Elon University Leverages Search Segment Strategy to Boost 2025 Applications

CHALLENGE:

Elon University is a private academic institution in North Carolina with 6,400 undergraduates, prioritizing hands-on learning and close faculty-student mentorship. Like many enrollment leaders, Elon University’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Evan Sprinkle, seeks ways to expand their applicant pool for fall 2025. 

SOLUTION:

As a College Board Search user, Sprinkle uses advanced product features to reach Elon’s recruitment goals, including building their applicant pool.

“Search has helped us really dial-in our strategies, queries, and communication in order to [build our applicant pool]” –Evan Sprinkle, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Elon University 

At the forefront of Elon University’s Search strategy is the use of Segment Analysis Service^TM (SAS), a College Board Search feature. This segmentation and data tagging tool helps enrollment managers identify prospective students based on where they live and go to high school. Because students from similar areas often share common values and behaviors, SAS enables enrollment managers to effectively engage potential students within specific segments, known as Educational Neighborhood and High School clusters.

“Segment Analysis is the main tool that drives our Search activity. We’ve been able to see that roughly 50% of our incoming class comes from 3-4 clusters. We’ve zeroed in on those clusters as the foundation of our Search strategy.” –Evan Sprinkle, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Elon University

RESULT:

By leaning into SAS, Sprinkle and his team achieved a 4% increase in applications for the fall 2025 semester, even with the regular deadline still pending. Notably, these applicants are from high-performing clusters, significantly boosting the probability of yield. Sprinkle credits this growth to the insights he and his team received through their SAS strategy.

“College Board’s breadth of offerings means you are likely to find at least one solution that helps meet enrollment goals. And you can work with their staff to figure out how to maximize the tools you find to be most useful. College Board’s reach into secondary schools means their database will always be robust.” –Evan Sprinkle, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Elon University 

Segment Analysis Service Simplified

Research shows that students who live in and attend high school in similar areas often share values and behaviors. These insights help enrollment managers effectively reach and engage potential students within specific segments, categorized into Educational Neighborhood and High School clusters. 

Below you’ll find two sample SAS clusters and an idea of what you can learn about students within each cluster to optimize your recruitment and outreach efforts:

• The samples displayed above provide a snapshot of the information included in each cluster. 
• Segment Analysis Service (SAS) clusters represent over 44,000 neighborhoods and cover more than 33,000 high schools in the U.S., described by 51 characteristics that influence their college choices.
• This sample does not reflect the clusters used by Elon University to achieve the results described in this article.