Two years ago, Amanda Dutcher had already received the fat envelope from Hamline University filled with the happy news that she’d been accepted to her school of choice. But the most anticipated piece of information for this self-described “really plugged-in” young woman from Pelican Rapids didn’t appear until just a few months before she arrived on campus.
“I was sent my Hamline e-mail address in July or August,” Dutcher says. “Once I got that, I was able to register for Facebook.” Since Dutcher’s been at Hamline, the popular social networking site has opened access to just about anyone with an e-mail account, but back when she was getting ready to start school, the site was only open college students, so having .edu attached to her name provided Dutcher access to a coveted new world. “Facebook was how I got to meet new people before I got down to the Cities for school,” she explains. “We exchanged messages and met up on the first day of orientation. It is a huge networking tool. It alleviated a lot of the awkwardness of getting to know people.”
Imagine having to meet people the old-fashioned way:
“Before Facebook, before e-mail, if you wanted to meet your roommate or anyone else from school before you got there you couldn’t do anything except call them a couple times,” marvels Alex Conover, a first-year student at St. Mary’s University of Winona. “Before I got to school, I met my roommate on e-mail. And I talked to the guys in my dorm a couple of times on Facebook.”
Arriving on campus backed by a posse of virtual friends removed most of the social awkwardness from those first few days of classes, Dutcher says. “It’s a lot easier to be outgoing when you have a lot of people you already know. I was the only person from my hometown who went to Hamline, so when I got here, I ended up hanging out with my Facebook friends. My roommate and I never even talked to each other on the phone before we got to school. We just communicated through Facebook. For us it worked great.”
Facebook and other social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster have changed the college search, application, and even orientation experience for young college-bound people, says William Mullen, vice president of enrollment management, Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
“Before they showed up on campus, the incoming freshman class here were communicating with each other via social networking sites,” he says, “and because of that, many of them would contact us independently with some pretty unique questions. I’d say, ‘How’d you hear that?’ and they’d explain that they were discussing it with another student, someone they only knew online. A lot of the students here get to know each other online before they get here, and before they even officially apply, sometimes before the folks in admissions even know they exist. They’ve done all the research. They’ve picked out their school, they’ve met people who go there or who also want to go there, and they’re really zeroed in on it.”
This level of überconnectivity means that many schools have to rethink their strategies for connecting with potential students.
“Twenty years ago, everything was direct mail,” says Steve Bjork, Hamline University’s associate vice president of admission and career services. “In the past, after receiving some mailing or a phone call, a student would write a letter, call the school, or send in a reply card asking for more information. We’d make contact that way. Now, once they hear about a college that appeals to them, the first thing students do is jump online and Google the school. They take it from there, and we often don’t hear from them again for a long time.”
Adds Mullen: “The Millennial Generation doesn’t want to be marketed to. They are independent, and they rely on and trust technology implicitly. Many feel they can get all the information they need to make key decisions from the web.”
Undercover applicants
There’re out there, lurking around the edges of a school’s official web site, doing in-depth independent online research about majors, dorm life, athletics, and even meal plans. And thanks to social-networking sites, they’ve made connections with current and potential students, and they know which profs to avoid and what classes not to miss.
Through their research, these potential students become deeply invested in a specific institution, ready to commit the next four years of their lives and thousands of their parents’ dollars to earn a degree. They complete an online application, but the only visit they’ve ever paid to the school of their dreams has been virtual. They’ve looked at pictures of ivy-covered walls and well-appointed laboratories, but they’ve never even set foot on campus.
A growing population of prospective college students are young people who do all or most of their college search online, making their first official contact with a school when they send in an application. According to Noel-Levitz, an Iowa City-based higher-education research and marketing firm, almost 40 percent of college campuses indicate that more than 20 percent of their applicants had made no contact with the institution prior to applying.
“We call them secret shoppers,” Mullen says. “What these students are trying to do is to get all the information they can about an institution and the student life there without divulging themselves to the school.”
Bjork says that Hamline has always had a small percentage of students who apply to the school without visiting campus. He believes that easy web access and students’ trust in the validity of the information they find online has made some feel comfortable with the idea of attending a school that they haven’t even visited. In most situations, Bjork believes that’s a bad idea.
“Students who do come here beforehand have a better sense of what they’re getting into,” he says. “A student or parent can sit home, look at data, compare colleges, but nothing will ever beat a campus visit. Without the real face-to-face experience with faculty and staff and students, you can’t get a real sense of that learning community. From a distance, it’s hard to really answer questions like, ‘Is this the kind of school that will fit my personality, fit my learning style, fit my goals?’ I’ve seen some pretty slick web sites for places that aren’t really that slick.”
Mullen encourages all applicants to take schools for a test drive.
“The most important tool for a student to help with evaluating colleges is to go on campus and get a tour, to sit in on classes, meet an instructor, have lunch, and talk to the admissions counselors,” he says. “All the online research in the world doesn’t compare to actual experience.”
Damage control
With all those web-savvy potential students out there researching the top schools, do colleges and universities ever worry that an online flamer with an ax to grind could damage the reputation of a venerable institution?
You’d drive yourself to distraction trying to control every online comment that’s made about your school, Mullen says. The web is an uncontrollable beast, and admission officers should understand that savvy users know how to weed through the rumors to get to the truth.
“We can’t control anything on the web,” Mullen says. “This is what’s going on. Literally a new web site or forum starts every month. It never stops.”
Adds Bjork: “I give students a lot of credit. They can sift through somebody’s angry rant on a social-networking site about how horrible a place might be. They can figure if there are people enrolled there, taking classes, and earning degrees, it can’t be all that bad. I think students are able to filter out the rants.”
Since computer lines run both ways, should a student be concerned about how his or her online identity may be perceived by admission officers? Generally, admissions staff say they don’t Google applicants’ names or try to sneak a peek on their MySpace page, but young people serious about getting into a good school say that when it comes to the web, it’s always best to play it safe.
Make new friends
Since many potential students have gone undercover, relying on the Internet for much of their college search, some higher-ed institutions are experimenting with using social-networking sites as a way to connect with young people.
Alan Christenson, assistant director of admission at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, has his own Facebook page. He uses it mostly for connecting with potential students.
“I kept hearing more about ‘Facebook this, Facebook that,’” Christenson recalls. “I figured it must be something that a lot of students are using. I created a page for the students I recruit, and I invited them to join my friends group.”
Some schools have even hired students to assist with their online recruiting efforts. Conover works part-time for St. Mary’s Admissions Department.
“About a third of my time at work is devoted to Facebook,” he says. “I created a profile for the school. We also made one for Big Red, our mascot. Now, if someone visits St. Mary’s, we like to send them a message on Facebook that says, ‘Thanks for visiting. Feel free to add us to your friends list. Feel free to contact us and ask any questions you want.’ We try to keep it subtle, not to invade their space.”
Christenson recently decided to expand communication with his friends list, a group of young people he’d like to encourage to apply to one of his schools.
“I do weekly updates on what’s going on on campus, sports scores, plays and theater, concerts, big news about the dining service,” he says. “I think it’s a good way to communicate with prospective students from my territories. I have several students who basically live on Facebook, who use it as their primary mode of communicating with me. I see more and more young people heading that way. So it only makes sense that I meet them where they are.”
Andy Steiner is a St. Paul writer.
