How University Websites’ Emphasis on Age Diversity Influences Prospective Students’ Perception of Person-Organization Fit and Student Recruitment

Despite of the popularity of emphasizing diversity information on university websites surprisingly little is known about if how and why diversity recruitment strategies actually affect students’ enrollment decisions. To gain insight into this question this paper introduces and tests a model applying general social psychological theorizing to the relationships that older university applicants may form with a potential future university. Study 1 (N = 172), a web-based scenario experiment, confirmed the model’s assumption that emphasizing diversity in terms of students’ age increases perceived person-organization fit through consolidating anticipation of organization-based respect and pride. Study 2 (N = 195), a naturalistic field study among actual university applicants, replicated this mediational model. Importantly, including alternative predictors of applicants’ enrollment decisions in the model (e.g., personal goals for studying) did not change this picture. An additional follow-up after 3 months (N = 62) also secured evidence for the proposed model’s predictive power with regard to participants’ actual enrollment. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings for university recruitment strategies are discussed.