Escape Velocity | Dayana "Day" Kibilds: Why Higher Ed Language Fails the Students It Claims to Serve

Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, talks with Dayana "Day" Kibilds, VP of Strategy at Ologie and author of Mailed It, about the language problem hiding in plain sight across higher education. Day has worked in-house in admissions and now leads strategy for dozens of institutions worldwide. Together they dig into why financial aid pages read like legal documents (paste yours into the Hemingway app and watch it turn red), how Ologie's work with Amherst College created a home-delivered guide that reached first-gen students nobody else was reaching, and why creative testing almost always kills the boldest work. They also get into the agency-institution dynamic: why schools think they're more unique than they are, why "community" isn't a differentiator, what happens when a president swoops in at the 11th hour, and what the structural future of higher ed looks like as AI reshapes everything. Escape Velocity is hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a creative and digital agency working with higher education and complex growth brands. Link to the book - "Mailed It!" Link to Day's Newsletter: You Ask Day Answers