Colleges to increase use of e-mail to target prospective students

As admissions officers at Princeton and at schools throughout the country prepare for another wave of applications, changes are being made that may transform the way colleges contact students.

Since the early 1970s, colleges have purchased lists of the names of students who recently have taken the SAT from the College Board — a nonprofit association that oversees the widely used standardized test.

From these lists, admissions officials send out brochures and viewbooks to prospective students.

But last summer, the College Board began including the e-mail addresses of students on those lists. Currently the board only has the e-mail addresses of students who register for the SAT online. But College Board officials say that this will change in the future.

"Colleges have been asking us for students' e-mail addresses for some time now," said Brad Quin, executive director of the College Board's Admission, Enrollment and Information Service Group. "Colleges have told us that when they have collected student e-mail addresses by themselves, it has been an important factor in developing the relationship that the college initiates with the student," Quin said. "Now that e-mail is a data element in sufficient number, we feel that it is time to make that information available."

Stephen Le Menager, Princeton's acting dean of admissions, said he agrees that the release of e-mail addresses will improve communication between colleges and applicants.

"The addition of e-mail addresses to the College Board database is simply a recognition on their part that e-mail is probably the best and quickest way to communicate with prospective students," he said. "Princeton's Part One of the application asks for students' e-mail addresses. I think that colleges and the College Board are just trying to keep pace with what's really happening out there, and e-mail is the preferred way of communicating for high schoolers and most others, for that matter."

By sending students information via e-mail, admissions officers hope to reach a broader range of students.

E-mail is more efficient from a financial standpoint. Brochures may cost each up to $1.50 excluding postage, while colleges could reach a greater number of students using e-mail at a negligible cost.

"Colleges will be able to contact a large number of students and then seed out those who are really interested," Quin said. "They can then send those students the expensive mail instead of sending expensive mail to everyone."

E-mail also would be a good way to send students information more tailored to their interests, Le Menager said. For example, a student interested in chemistry could be sent an e-mail with a link to the chemistry department Webpage.

But using e-mail as a tool for recruiting prospective students is not without its downside.

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Though admissions officers will be able to reach a larger number of students, some fear that they could end up wasting their time with students who are not really interested in their schools.

Students who have access to e-mail also would have a certain advantage over those who do not.

"We realize that there is a digital divide in America," Quin said. "However, colleges will have no way of contacting only those students with e-mail and not those without. Colleges send information to students based on interests and test scores. E-mail is just another medium through which this can happen."

Nevertheless, e-mail potentially does represent a valuable mechanism for attracting applicants. According to Embark.com, a Website for students, 10 to 17 percent of students respond to colleges' e-mail messages — a significantly greater response rate than that elicited by direct-mail campaigns. Even so, Quin said he is skeptical about how successful e-mail campaigns can be.

"E-mail is a new way of communicating and we are not sure how it will pan out," he said. "Personally I have a teenage son who will be applying to college next year and he receives so much e-mail that unless a college is very crafty in the way they approach this medium it will be difficult to stand out."