A Critical Analysis of the recent published Enrollment Index 2025

Data-driven insights are invaluable. However, when they are presented without transparency or rigorous methodology, they become misled. The recently released Enrollment Index 2025 by a SaaS software player in enrollments, which claims to reveal “the industry standard for understanding what drives enrollments across India,” is flawed, misleading and even borderline dishonest. Despite its polished graphs and charts, the report suffers from fundamental flaws that raise serious questions about its intent and purpose.

As a part of the ecosystem, in this blog post, we objectively write on behalf of the enrollment industry, we examine what this means for stakeholders in the education, admissions and CRM industries. We also hope this healthy critique will help companies come up with objective insights & analytics that will benefit the wider education marketing ecosystem in India. So let’s get started!

A visual summary of what’s gone wrong with the report

Methodological Flaws and the Hidden Data Dilemma

• • The report is based on a lead pool of 2.3 crores and showcases an impressive array of graphs, charts, and performance comparisons. Yet, it offers no underlying data or clear methodology to support its claims. Without details on how the sample was selected or how the data was processed, the report leaves readers in the dark about its credibility. This lack of transparency not only undermines the findings but also opens the door to accusations of gross misinformation. References data are the bedrock of any good research & that’s completely missing.

Proprietary Data and Data Security Concerns

• • The lead and application data represent the proprietary intellectual property of institutes. By aggregating data for a comparative analysis, one must ask whether the necessary permissions have been obtained from each customer to use this sensitive information. It compromises multiple layers of data protection. Potentially, it can put institutions at risk – legally and ethically. In our view, a service provider should be super careful how to use the data and necessary permissions & aggregate it while completely anonymising the identity of leads. We have no clue what were the practices followed in this research. This puts at risk the foundation of the relationship between the service provider and the institutions.

Sampling Bias and Its Impact on Validity

• • One of the report’s most critical issues is a clear sampling bias. By relying on a self-selected lead pool, there is a high risk that certain segments of the population are overrepresented while others are neglected. This is a classic example of sampling bias: The generalizability of these findings is severely limited. The extent to which the results can be generalized to a broader audience—is thus compromised. When industry insights are based on a skewed sample, institutions may make misguided decisions that fail to address the realities of the market. With evolving search and discoverability dynamics powered by advanced GPTs like Gemini and ChatGPT, yesterday’s metrics may quickly become irrelevant for predicting tomorrow’s outcomes.

Questionable Comparisons and Selection Bias

• • The report makes the mistake of comparing the performance of different publishers without considering the differences in their customer bases. For example, comparing institutions like XYZ with others that don’t share the same customers leads to misleading conclusions. It’s similar to Salesforce publishing a report comparing agencies like Ogilvy and McCann, which have completely different clients. Not only does this lack the necessary authority and data overlap to comment accurately on outcomes, but it also risks transforming a credible SaaS subscription provider into an information-churning consulting firm. The misrepresentations, such as unfairly ranking one entity as #1 while leaving out credible ones, can severely undermine the report’s integrity.

Flawed Google Analysis: Oversimplification at Its Worst

• • The analysis of Google’s performance in the report is particularly problematic. The report merely states that Google performed well or poorly without clarifying whether it is referring to Search Ads, YouTube, Adsense, Affiliates, Display Ads, or a combination thereof. Such a generalized assessment is not only misleading but also oversimplified to the point of banality. By lumping together vastly different traffic channels under one banner, the analysis fails to capture the nuanced performance of each segment. At best, this oversimplification reduces complex digital ecosystems to a few numbers; at worst, it presents incorrect data points and flawed insights that misinform stakeholders.

Key Omissions: The Surprising Missing Competitors

• • Perhaps most surprisingly, the Enrollment Index report omits key players such as Career360 and MBA Universe, organizations that hold significant sway in the publisher and college director space. When we looked at Similarweb data for Jan 3025, Careers360 has 3X to 9X of the traffic of those in top 5 in the report. This is not just an oversight; it is a critical gap that calls into question the objectivity of the report.

Conclusion: The Call for Data Integrity

• The Enrollment Index 2025 may present itself as a cutting-edge analytical tool, but beneath the surface lies a multitude of methodological flaws. Sampling bias, the misuse of percentages, selection bias in comparing non-equivalent datasets, and the omission of key market players all contribute to a narrative that is more misleading than informative.
• For stakeholders, educators, and industry professionals, this serves as a stark reminder: What rights do you give to your service provider? Can they use your data? Have they taken the necessary permissions? If they can see it and use it, what is the guarantee that the same is not being used to benefit your competitor? These are serious questions that industry and institutions must grapple with and find answers to.
  

  
  Final Thoughts

  • The case of the Enrollment Index 2025 should prompt a broader conversation about ownership, accountability and credibility in enrollment marketing analytics. There is a real risk of institutions facing legal challenges and Data theft when such rights are appropriated by any external 3rd party service provider(s).
  • At ExtraaEdge, we believe in the power of insights while maintaining a respectful distance when handling data owned by institutions. We provide our customers with an annual enrollment report where we analyse and share insights based exclusively on their private data, ensuring that the information is both highly relevant and 100% transparent.
  • This report is offered as a critique aimed at betterment—grounded in facts and best practices of core insights techniques—for the broader improvement of the education fraternity and ecosystem. We hope that we can pave the way for more robust, transparent, larger standards to which the industry will live up to.