Why Admissions Teams Are Stuck Reacting Instead of Leading

Admissions counselors are great at checking boxes—FAFSA submitted, campus visit completed, application in. But checking boxes isn’t proactive outreach. It’s reactive. True proactive outreach is about identifying the students who are in the decision-making process but need support navigating it. These are your swing students.

Who Are Swing Students?
A real swing student isn’t just someone who applied or visited campus. It’s a student who is genuinely considering your institution—and several others. They’re not fully committed, but they’re engaged. They’re in a subjective mindset, weighing options, and trying to sort through the noise.

These students aren’t always easy to spot. You might assume that someone who submitted a FAFSA is highly interested—but what if they sent it to ten schools and ranked you tenth? Not all engagement signals carry the same weight, but many admissions teams treat them as if they do.

Why Counselors Struggle to Prioritize Swing Students:
The biggest challenge in identifying swing students is the assumption that all signals mean the same thing. A campus visit for one student could mean deep interest, while for another, it’s just one stop on a tour of ten colleges. Without the right tools to decode these nuances, counselors end up glossing over key indicators.

And when they do reach out? Too often, it’s a generic call to action: “Submit your FAFSA,” “Schedule your visit,” or “Complete your application.” These messages don’t meet students where they are—they just add to the noise.

What Real Proactive Outreach Looks Like:
Proactive outreach to swing students is nuanced and personalized. It’s about researching the student’s engagement history, understanding their unique decision-making process, and tailoring outreach accordingly.

This might look like:

• A thoughtful email discussing their specific program interests.
• A Zoom call to address financial aid questions.
• A personalized campus visit tailored to their major.
• A text message to their parents highlighting scholarship opportunities.

The key? It’s student-specific, not driven by the counselor's personal preference. The medium and message are tailored to what that student needs to make their decision—not what’s easiest or most comfortable for the counselor.

Why This Matters:
When counselors focus on swing students with proactive, personalized engagement, two things happen:

1. Enrollment results improve because these are the students on the fence—your outreach can make the difference.
2. Counselors feel more fulfilled because they’re doing what they were trained to do: guide students through one of the most important decisions of their lives.

Most counselors believe they should prioritize students who respond to emails. But what if we flipped that? What if we focused on the students who need help deciding—before they even know how to ask?

The Bottom Line:
It’s time to redefine proactive outreach in admissions. By focusing on swing students and meeting them with personalized, thoughtful engagement, counselors can drive better outcomes for students and institutions alike.

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Admissions counselors are overwhelmed—but it’s not just because of the increasing number of applications or the complexity of the enrollment process. It’s how they’re spending their time.

A recent time study I conducted showed that counselors are spending one-third of their work time on data tasks—sorting CRM lists, running reports, and building outreach plans. All of this effort is aimed at one goal: crafting better lists for outreach. But here’s the question: Is all this work actually helping counselors connect with students in meaningful ways?

The Fairness Trap:
Many counselors believe that broad, list-based outreach is the fairest way to engage students. By treating every applicant the same, they avoid unintentionally prioritizing one group over another. But here’s the catch—treating students equally doesn’t mean treating them as individuals.

Mass emails, generic follow-ups, and checklist-based outreach feel like the right thing to do, but they often miss the mark when it comes to truly understanding student needs. Counselors are spending hours building lists, but the personal connections—the real heart of admissions work—often get left behind.

The Blind Spot:
The biggest blind spot in admissions outreach is the belief that counselors have to do this manual work to find the right students. What many don’t realize is that there’s a better way to identify which students need proactive outreach—before they disengage.

That’s where tools like enroll ml come in. By decoding behavioral signals from student interactions (like response timing, portal logins, and engagement depth), machine learning can surface the students who are most in need of outreach. This doesn’t mean counselors stop doing broad outreach—it means they spend more time where it matters.

What’s at Stake:
When counselors spend hours sorting data and crafting mass emails, they miss opportunities to build genuine relationships with students. And ironically, this approach doesn’t even achieve the fairness it aims for. Some students slip through the cracks because their engagement signals aren’t obvious in a spreadsheet.

By incorporating more proactive outreach—reaching out to students based on engagement patterns rather than just checklist items—counselors can learn more about their students and be in a better position to guide them through the enrollment process. This leads to stronger relationships, better support for students, and ultimately, higher enrollment results.

The Bottom Line:
Admissions counselors don’t need to cut out pre-active outreach entirely. But it should be just one part of a more balanced strategy. By shifting some of the time spent on data tasks toward genuine, proactive engagement, counselors can rediscover the relational side of admissions—and make a bigger impact on both their students and their institutions.

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Admissions teams are busy—really busy. But being busy doesn’t always mean being effective. What many admissions counselors call “proactive” outreach is actually what I call pre-active outreach. It looks like proactive work on the surface, but it’s fundamentally reactive at its core.

If your outreach strategy involves sending batch emails to dozens or even hundreds of students and waiting for responses—or following up only after students submit their FAFSA or attend an event—you’re not being proactive. You’re preparing to react.

What Is Pre-Active Outreach?
Pre-active outreach is when counselors send messages or make calls with the expectation that the student will take the next step before any real relationship is built. It’s mass communication disguised as engagement. For example:

• Sending an email to 300 students asking for their FAFSA.
• Following up with students after they visit campus, but not engaging beforehand.
• Waiting for students to respond to a call-to-action before personalizing outreach.

This isn’t proactive—it’s a sophisticated form of waiting.

How Did We Get Here?
Admissions has evolved into a numbers game. With increased application volumes and fewer resources, counselors are pressured to manage large funnels and meet outreach quotas. To cope, they’ve borrowed tactics from marketing: mass emails, segmented lists, and simple calls to action.

But here’s the problem—counselors aren’t marketers. Their role is to build relationships, not run miniature search campaigns. This shift from personalized counseling to high-volume communication has blurred the lines between marketing and meaningful engagement.

The Problem with Pre-Active Outreach:

1. It’s Not Personal: Mass emails and generic follow-ups don’t foster real connections. Students can tell when they’re just another name in the CRM.
2. It’s Inefficient: Counselors spend countless hours sending broad messages, hoping students will engage. This leads to burnout and missed opportunities.
3. It’s Reactive by Nature: Pre-active outreach waits for students to make the first move. By the time counselors engage meaningfully, it may be too late—the student has disengaged or chosen another institution.

What True Proactive Outreach Looks Like:
Proactive outreach flips this model on its head. Instead of waiting for students to respond, counselors anticipate needs based on behavioral signals and engage before the student even realizes they need support.

• Proactive Outreach Example:
  A student consistently opens your emails, clicks links, but hasn’t visited campus or submitted a FAFSA. Instead of waiting, you reach out personally to understand their hesitations and guide them through the next steps.

This kind of outreach leads to deeper connections, better support for students, and, ultimately, higher enrollment results.

The Bottom Line:
Admissions teams need to stop confusing pre-active outreach with proactive engagement. Mass communication has its place in marketing, but counseling is about relationships. By shifting from pre-active tactics to truly proactive outreach, counselors can better support students—and feel more fulfilled in their work.

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