It’s not just what you say or how often you say it. Where, when, and how you communicate with prospective students can generate valuable insights into the overall enrollment process.
Words and Their Meaning
The ultimate meaning of a word can vary based on how we use it. In linguistics, this is referred to as word sense – the different meanings a word can have in different contexts. This concept is foundational to understanding language as more than just words; it’s crucial to understand that how we put words together matters.
With this in mind, I wanted to explore not just which words appear with greater frequency in request for information (RFI) emails, but how those words are being used. I wanted to approach this exploration while considering the words through two lenses:
- How I expect the words in question to be used (based on what I know or believe I know about the subject matter).
- How those keywords were actually used in different emails.
The Data
In August 2024, I filled out RFI forms for prospective undergraduate students at 100 U.S. colleges. To date, I have received 3,116 emails. After receipt, each email is categorized based on the school it was sent from and whether it arrived as an inbox email or as spam.
For analysis, the emails and all the back-end data that goes with them is exported for further data manipulation. As with most data projects, what follows is a tedious data cleaning and validation process.
| # Define replacements in a data frame fourbyte <- data.frame(encoded = c(“=F0=9F=A6=AC”, “=F0=9F=91=89”, “=F0=9F=8C=9F”, “=F0=9F=92=BC”, “=F0=9F=8E=89”, “=F0=9F=9A=80”, “=F0=9F=92=B0”, “=F0=9F=98=8E”, “=F0=9F=8E=93”, “=F0=9F=92=B5”), replacement = c(“🦬”, “👉”, “🌟”, “💼”, “🎉”, “🚀”, “💰”, “😎”, “🎓”, “💵”), stringsAsFactors = FALSE) |
For this project, data cleaning included fun pieces like tracking down the replacement emojis for byte encoding that remained after using an available pre-built package.
But, eventually, this process resulted in a nice, clean dataset where the content of every email was ready to be used as the building blocks of analysis.
In technical terms, we turned a large collection of texts – the emails – into a corpus – a collection of texts that serve as the foundation for linguistic analysis.
What can you do with a corpus? Well, to start, you can look at the words that occur most frequently in those texts. For our RFI emails, the top 20 looked like this:
This information on its own can be valuable – certainly, it answers questions related to what it is we are saying most frequently when we reach out to students. But it can also serve as a starting point and a guide to other questions we may want to ask about this data.
And this context around the data is what (finally) brings us to today’s analysis – namely, we’re going to use the information above to help ask and answer an important question that goes beyond the words we use in RFI emails – we want to know more about how we use them.
Enrollment Words in Context
This work explores the contextual usage of two words that relate to the prospective student journey: apply and opportunity.
Before diving in, I strongly encourage you to take a second and think about those two words, their meaning, and how it might vary in different contexts. What do you think we might find?
Personally, I expected far less contextual variation for “apply” than “opportunity.” I also had far less presumed certainty about how “opportunity” would be used, whereas I expected that “apply” would be used, well, to encourage prospective students to apply.
“Apply”
As an integral step in the pathway between inquiry and enrollment, it is not particularly surprising that the word “apply” appears with high frequency in RFI emails. The fifth-most used word overall, “apply” appeared in just over half of all emails (1,578 of 3,116) and was used a total of 2,970 times. The related term “application” was used even more frequently (3,152 uses – third overall), while the oft-related term “admissions” ranked eighth with 2,142 uses.
To better understand the context of the word’s usage, I used a number generator to help select five random examples to analyze in greater depth.
Apply Above
This first example is a fantastic way to kick this off, as it contains two uses of the word with very different meanings. In the first, it’s a verb directed at the reader and refers to applying to college. Specifically, the school frames the decision to apply as one tied to feeling aligned to the community the school offers; they are attaching an emotional connection to the reader’s decision to apply.
In the second instance, “apply” is no longer a reference to the reader’s application to the institution, but rather its use is procedural; if the reader uses the code when filling out their application, the school will “apply” a $50 waiver of the application fee.
Within this first email, we already see a poignant example of how the meaning of the same word can be completely different when applied in different contexts.
