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Late Depositors: How to Keep Your Undecided Pool Engaged After May 1
- Laura Rudolph
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
May 1 has come and gone. For a lot of enrollment teams, the class still isn't settled.
May 1 used to feel like the line in the sand. Now, for many institutions, it is more like a checkpoint.
Students are still comparing aid packages, waiting on family conversations, weighing athletic opportunities, and trying to decide whether the numbers make sense. The class may not be settled.
But that does not mean those students are gone.
The pool of admitted students who have yet to commit extends further into the summer than it did five years ago. And the institutions that treat those students as lost are leaving deposits on the table.
That is where late depositor strategy matters.
Late depositors are not always late because they are disengaged. More often, they are still-deciding students who need a different kind of conversation after May 1, one that is more personal, more specific and more useful than the yield flow they have already received.
They are not necessarily ignoring you. They may be waiting for the right question, the right reassurance or the right person to help them see a path forward.
Why students are still deciding
The still-deciding population is not a random outlier. Before you build a communication strategy for them, it helps to understand who they are.
Some are waiting on financial conversations that have not resolved — an appeal, a revised package, an outside scholarship that has not arrived. For many first-generation families, the financial aid package is not a document they review once. It is the beginning of a negotiation they did not know they were allowed to have.
Some are athletes whose sport decisions have not landed. This population has always pushed decisions into June. It has always been worth staying in conversation with them.
Some are students who want to come — who have already decided in their hearts, but who are sitting at a kitchen table with a parent who is scared about the money or quietly advocating for a less expensive option closer to home. The student is not the holdout. The parent is.
And some of this, it is worth saying plainly, is institutional. When students learn that May 1 is rarely the hard stop it is presented as, they factor that into their timeline. The FAFSA delays of 2024 accelerated this significantly. Many colleges extended their commitment deadlines, and students learned something important: the deadline may be more flexible than institutions have historically suggested.
According to EducationDynamics' 2024 Online College Students report, 57% of students who delayed enrollment after application did so because they felt unable to commit financially or did not think they would have the time given other obligations.
Those reasons have not changed.
Silence is not always disinterest
The mistake many institutions make after May 1 is assuming silence means the student has moved on.
Sometimes it does.
But sometimes silence means the student is overwhelmed. Or embarrassed to ask another question about money. Or stuck between what they want and what their family can afford. Or unsure whether it is too late to raise their hand again.
That distinction matters.
Because if you treat every quiet student like a lost student, your communication strategy becomes passive right when it needs to become more useful. The goal is not to chase students who have clearly chosen another institution. The goal is to identify the students who are still open, still uncertain, and still waiting for someone to make the next step feel possible.
That is where still-deciding strategy lives.
9 ways to move still-deciding students toward deposit
The traditional yield flow has already done what it was going to do.
By late May, these students do not need another glossy reminder that your institution is a great place. They have heard that message. They have seen the emails. They know May 1 has passed.
What they need now is a different kind of communication — more personal, more specific, and more willing to solve the actual problem in front of them.
Here are a few places to start.
Send a pulse survey
Stop guessing. A short pulse survey in late May or early June can give you more useful intelligence than another beautifully designed email.
Keep it simple:
Where are you in your decision right now?
What is still making this decision hard?
Is there anything we have not answered that would help?
Give students a few simple options to choose from: cost, family concerns, competing offers, uncertainty about next steps, or no longer being interested. The point is not to collect perfect data. The point is to stop guessing and let their response guide your next move.
Some students need a financial aid conversation. Some need a parent follow-up. Some need a current student connection. Some need permission to re-engage. Some need to be released from the funnel because they have already moved on.
Create a decision concierge.
Still-deciding students should not have to understand your org chart to get help.
That is one of the biggest hidden barriers in late-stage yield. A student has a financial aid question, a housing concern, a parent objection, an academic fit question, and maybe an athletic timeline issue — and they have no idea who owns what.
So give them one human starting point.
For two or three weeks after May 1, assign still-deciding students to a “decision concierge.” This does not need to be a new position. It can be a counselor, admissions staff member, student success colleague, or cross-trained team member whose job is simple:
Tell me what is still unresolved, and I will help get you to the right person.
That is the message. Just:
If you are still thinking this through, you do not have to figure it out alone. Tell me what is still unresolved, and I will help you find the right next step.
That feels different because it is different. It removes the burden from the student and puts the institution back in a service posture.
3. Send a plain-text “what would help?” email.
A plain-text email from a counselor can do more at this stage than another automated campaign.
No graphics. No banner. No polished marketing language. Just a human being asking a real question and meaning it.
Something as simple as:
I wanted to check in before the summer gets away from us. Is there anything that would help you feel more confident about your decision?
That email, sent from a real person’s name and address, will probably outperform most automated sequences still running in the background.
Because at this point, the student does not need to be impressed. They need to be invited back into the conversation.
Give them permission to still be interested.
Some students who miss May 1 assume the institution has moved on. They may feel awkward re-engaging, especially if they have ignored emails, missed events or gone quiet for weeks.
