Each summer, Carnegie surveys thousands of students and parents to better understand what drives college decision-making. This year’s Summer Research Series is built around responses from more than 3,400 prospective students and parents, offering insights across four key themes: politics and college perceptions, college choice trends, personality-driven communication, and the role of AI in admissions.
As summer comes to an end and new students head to campus, thinking about another enrollment cycle of prospects and parents could seem daunting. Or at least like starting over. At Carnegie, we hope the insights from the Summer Research Series can help to reduce some of those anxieties, and as we wrap up our series, we want to arm you with one final piece to the puzzle: personality in higher education storytelling.
I know, you’ve probably heard it from us before. Carnegie’s researchers, strategists, and storytellers talk about your institutional and marketing personality a lot. Then we link it back to the personality of students. And while it probably makes sense that speaking to students and parents through a lens of personality can be effective, there are often questions about how effective and what influence personality (both in messaging and audience) has on other facets of the college choice process.
How Personality Shapes College Choice
During our May Deadline survey of more than 3,400 incoming and prospective students and parents, Carnegie measured the individual personality of respondents using our established archetyping system. In addition, we tested college marketing messages developed to tap into each of Carnegie’s 9 archetypes. We also tested messaging without an infusion of archetypal personality: something we call “Beige” or “fact-land” messaging. The results were fascinating, but maybe not surprising.
This chart below shows respondent scores for message acceptance (y-axis) based on personality score (x-axis) for our Blue personality archetype. Going from left to right, as the individual’s level of the Blue personality archetype went up, so did their acceptance of the Blue message. At the same time, message acceptance of the other archetypes was not affected by Blue personality. And Beige “fact-land” messaging scored the lowest of all messages. This held true across all of our archetypes.
So what does this mean? To us at Carnegie, two things. First, regardless of who you are talking to, an archetypally-driven message approach will be more successful than not infusing personality into a message. The emotional capital cannot be understated. And if your college or university can come to consensus on the archetypes that most drive its mission and vision, the consistency in that story will resonate across time.
Second, if you know the personality of your audiences, you can further tailor your messages by personality segment. Regardless of whether you are talking about residence halls, events on campus, academic opportunities, or anything else, you can send the content through various archetype lenses for different students to have more message resonance. The trick, of course, is to know who to send what messaging to, something which Carnegie solves with Darts and Motivator.
Of course, if you’re not directly involved in college marketing, you might wonder what else personality can tell us about prospective students. The reason Carnegie chose to hold this report until the end of the Summer Research Series was this: our archetypes helped predict more than just message acceptance.
For example, people with high amounts of the Silver Rebel archetype were more likely to say President Trump’s policies are working against higher education. A greater amount of the Pink Sophisticate archetype predicted a higher need for a strong Campus Feel and perceived Prestige when picking a college. More of the Yellow Innovator archetype predicted the use of AI, but not outlook. In fact, these respondents had some of the most trepidation about AI in the future.
It’s all interconnected.
Applying Personality to Your Institution’s Brand
So what can colleges and universities do about it? For one, it’s time to review your brand expression guide or storytelling directives. If these are outdated or don’t tell the story of your college’s brand today and into the future, it’s time to revisit the critical question of “who are you?”
Next, it’s about the systems in place that can communicate these stories successfully. Are you advancing your video marketing in portrait instead of landscape to take advantage of new platforms? Are you making sure that individuals receive tailored messages and follow-up feels human? And consider robust, ongoing Admitted Student Research and student messaging workshops to evaluate if content is sinking in, how deposits compare to declines in your school’s story, and to adjust over time to new trends in the audience.
Explore the Full Report and What’s Next
Take a few minutes to explore our final report in the Summer Research Series on personality in higher ed storytelling. And if you’d like the full picture, watch our on-demand recap webinar, where Carnegie’s Senior Vice President of Research, Jared Brickman, walks through all four reports in the series, adds new insights, and shares what’s ahead for Carnegie’s 2026 survey.