trusting behavior as well as safety and security.

A common cry among current college students is "the administration treats us like children." Although there is reason to be skeptical of the judgment of 18-year-olds, colleges also need to demonstrate trust in them until proven otherwise. For example, all male Wabash College in Indiana has the shortest student handbook we have seen. The centerpiece is a single line pledge that all students take that roughly says: "On-campus or off-campus, I will always behave as a gentleman." It seems to work for them. Too often colleges assume there is a need for rules for all students to control the behavior of a few.

Demonstrating and deserving "trust" is also the key to successfully positioning or, as some prefer, branding your institution. We suggest examining your admissions materials to ensure they reflect the institution accurately. In our surveys of current students, we find those most likely to withdraw strongly agree with the statement "the admissions materials I received did not accurately reflect the academic, social or residential environment." These students trusted the institution, only to be disappointed.

Also, we suggest gathering groups of first-year students prior to the Thanksgiving break and ask them what has pleased them most, disappointed them most or surprised them most about their experience thus far. You will quickly learn if your materials and presentation of the college are trustworthy.

Contrary to what we expected, since 9/11 our research does not show an increased interest among prospective students in a college's safety and security, so it clearly means safety and security are a "given" in students' minds. Attention to the details of safety (e.g., panic phones, lighting) are as important or perhaps more important than a small town location.

Six Key Consumer Changes ("Understanding the Changing Retail Customer," Karlene Kukovitz, Circulation Management, May 1, 2002)

1. A composite nation. The American family is being redefined. For example, there are six million people living together outside of marriage, including some 600,000 same-sex households. Ethnic diversity is increasing, with minorities now representing 33% of the population. In addition, there is a growing emphasis on celebrating ethnic and cultural diversity, rather than on assimilation, as in the past. Message here: don't assume anything about a prospective student.

2. "Cueless" customers. Cueless, that is, from the standpoint of the researcher. Because customers are more complex than ever, classic demographics have become less useful for purposes of defining customer groups. For example, teens in over half of U.S. households are now paying for their own clothes; young people are increasingly dressing in more sophisticated, mature ways, consuming costly goods and striving for earlier independence. GDA Integrated Services has always questioned the benefits to higher education of geo-demographics because the choice of a college has always been more a case of attitude and interest than demographics.

3. Increasingly powerful consumers. Consumers' (read "college-bound students' ") power has been greatly magnified by the easy availability, through the Internet and other sources, of nearly limitless information about products and services. Colleges are increasingly conducting transactions in glass houses. A college-bound student can easily find a rating of your institution, catch up with current students who were not pre-selected by the college as spokespersons, and get third-party endorsements without going to your institution's Web site or admissions office.

4. The stimulation/sanctuary dichotomy. College-bound students want more excitement and stimulation from the college experience. Yet, they are also looking to colleges as a sanctuary from noise and stress, as places to relax and socialize. This is the curse of student services administrators: providing both an exciting and diverse experience without continuing the "over-programming" many students endured from their parents.

5. Amorphous codes and spaces. The "rules" are far less predictable than in the past. In addition, young people are expected to fulfill a growing number of roles -- student, athlete, musician, friend, etc. As a result of these trends, physical spaces have also become multi-purpose. Almost any place, including the home, car or a plane, serves as a working space. Space is no longer what the college says it is but what the students say it is. In the GDA Integrated Services' studies, students expect a fully wired residence hall room with cable, high-speed Internet access and a telephone, but seven of ten students also expect to study in their rooms. This explains why so many colleges are moving to the flexibility of wireless Internet connections.

6. Communities everywhere. People are constantly looking for opportunities to connect. Eight of ten adults who use the Web do so to visit sites relating to their hobbies or interests. Twenty-five million people belong to self-help groups. People are juggling multiple activities and memberships. They no longer feel the need to drop one activity before adding another. Because of the opportunity of "cocooning" in their high-tech residence hall rooms (described above), students may seek electronic communities outside of the college or the residence hall. This is a great threat to smaller institutions that pride themselves on a strong sense of community, and therefore, is worthy of attention from student services administrators.

Paper or e-mail? In an effort to be on the cutting edge or to save funds, don't push your admissions office exclusively to "paperless" materials quite yet. In GDA Integrated Services' most recent surveys of college-bound students we asked, "In general, did you prefer getting your information about colleges in paper format, such as brochures or personal letters, or electronically, such as e-mails or visits to the college Web site?" Over six of ten (69%) students said they still preferred paper followed by about 15% who said electronic materials, 13% who said both, and 3% who had no preference. Unfortunately, maintaining both paper materials and electronic materials raises the cost of an admissions operation, but we see no safe alternative.

Some of the electronic influence in student recruitment is, unfortunately, out of the hands of the colleges. For example, in GDA Integrated Services' studies, about half of college-bound students use a computer search program to find likely colleges. Of those who use such a search engine, one-third of these students call such programs "essential" in their choice of a college.

When do college-bound students begin their search for a college? Our research shows the following:

• 35% before junior year
• 25% first half of junior year
• 30% second half of junior through summer before their senior year
• 10% beginning of senior year

Interestingly, when the search begins seems to parallel the first time college-bound students take the PSATs or ACTs. While only 10% of the students take one of these tests as freshmen in high school, 40% say they first took the test in their sophomore year. Forty-five percent say they first took one of the standardized tests in the junior year. Remember when taking the PSATs was a junior-year activity? It also explains why the response to direct mail is highest among students who take the PSATs/ACTs before their junior year. But, if your sophomore search responses are down from recent years, blame it on your Web site. Seven of ten college-bound students went to a college's Web site before they actually inquired about that college. For direct mail this may mean your mail is catching their attention, but instead of returning the inquiry form, they jump on your Web site. If they like what they see, many inquire directly on line. If your institution's Web inquiries have not gone up, you may wish to re-examine the "interactivity" of the site.

GDA Integrated Services is a market research, consulting and services firm that specializes in customized, integrated marketing solutions that help colleges and universities compete successfully for students, funding, and visibility in the twenty-first century.