Frustrations in Admissions - Chapter 1

Frustrations in Admissions
Chapter 1 – “Send me a brochure”

I have entitled this piece “Chapter 1” because I am confident that I will come across sufficient material over my remaining time in admissions to warrant additional chapters.

The whole point of the admissions phone call is to convince prospective students to come in for a college visit where we sell them the benefits of the college education. This has been engrained in my subconscious, however I do recognize the usefulness of the visit beyond the necessity in closing the sale.

Frequently I will encounter a prospective student who is immune to my questioning strategies, answering with one word answers. “Why don’t I use open ended questions,” the experienced sales person might ask? Oh, but I do!

“What has you interested in Medical Assisting?”

“I like it.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you looking for in a college?”

“The best.”

“What would make a college the best?”

“I don’t know.”

Trying to close these friendly folks down to an appointment is like trying to get my dog to stop nudging me with her tennis ball. Its not going to happen and we both end up frustrated. So inevitably the prospective student is going to ask for a brochure.

Why did you even waste your time calling in or signing up for information if you are going to request a brochure? What could a brochure possibly tell you about a school that you don’t know already? It will contain a brief overview of the program and a picture of a smiling student wearing their backpack in a sunny courtyard. Yeah, that fake student is a model and doesn’t go here, and I might as well send you a piece of toilet paper with my business card stapled to it. At least that might spark some curiosity and show that we have well stocked bathrooms.

Do you know the likelihood of a student who requests a brochure actually starting school? As likely as me actually sending toilet paper to a student in the mail. I will call that student in a week to see if they got the bath tissue, I mean brochure and will either
a.) call and call until someone finally answers and tells me to stop calling; or b.) they will tell me that they are still looking over the information and will get back to me.

Still looking over it? It is a one page brochure with less information than the back of a shampoo bottle. If you still haven’t finished reading it then I really doubt that you would be able to find your way to our school, much less pass our assessment test!

But I will politely tell them thank you and I will look forward to hearing from them. In reality I will look forward to hearing from their answering machine and crappy ring back tone, but that could take us into chapter 2. To be continued….