Apply Now
This next use of the word “apply” is included in a directive that both encourages the reader to apply and aims to introduce time sensitivity by encouraging that application to be submitted now.
While pulling the text out of the structure of the original emails and putting it into a corpus removes visible elements like clickable buttons, the context of the usage in this example suggested it was likely a call to action from a button – which searching through the emails subsequently confirmed.
Similar to the “apply above” example, the assertions prior to the use of “apply” aim to foster emotional connection by describing the college as a place to call home, In this particular usage, however, there’s no if this/then that set up; rather, it’s set up as more of a statement of fact (this isn’t a university; it’s a place to call home) followed by encouragement to apply.
Apply Today
This usage of “apply” demonstrates another variation on the theme of emotional connection. Like in the “apply now” example, this is again not an “if this/then that” relationship that’s being constructed; however, unlike the second example, this one is not a loosely disconnected statement meant to encourage the reader to make inferences about calling a place home and wanting to apply to be there. Rather, this usage specifies what submitting an application will allow the reader to do – imagining all they can achieve at this college – followed up by assertions and superlatives related to how the school will help them do so.
You Can Apply
Notably, unlike the other examples, this one is not written to the reader; instead, it is written to a third party that would encourage someone else to apply.
As another layer of context outside of how this particular example is written – when I submitted RFI forms to the different schools, I did not ask to be signed up for any parent/influencer audience emails. Given this, if I had submitted these forms because I was looking to attend college (not just assess college prospect emails), the third-person voice in this example would likely be a bit jarring.
This usage does, however, continue to leverage an emotional connection to community and to aligning the values of the prospective applicant with the values the college believes it reflects and espouses.
One Email; Six Applies
This last example is an explosion of “apply,” featuring six different uses. Unlike the other examples, this one does not aim to make an emotional connection; rather, each use of the word refers more to procedural undertakings – applying before March 1, applying to the university, applying for priority housing. And if you have questions about the application process? There’s a procedure for that, too.
Apply-ing Context
While there is a great deal of similarity in the meaning of the word “apply” across these examples, when there are shifts, they are largely dependent on grammatical use and rhetorical purpose. Most commonly, “apply” was used as a direct call to action; one that encourages prospective students to submit their application to that specific college. There are, however, variations in both the tone and the function of that call to action; some uses are framed emotionally, while others are more transactional or deadline-driven. The first example also captures a second application of “apply” – the process of applying something (like a waiver to a fee) vs. the process of the reader applying to something. Ultimately, this reflects two different meanings of this one word.
Even when considering examples with some measure of similarity in their use of the word “apply,” meaning and intent are ultimately shaped by the phrases that surround it. Some uses emphasize emotional connection, others logistics or the fostering of urgency. Many leverage personalization, while the “take the first step” example above – with its third-person voice – ultimately has a more de-personalized voice. Taken together, these examples show that while “apply” might appear frequently and seem to have a straightforward meaning on the surface, its communicative purpose is, in fact, highly dependent on context.
“Opportunity”
While “opportunity” appeared far less frequently than “apply,” it was still a common word, appearing in 536 different emails.
Your Opportunity
This first email leverages the word “opportunity” in relation to what is provided via an invitation to campus. It is used to help explain what the reader will gain by taking the college up on this invitation – in this case, a chance to learn about the different programs offered at the college.
An Exciting Opportunity
The second example is also an invitation to campus – this time in the form of a named admissions event. There are two relatively similar uses of the word, where both again aim to explain what the reader will gain by accepting the invitation – in this case, the opportunity to explore campus and the opportunity to be immersed in the university “experience.” In both uses here, a superlative has been appended to the word – this is not just an opportunity, but an exciting and excellent one. The addition of these superlatives serves not only to amplify the importance of the opportunity being offered but also adds a measure of context to the type of opportunity on offer.
