How the Student Voice Can Inform University Brand

College students have many different day-to-day experiences ranging from interactions with professors, to doing their laundry in residence halls. Hopefully most experiences are positive, but inevitably there will be some negative experiences that can leave lasting impressions on college life in general. It is important for higher ed leaders to understand the perceptions and experiences, both good and bad, of college students to better serve them.

One effective method for gaining these insights is through neutral third-party interviews, a tool that the SightLine team likes to combine with our data analyses for further insights. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits of conducting neutral, third-party student interviews that you wouldn’t otherwise have when a university leader directly interviews their own students.

Openness: Neutral third-party interviews allow college students to share their experiences and perceptions honestly. In an academic setting, students may be hesitant to express their thoughts freely, particularly negative experiences, due to concerns of academic consequences. Hiring a neutral third-party interviewer removes these inhibitions, allowing students to speak without restrictions about issues that are important to the institution.

Insights into Operations: There are certain operational challenges that students may face at their university which administrators may not know about (for example, hiccups with registering for classes or inconvenient dining hall hours). Conducting neutral third-party interviews allows university leaders an opportunity to learn about these challenges so they can make appropriate decisions to improve student life. University leaders and administrators work with their systems and processes daily, and therefore may overlook seemingly simple questions to ask students. Both SightLine and the students offer fresh eyes to typical university operations.

Perceptions: Perception is everything, especially for students who have limited life experience. Hiring a neutral third-party interviewer provides a glimpse inside student perceptions of your institution's features and better allocate resources to focus on the most important needs of the students.

Experiences: Neutral third-party interviewers can dig deeper into the actual experiences of students. They can provide important details that students might miss in surveys or a group discussion. Surveys are frequently designed with a destination in mind, whereas a conversation with a student can take many turns that a survey designer may not have anticipated. This is where we frequently find the most useful and applicable information about the student experience.

Improved Services: The information collected from neutral third-party interviews can be translated into improvements in various services and resources for the students based on their experiences. Consulting with students on some of the day-to-day realities they face is a good first step in understanding how your institution can better manage the lives of college students.

It is important to understand the experiences, perceptions, and needs of students. For certain enrollment and retention studies, SightLine conducts student interviews to enhance and better understand findings from the data analysis. By conducting neutral third-party interviews, SightLine can generate a comprehensive view of challenges that students are facing to help tailor institutional resources to make a better college experience.

If you’re interested in learning more about how SightLine incorporates third party student interviews, feel free to contact us, or take a look at our other enrollment, financial aid, and retention solutions.