The College of Science and Engineering conducts cutting-edge research in a Big 10 University setting, with 12 departments hosting 20 majors. Its students are driven, fact-motivated future scientists and engineers, and in 2021 the college instituted a multi-year initiative to increase first-year enrollment year over year.
To face that challenge, my team conducted a series of focus groups featuring high-performing high school students to see how we could refine previous years' recruiting materials to better communicate with them. The messages from our precise audience were clear:
Be clear. Cleverness and wordplay read as cheesy and insincere.
Answer questions. These students know what their questions are. Make the answers obvious.
Be visually informative. Engaging photos showing actual students doing actual work called to these kids.
Give them facts. These students ate up every little factoid they could, while skimming paragraphs.
Our new design reflected all of these adjustments. I contracted a photographer and art directed shoots featuring our students working in each major. We interviewed students for individual profiles and shot videos about how and why they chose their majors. The viewbook limited descriptive text and was optimized to give clear answers to the question, "Why choose CSE?"
The viewbook, corresponding web pages and major profile videos were extremely successful—over 5 years, first-year enrollment increased by over 40%.
