Apr 15, 2017 06:22 AM EDT By Audri Taylors, UniversityHerald Reporter

If there is anything that has changed in the world of college admissions, it would be the way technology has helped applicants with the whole process of application. In fact, applicants or students are not the only ones who get the benefit from technology. Colleges and universities have utilized technology to reach for more prospective students than ever before. And that is through the power of big data.

Georgia State is one of the schools which achieved their milestone by using data analytics, or big data, as it is commonly known, Times Higher Education reported. Data analytics is when bulks of data are being gathered together and are being analyzed to understand and reveal trends and patterns involving the admissions of prospective students.

Another school which has given this strategy a shot was Saint Louis University, and what they did was to purchase more names of their target college students from the College Board and ACT where they could market their materials, according to The Atlantic.

Jay Goff, the university's vice president for enrollment and retention management, said that they approached the search for students the way most schools would do it, which is to take the previous year's demographics of the freshman class and purchase more names that matched them the year after.

Goff said that they focus on finding students that will be a good fit, so what they are specifically looking for are the students who did not only choose the institution, but the ones who succeeded and were satisfied, because the goal is for them to be able to replicate those students.

While more schools are using this approach to target students that they want, admissions deans are not really sure how long this strategy is going to work.

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