University of Pennsylvania Case Study

Challenges

The University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) struggled to increase student enrollment as the economy declined. Although a prestigious, Ivy League institution, the graduate school found students interested in earning a Masters degree in social work or social policy were intimidated to apply to Penn's SP2 because of three reasons.

• Cost of tuition vs. a State school
• Entrance criteria
• The notion that salaries in the social work field won't justify an Ivy League graduate degree

The Vision House team determined that SP2 had no online marketing efforts to reach prospective students via Google and other search engines as well as within the social media networks that prospective students are interacting.

Solutions

Vision House worked SP2's Dean to create a message that would encourage prospective students who were previously "self-selecting" out of the application process to apply. Messaging included language such as:

"Think you can't get in? Think you can't afford it? Think again."

Vision House took this messaging and versions of it and placed online ads via Google Adwords on an international scale.

Vision House also created a Facebook presence and attracted over 500 alumni, prospective students, professionals in the field of social work and policy setters. Our team trained SP2's team on best practices for social interaction via Facebook.

Finally, Vision House worked with the school's web team to make applying online as easy as possible by placing a large "Apply Now" button on the home page and every subsequent page. This was a great improvement over the previous online application which was buried deep within the site's content.

Results

• Student applications rose by 12% in the 2008 recruiting season and by 16% in 2009's recruiting season.
• The Website traffic increased by 65% within the first six months of the online campaign.
• SP2's online ad is ranked in the top three positions of sponsored listings on Google for many targeted important keyword phrases.