Student recruitment: where does choosing a school really begin in 2026?

Student recruitment: where does choosing a school really begin in 2026?

‍

‍

TL;DR

• Prospective students and their parents do not look for information in the same places: students turn to social networks, video platforms and AI, while parents rely on traditional media, fairs, and their Facebook or WhatsApp groups.
• TikTok and Snapchat are where a school gets discovered, while Google, Reddit and AI are where it gets checked. A school missing from AI answers may never make it onto a candidate’s shortlist.
• The decision is made as a family, and half of parents do not know who to turn to: the school that gives them reliable information takes a place few players occupy.
• The website comes at the end of the journey. An effective student acquisition strategy starts by working on everything that happens before it.

‍

By the time a candidate lands on a school’s website, they have often already discovered it on social media, compared it on Google or with an AI tool, and talked it over with their parents. A large part of student recruitment therefore plays out on channels that the school controls little, if at all.
‍

For higher education marketing teams, the question is no longer just how to drive traffic to the website, but where candidates and their parents form their opinion, and how to be present there. This article takes stock using the most recent French data, our media monitoring and the recruitment campaigns we have run for schools.
‍

What has changed in the way people choose a school

Candidates and their parents do not get their information in the same place
‍

According to the Arcom study Les Français et l’information (January 2026), 54% of under-25s get their information first through social networks, video platforms and AI tools. Among 35-59 year-olds, the age bracket of most parents, only 17% do: television, radio and the press remain their main source. The study covers information in general, not school guidance. But the gap is wide enough to draw a conclusion: a single campaign cannot reach both the candidate and their parents. You need two setups, with distinct channels and messages.
‍

The first contact with a school increasingly goes through an AI
‍

Also according to Arcom, 38% of under-25s use a tool such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini every week to get information. Google launched AI Overviews and AI Mode in France in July 2026, and questions asked in AI Mode are on average three times longer than a traditional search.
‍

A candidate no longer just types “business school Lille”. They ask “which business school in Lille offers work-study from the first year?”. If the school does not appear in the answer, it drops off their list before they have even opened a website.
‍

Social networks help people discover a school, but the decision is made as a family
‍

Social networks help people discover a school, but they are not enough to get it chosen. According to an OpinionWay survey for L’Étudiant (April 2025), 74% of young people turn to their parents for guidance, and 54% to their teachers.
‍

The video seen on TikTok starts the conversation, but the decision is made at home. A student recruitment strategy that only speaks to candidates leaves out a good half of the decision.
‍

Parents look for a reliable source and cannot find one
‍

The same survey shows that 51% of parents do not know who to turn to when it comes to guidance. Their expectations are nonetheless clear: personalized information (48%), from a reliable (46%) and neutral (39%) source.
‍

Few schools address them directly. The one that gives them clear information on cost, funding or career prospects takes a place that nobody really occupies.
‍

Discover: social networks, the first point of contact

TikTok, as much a search engine as a social network
‍

Candidates do not just watch videos on TikTok, they ask their questions there. In its 2024 trends report, the British agency OK COOL found that 72% of Gen Z respondents say they actually search on TikTok when they talk about “googling”. The sample is British and not representative, but it describes a reflex we also see in France.
‍

Questions about admission, cost or work-study are already circulating there, and the most visible answers do not always come from schools. For a school, the challenge is to be the source. That means videos that answer one precise question, with the keywords spoken and displayed within the first few seconds, and video replies to comments, which turn every question asked under a video into new content.
‍

Snapchat, an 18-24 audience to reach through advertising
‍

Snapchat is often reduced to a messaging app. Yet it is the platform where 18-24 year-olds weigh the most: they represent 29% of its advertising audience in France, against 25% on TikTok and 23% on Instagram (We Are Social and Meltwater, Digital Report France 2026). For a school recruiting high school graduates or students looking to change track, this is a concentrated audience that can be targeted in paid campaigns.
‍

Organically, Snapchat mostly serves key moments: stories to remind people of an application deadline, Spotlight to share short advice videos. Its main value for student recruitment remains advertising.

‍

This is the approach we followed with FGES (Université Catholique de Lille), whose offer, from bachelor’s to master’s with a large share of work-study, was hard to make legible. We tested TikTok, Meta, Snapchat and Google Ads to reach both students and their parents, with content led by student ambassadors. The result: on TikTok, performance five times above target, and across all campaigns, clicks 106% above forecast, with CPC and CPM down 52% (see the FGES case study).

‍

Content designed to be shared

‍

On TikTok as on Instagram, shares in private messages now count for more than likes in how videos are distributed. A video with few likes but many shares can reach far more people than a highly liked piece of content that nobody shares.

‍

Content should therefore be designed to be sent to someone. Useful topics lend themselves well to this: what a year really costs, how to find a work-study contract, what a week of classes looks like. Videos led by students do too, because they speak the language of the people receiving them, far more than an institutional presentation does.