So say it plainly:
Still thinking about us? That is okay. May 1 has passed, but your questions still matter. If you are still considering [Institution], we are still happy to talk through cost, next steps, housing, academic fit, or anything else that would help you make a confident decision.
That message does not sound desperate. It sounds open. And for the student who needed one small invitation to restart the conversation, it may be enough.
Use student-to-student contact.
Not a polished testimonial. Not a scripted ambassador video that sounds like it went through three rounds of committee edits.
A brief, unscripted message from a current student who was in the same position last year can be far more effective.
That message could be a short text, a quick video, or even a casual voice memo-style clip. The goal is not production value. The goal is recognition.
Still-deciding students trust other students in ways they do not always trust institutions.
And if you are a Slate user, this is a practical place to use Slate Video. Have a current student record a quick message from the mobile app while walking across campus, sitting outside the library, or heading to class. Make it feel like a message from a person, not a campaign asset.
Send a “what happens if you deposit this week?” email.
Late-stage students may not need another emotional appeal. They may need clarity.
A simple email can outline exactly what happens if they say yes now:
If you deposit this week, here is what happens next:
✔️ You receive your housing next steps ✔️ You get orientation information ✔️ Your advisor outreach begins ✔️ You can still talk with financial aid ✔️ You are not behind
That last one matters. Some still-deciding students worry they have already missed too much. They may assume housing is gone, orientation is full, financial aid conversations are closed, or everyone else is already ahead of them.
Tell them what is still possible. Make the path feel manageable.
Email the parent directly.
Send a specific, plain-language message to the parent or family supporter that acknowledges what they may be carrying right now: financial uncertainty, unanswered questions, fear of making the wrong choice, and the weight of a decision that feels too big and too expensive to get wrong.
The message does not need to be complicated. It needs to be useful.
Acknowledge that cost may still be part of the conversation. Point them to the person who can help. Offer a phone call, virtual meeting, or in-person conversation. Make it easy for them to ask the question they may be nervous to ask.
A student-facing email may never make it into the kitchen table conversation. A direct, human message to the parent might.
Use the behavior you already have.
This does not need to be complicated.
Before sending the same “still deciding?” email to every non-deposited admit, look at what students are actually doing.
In Slate, use the behavior you already have — email engagement, event activity, portal behavior, form starts, family engagement, and prior financial aid questions — to decide who needs which message.
Those students should not receive the same message as someone who has been completely dark since March.
Behavior tells you where the uncertainty may be. Use it.
A student clicking financial aid content probably needs a different message than a student watching residence life videos. A student who started the deposit form and stopped needs a different nudge than a student whose parent has opened every family email since February.
That is the difference between communication and strategy.
Make the deposit frictionless.
When a still-deciding student is finally ready to commit, what does that experience actually look like?
If the answer involves finding an old portal link, resetting a password, navigating multiple screens, calling someone for help, or trying to remember where the deposit form lives, you are creating friction at the exact moment you need momentum.
That is not a small problem.
Late deposits are often fragile. The student may finally feel ready, but that readiness can disappear quickly if the process feels confusing, outdated, or harder than expected.
Audit the deposit path before summer starts.
Click every link. Test every step. Read every instruction like a student who has not logged into your portal in two months. Then remove every unnecessary barrier you can.
Because when a still-deciding student becomes ready, the next step should be obvious.
The summer yield mindset
The post-May 1 strategy requires a different mindset.
This is not about blasting students with urgency until they finally give in. It is not about pretending every undecided student is one more email away from depositing. And it is definitely not about running the same yield communications for another eight weeks and hoping the results change.
Summer yield is different.
By late May, students do not need another reminder that your institution is a great place. They probably already know that. What they need is help making the decision feel possible.
They need clarity.
They need reassurance.
They need someone to remove the friction, answer the question they are nervous to ask, and help them understand what happens next if they say yes.
That means your communication should shift from persuasion to problem-solving.
Instead of asking, “How do we convince them to deposit?” ask: What is still getting in the way?
That question changes the strategy. It moves you away from generic urgency and toward useful communication. It forces you to look at financial uncertainty, parent hesitation, confusing next steps, housing anxiety, academic fit, athletic timelines, and the quiet fear some students have that they are already behind.
Because for many still-deciding students, the issue is not interest. It is confidence.
The institutions that win these students are not always the loudest. They are the ones that stay present without overwhelming, stay useful without repeating themselves, and make the next step feel manageable when the student is finally ready to take it.
The bottom line
Late decision makers are not lost students. They are students who need a different conversation than the one your yield comm flow was designed to have — one that is more personal, more patient, and more willing to ask what they actually need rather than tell them what to do.
The deposit is still available.
The question is whether your institution is still in the conversation.
At Square One Consulting, I help enrollment and marketing teams build communication strategies for every stage of the student journey — including the stages that happen after the traditional deadline.
If your post-May 1 strategy needs to move beyond reminders and into real decision support, let’s talk.