The Opportunity
This is another example where the opportunity on offer is an invitation to attend an event on campus. Usage here does, however, differ slightly from the two examples above – this is not your opportunity or an exciting opportunity; rather, in this instance, the “you” appears four words ahead of opportunity. This is interesting because the email is still personalized, but the distance between you and opportunity changes how that personalization is presented to the reader. This is the first example that leverages a list structure for articulating the opportunity(ies) on offer, which ultimately results in a more robust explanation of what there is to be gained by accepting the invitation on offer.
The Opportunity (of a Lifetime)
This example finally provided usage of the word “opportunity” that was not associated with an invitation. Instead, the two uses of “opportunity” (and one of “opportunities”) from this email relate to a profile/story about a current student.
The first use is similar in meaning to the invite examples above – there was something to be gained. Instead of referencing the specifics of what’s available by attending an on-campus event, however, this usage discusses the specifics of what the student was able to do because of this particular opportunity he was given.
- Cool opportunities
- Numerous opportunities
- Opportunity of a lifetime
The second use of the word here is arguably the most unique from these examples, and the first where what’s being described is not the opportunity to do something (i.e., “opportunity” precedes describing an outcome) but rather how something one had the chance to do can ultimately be regarded as having been an opportunity. What’s ultimately described is still something that was gained, but the order of operations has been reversed.
A Unique Opportunity
Transparently, I passed over eight more examples where “opportunity” referenced an invite to attend an on-campus event while trying to find another example that didn’t leverage the word in that particular context. Nonetheless, the usage here is still relatively similar; instead of an on-campus event, it’s a pre-college online program that’s on offer. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you stand to gain a head start on college – with the value-add of doing so from the comfort of your home. This is another example where a superlative is appended to “opportunity” (this time the word “unique”).
Opportunity for Context
While I had originally expected the word “opportunity” to appear in a wider range of contexts, I was surprised to discover that its use was by far most commonly tied to campus visits and events. This recurring usage narrows the semantic range of the word – while it still carries aspirational tones, its purpose in these examples is more logistical and recruitment driven rather than transformational.
Across these examples, “opportunity” consistently serves as a framing device that positions institutional invitations as valuable and worth seizing. When paired with superlatives like exciting,” “excellent,” and “unique,” the word becomes even more of a strategic tool – not one that describes the actual college experience but rather one that suggests the reader will uncover that for themselves if they attend the event. In this sense, “opportunity” functions less as a promise from the college that it can provide the reader with a particular gain and more as a dangling carrot of potential to be gained by prospective students who take that next step.
In contrast, the one example with a student narrative demonstrated a different, more reflective use of the word. Referring to academic experiences as “the opportunity of a lifetime” positioned the experience as a meaningful personal achievement and as a retrospective endorsement rather than a future-oriented incentive.
Even though the use of the word “opportunity” was largely consistent in the emails, its meaning was shaped by sentence structure, tone, and rhetorical placement. Its positioning before a list of campus activities, modified by emotional language or embedded in storytelling, ultimately served to alter meaning subtly. In this sense, the word is not just a static, feel-good term but is indeed a flexible rhetorical device that gains meaning from the language that surrounds it.
So What? Why Words – and Context – Matter
It’s really easy to take words for granted. It’s even easier to overlook the subtlety related to context – that it’s not just whatwords we use but also how we use them.
In enrollment communications, words don’t just convey information; they shape perceptions, create expectations, and build emotional connections. The same word can invite action, inspire belonging, or be used to simply list out requirements – all dependent on the context in which that word is used.
When it comes to our communications with prospective students, the words “apply” and “opportunity” get used with great frequency. With that frequency comes a measure of comfort; we begin to believe we know what will be conveyed when we see these words. But what I hope these examples have shown is just how much meaning can shift depending on the context. There’s more to effective communication than just choosing popular, positive, or buzzy words; we need to intentionally craft messages where the words we use align with the emotions, motivations, and stages of the student journey we are hoping to address.
Recognizing the nuanced ways words work in context helps enrollment teams go beyond generic messaging and deliver communications that resonate personally and authentically. It’s the difference between an email that simply informs and one that truly engages – and ultimately, between outreach that fades into the background and communication that inspires students to take the next step.
Because at the end of the day, words matter. But how we use them matters even more.
