Audience + Program Research

Carnegie has completely rewritten the power of personas through an innovative marriage of demographic-audience segmentation and psychographic, predictive analytics. Using our foundational archetyping system that evaluates personality based on 9 human-motivation factors, we create profiles of students that can be tied back to your college or university’s enrollment ecosystem using just the address of a prospective student. This qualitative research allows for unparalleled clustering and message tailoring, so the right communication goes to the right student. Carnegie has two ways of advancing your student personas: Carnegie Motivator or Darts.

Sometimes reaching the right prospects in higher education is truly about advancing your offerings. Our mixed-methods program assessment combines data on degree supply-and-demand, digital trends, and direct insights from students. Whether you’re considering the expansion of an existing program or venturing into new programs, the information from this in-depth research leads to logical go-to-market planning and personality-driven communication and enrollment strategies.

The heartbeat of audience research, our Prospective Student Needs Survey is a quantitative tool to learn a wide range of custom insights into your prospective students. With the ability to target specific audiences in distinct regions, our prospective-student research can fit any school type or specific program. Whether it’s their communication habits, reasons for attendance, financial aid needs, program timing or length, travel flexibility, or any number of specific concerns, this dynamic research can uncover what matters most to those most critical to your enrollment endgame.

One of the best sources of information about your institution’s communication impact and unique value propositions is the prospective students who were admitted. Our Admitted Student Research (ASR) is built into your institution’s Slate instance, managed by our Slate experts, and advised by our researchers.

Teaming with your Carnegie researcher, you can select from a wide variety of questions to include across a number of relevant categories like: competitive positioning, reactions to marketing, campus visit experiences, evaluations of unique value propositions, student and institutional personality, financial aid, and many more.

Your ASR survey gathers survey feedback from each individual student shortly after they deposit or decline. Results can be compared across variables in a school’s existing Slate instance for actionable insights at both the individual student level and the trend level. We train users on how to monitor responses and strategically use data to take immediate action to reduce melt. Additionally, our team will provide trend analysis to set you up for future enrollment success.

If an institution is not on Slate, Carnegie can still perform the ASR as a traditional survey after deadline day. The survey directly compares outcomes for students who deposited to your institution and those who declined. From feedback on your admissions materials to competitive positioning, this survey mixes qualitative and quantitative responses to give you the dynamic information needed to adjust for future cycles and to improve the student experience.