‍

Combining platforms to widen the candidate pool

‍

ISTC, a communication school in Lille that positions itself against institutions such as Sciences Po or Celsa, wanted to recruit more and beyond the Hauts-de-France region. We built a setup with them across Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Google Ads, from first contact through to retargeting, with content designed to guide high school students in their choice rather than to sell the school. The result: 340 qualified leads for a class of 150 students, 48% of them from other regions (see the ISTC case study).

‍

Verify: Google, Reddit and AI

‍

Once a school has been spotted, the candidate checks: student reviews, fees, career prospects, work-study rhythm. This step happens less and less on the school’s own website.

‍

Student reviews surface in Google through Reddit

‍

Reddit entered the top 10 social networks in France for the first time, with 12.8 million unique visitors per month and 72% growth in one year (Médiamétrie, L’Année Internet, February 2026). A good part of this audience arrives from Google without having searched for Reddit: when a candidate types “[school name] reviews” or “is [school name] worth it?”, they increasingly land on a discussion thread between students.

‍

These conversations are out of the school’s hands, but they show it what candidates are asking and what worries them. Following them makes it possible to spot unclear or outdated information, correct it on the school’s own pages and, when a factual question is asked, answer it transparently.

‍

What AI says about a school depends on what others say

‍

To answer a question about a school, generative AI tools cross-reference several sources: its website, but also specialist media, rankings, course directories and forums such as Reddit, which they rely on heavily.

‍

A school can therefore have an excellent website and still be absent from the answers, if these third-party sources say little about it or give contradictory information on its fees, work-study rhythm or admission dates. Being cited by AI depends as much on the consistency of its presence across these sites as on its own pages. We detail the method in our article on measuring GEO visibility.

‍

Social videos also appear in Google

‍

Google now surfaces short videos from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or Facebook alongside traditional pages, especially for practical queries such as “how to apply” or “what financial aid is available for studies”. A video that answers a question well therefore works twice: on the network where it is published, and in search results.

‍

Deciding as a family: reaching parents where they are

‍

Parents rely on more traditional channels than their children: according to OpinionWay, they favor fairs (51%), guidance counselors (45%) and teachers (44%). Online, Facebook remains their space for groups and mutual help, and WhatsApp extends the conversation into more private circles: class groups, school groups, information channels. The official Parcoursup WhatsApp channel, for instance, has more than 20,000 subscribers.

‍

According to a 2020 Facebook and YouGov study, 56% of parents interact weekly with online groups to look for recommendations. The figure is dated, but the reflex remains: among parents, group mutual help is a natural way of getting information, not a habit to be created.

For a school, two levers follow from this:

• Produce content designed to circulate in these groups, such as a funding guide or a clear admissions calendar, rather than trying to create its own parent community.
• Go through the media they trust, such as L’Étudiant, Studyrama or Diplomeo, which meet their need for reliable and neutral information.

After admission: staying in touch until the start of the school year

‍

Between admission and the start of the school year, an admitted candidate can still change their mind, especially if they have been accepted elsewhere. Many schools leave this period unattended.

Discord is a good fit. The platform has more than 250 million monthly active users worldwide, about 70% of whom are under 34, and student life already exists there, often driven by students and associations themselves. One server per class lets admitted students meet, ask questions about housing or the start of the year, and begin to picture themselves at the school.

‍

The condition: regular activity and moderation, handled by the team or by student ambassadors. An empty server gives a poor image of the school. WhatsApp channels complete the setup for information that needs to reach everyone: date reminders, documents to provide, practical information for the first day.

‍

Frequently asked questions

‍

Which social networks should a school be on to recruit?

‍

TikTok and Instagram to get discovered, Snapchat to reach 18-24 year-olds through advertising, Facebook for parents. The right mix depends mostly on the program: a post-baccalaureate bachelor’s and a master’s do not target the same age or the same channels.

‍

How can you reach the parents of prospective students?

‍

By speaking to them separately from candidates, with concrete information on cost, funding and career prospects. This content works well through specialist media and in formats that are easy to forward into their Facebook or WhatsApp groups.

‍

How do you find out what AI says about your school?

‍

By regularly asking AI tools the questions candidates ask, under neutral conditions, and noting whether the school is cited, with what information and against which competitors. A GEO audit helps structure this measurement.

‍

Should a school be present on Reddit?

‍

Not to advertise. Following the threads that concern it does, however, let a school know what candidates are asking, correct inaccurate information on its website and answer factually when a question is addressed to it.

‍

Key takeaways

‍

Choosing a school is shaped before the website visit, on channels the school only partly controls: TikTok and Snapchat to discover, Google, Reddit and AI to verify, parent groups to decide. The website keeps its role, but at the end of the journey, to confirm and convert.

‍

An effective student acquisition strategy therefore spreads its efforts across all of these stages. With one consequence to anticipate: part of this journey does not show up in analytics tools, and only self-reported data in forms and the CRM can reconstruct it. For schools offering a January intake, we detail the levers specific to that calendar in our article on recruiting for the delayed intake.

‍

Discover our higher education marketing services, or let’s talk about your situation to prepare your next student recruitment campaign.

‍