Because my daughter attends Pomona College, I just received a letter from the President mentioning, among other things, that last year 21 Pomona undergraduates received Fulbright awards. Somehow, Pomona has mastered the Fulbright application process. Its track is so impressive that it was featured in an article in the Chronicle last year. This was before the new high water mark of 21.

For me this raises two questions:

1. Should Pomona use its impressive Fulbright track record in its admissions recruitment?

2. Should other liberal arts colleges promote their track records in garnering Fulbrights even if they are less impressive than Pomona’s?

Questions #1 and #2 actually have the same answer which is that a Fulbright track record is most likely not going to do an institution much good. Here’s why:

A basic principle of marketing is that you don’t dwell on service features unless they connect to an audience desire. And the audience needs to have awareness before it can have desire. Folks at colleges and universities sometimes forget  that in their admissions marketing they are talking to 16- and 17-year-olds. Granted, for a school like Pomona, they are talking to extremely bright, motivated 16- and 17-year-olds, but they are talking to teenagers nonetheless. These teenagers have their minds filled with many things intellectual, civic, and personal, but few have any awareness of the Fulbright program and what it represents. Peace Corp, yes. Fulbright, no.

Moreoever, because high school students are constantly bombarded with similar factoids . . .

School A had 6 DAAD fellowships. School B had 5 Fulbrights. School C sent 10 Watsons.

they lose their ability to associate particular features with particular institutions. I have seen this time and time again in focus groups. I remember speaking to a group of high school juniors immediately upon return from their spring tours of college campuses. I read to them a factoid that I knew they had heard during their visit to one particular college (my client). What was their response? “Oh yeah. I think I heard that somewhere but I can’t remember where. Was it school X? Or maybe Z? If Pomona wanted to break through this static and cement in prospects’ minds its Fulbright accomplishment, it would need to repeat this factoid endlessly and to the exclusion of other messages.

The reason it would be a mistake for Pomona to expend its energy in that way is because Fulbrights are not uppermost in the minds of Pomona’s or any liberal arts college’s recruitment audience. High school students contemplating college focus their interest predominantly on what is immediately in front of them – the transition from high school to college and what student life will be like their freshman year. The majority of students don’t worry about outcomes. This is especially true for the high ability, affluent students that are Pomona’s bread and butter. These students figure that they will be going to graduate school and advancing in a good and meaningful career. They don’t worry about that. Their immediate concern – and locus of their desire – is finding a college where they can get a great education and where they can fit in socially.

So it is best to leave the Fulbright accomplishment, amazing as it is, aside.