When Residential Colleges don’t know who (or what) they are

5 months ago  •  By  •  0 Comments

When Residential Colleges don’t know who (or what) they are

Last week I attended a Student Accommodation Expo. I was there for two reasons: my daughter is starting to think about her options after high school, and as someone who’s worked in this sector for almost 30 years, I thought it would be interesting to be a “secret shopper”. Since only a couple of exhibitors recognised me, it turned out to be a perfect plan.

As it happened, only Residential Colleges were exhibiting which seemed odd given the name of the expo. No Purpose Built Student Accommodations (PBSAs) were represented at all.

Residential College Bingo

After speaking to the first College, I took my daughter aside and said, “Let’s see how many times you hear any of the following phrases when we ask the Colleges what makes them different to the others.”:

  • We provide an all round College experience
  • We provide a home away from home
  • The college head knows everyone by name
  • We make global citizens
  • Our food is the best on campus

And bingo! Sure enough, we heard every single one of these phrases multiple times throughout the day. These phrases are the stock responses of a College with an identity crisis — a College that doesn’t know who they are or why students would choose them over their competitors.

Words mean nothing when everything sounds the same

When writing or speaking about what makes your college different, you may as well remove from your marketing material or elevator pitch any sentence that includes one of these stock phrases. When each of your competitors are saying the same thing, these words mean nothing.

One of the key findings in our research survey: How Year 12 Students Choose University Accommodation was that students often view Residential College as one option — that is to say, they might decide that college is for them, but the specific college they choose is often a secondary and less important choice. Some of the students surveyed actually said they thought there were no differences between the colleges at the University they were applying to and that they were literally the same thing in different buildings — clearly, an issue created by the way some Colleges market and speak about themselves.

What is College, anyway?

The context where some of these generic phrases are useful is in describing the concept of Residential College itself, which brings us back to my daughter. When we left the expo, she said “I still don’t really understand what a Residential College is”.

This highlights the notion that Colleges need to understand that not every University applicant knows what a Residential College is, let alone the differences between them.

Finding your real difference

If you work in marketing or communications at a Residential College try this exercise:

  1. Review your marketing collateral and check how many of those cookie-cutter phrases are included
  2. Ask yourself: “What really makes us different?” Is it our traditions, our academic focus, our unique community values?
  3. Talk to current and former students about why they chose your college specifically – not just why they chose college life
  4. Make sure you’re explaining what college life actually is before trying to sell your particular version of it

Give students and their families a helping hand to decide if College life is for them, and if yours would be the right fit, by finding out what really makes you different and communicating it effectively.

Our internationally awarded team of senior creatives specialise in brand development and creative content for the education sector. Contact us to find out how our virtual tour team can compliment your university or college marketing activities.