Who Didn't Deposit...And Why

The Real Misses: The Students Who Could Have Deposited, But Didn't

Now that May 1 has passed, attention naturally turns to melt prevention.

But there’s another group that deserves a closer look—those who didn’t deposit at all.

Some of those decisions were expected. But others weren’t. These are the ones that linger in post-cycle reviews. The student who visited twice. The one who responded to every text. The one who said your campus “felt like home.”

They looked engaged. They looked likely. But they said no.

The question isn’t just what happened. The deeper question is: Were we reading the right signals?

Too often, admissions teams rely on visible engagement—event attendance, application completion, email response—as a proxy for intent. But those markers don’t always mean what we think they do.

Sometimes, students are checking boxes because that’s what the process requires. Not because they’re truly leaning toward enrollment.

Other times, their momentum fades subtly, but we miss the signs. We assume interest is still high because they haven’t opted out. But absence of objection is not the same as intent to enroll.

This is where behavioral mismatches appear. When student activity and student decisions don’t align. When what we saw—and what actually drove the decision—weren’t the same.

Looking back at your non-deposited students through this lens can offer powerful clarity. Not just in understanding what went wrong, but in refining how you interpret interest in the first place.

Did students become quieter before they opted out? Did they react to outreach, or just receive it? Were there signs that commitment was fading—but weren’t recognized in time?

The students you lost hold just as much insight as the ones you won. Because yield isn’t just about conversion. It’s about comprehension.

And the better you get at reading what students are really telling you—even when they don’t say it out loud—the better positioned you’ll be next cycle.

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If you want to further explore the quiet signals of interest, I would encourage you to check out this video podcast we held with Tess Ferzoco, Vice President of Enrollment at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, titled Uncovering Hidden Yield.