Data Mining: How Colleges are Tracking Students
Once upon a time, a visit to a campus was a decent indication that a student was interested in that particular college. But times have changed. These days, students are drowning in college pamphlets, emails, and other promotional materials. Students travel all over the country (or world) to visit multiple campuses before committing. The Common Application allows applicants to submit up to 20 college applications, whereas before online submissions, students typically applied to only a few colleges. The phenomenon of each applicant submitting numerous college applications could ultimately lead to lower admissions yield rates for colleges, which could lower their ranking and prestige. So colleges needed a new approach.
Enter data mining. Data mining is the practice of tracking patterns in large data sets. The key word here is “tracking.” Most websites and apps (Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc.) use data mining techniques to target ads and sell products to consumers. That’s why when you search for socks on Amazon, you see ads for socks on your Facebook feed. Many companies, organizations, and institutions are mining your data and selling the information back and forth to each other.
— BIG TECH TACTICS IN HIGHER ED —
Colleges are using this same tactic to sell themselves to students, providing customized messages and ads to students by tracking their online movement. A college will log the IP address of a visitor. The visitor will enter personal information to receive more information – let’s say in the form of a brochure. Now the college has the student’s name, address, and email address. The college saves that information and begins tracking the IP address. They can see how much time a student spends perusing the college’s website. But that’s not all.
Data mining and IP tracking allows colleges to see what other colleges your student might be considering. It’s a loophole in a ban from 2015 in which colleges can no longer check a student’s financial aid information to see what other colleges to which the student plans to apply. And the colleges can’t directly ask students since it’s prohibited by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). So, data mining became the next best solution for colleges.
— USING DATA MINING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE —
As we’ve written about before, colleges are tracking student’s online activity. The good news is this can be used to the student’s advantage! If the student is seriously interested in the college, they should spend time on the college’s website. The student shouldn’t limit themselves to just the college’s main site. They should explore the various programs the college offers. Or, if the student knows the program to which they want to apply, they should spend time on that program’s specific site. This is where Ivy Link can help.
College programs, majors, and clubs can have an overwhelming number of websites full of information. In addition to maximizing their profiles starting as early as 8th grade, we help students navigate these resources to obtain the most vital information so they can make an informed decision when it comes time to apply.
