The St. Mikes Brand

We don’t often think about Saint Michael’s College as a brand, yet this is exactly how we market the school to people. When we talk about the Saint Michael’s College brand we like to highlight a few points. We like to focus on the close -knit community, the great professors, the quality education, and the great location in Burlington, Vermont. The St. Mikes brand is what separates us from every other liberal arts school out there. It’s what what makes our school competitive.

 As a tour guide at St. Mikes, it’s been an interesting experience getting to see how the admissions department markets to students and their parents. 

As tour guides we’re told that we play one of the most crucial roles in marketing the school. The school puts a lot of effort into making sure that we are properly trained to give a great tour. A few weeks ago the admissions department brought in a presenter to speak to the tour guides and give us tips from giving the best possible tour. The presenter had spoken at schools around the country. He was a great public speaker and held the training with us for about three hours. Everything that he said to us was aimed at making us better at marketing our school. He even taught us how to “close the deal,” at the end of the tour. Instead of asking the family if they had any questions at the conclusion of the tour he wanted us to finish the tour by asking the prospective student “can you see yourself as part of our community?”

We learned even more about the admissions process in class from Dr. Sarah Kelly, VP of Enrollment Management. The school markets to specific students based off of there grades, SATs, and location. The school buys students names from the PSAT, SAT, and ACT exams; Saint Mike’s buys about 110,000 names each year. It’s hard to believe that they are able to get that number down to about 550 per class.

The school reaches out to almost every student in the northeast that meets their GPA requirements. They have smaller regions where they reach out to students throughout the rest of the country, however they are beginning to expand. Dr. Kelly showed us current areas in Florida, Georgia, California, Minnesota, and various other states where they reach out to students. She also spoke about the changing demographics of the country, and said that as the demographics of the country begin to shift, colleges will need to find ways to attract a more diverse group of students. This is especially true for a school like St. Mikes. This will be a crucial factor in whether or not Saint Mikes can continue to succeed as a college.

I think that the admissions process is fascinating. It makes me think a lot about the reasons why I chose Saint Mikes. I think my choice can be attributed to the strategic branding of the school. Saint Mikes positioned themselves as everything I wanted in a college, and thankfully I can say that they’ve successfully lived up they’re promises.