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Archive for: College Admissions Social Media

College Social Media Recruitment


There are a number of interesting studies on the use of social media by college admissions offices as a means to recruit potential applicants. Two researchers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson, have found that since 2007, there has been an 84% increase by admissions offices in blogging and a 300% increase in the use of Facebook.

Wrote Ganim Barnes and Mattson in their study, “The first study of the schools and their use of social media revealed that institutions of higher education were outpacing the more traditional Fortune 500 companies as well as the fast-growing Inc. 500 companies in their use of social media to communicate with their customers (i.e., students). For example, at that time, 8% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared with 19% of the Inc. 500 while 32% of colleges and universities were using this tool.

In 2008, in a follow-up on the original study, The Center gathered the data again in order to conduct one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media by college admission offices. That study compared two years of data, 2007 and 2008. Given that a detailed wiki and a longitudinal University of Massachusetts study showed that in 2008, 13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc. 500 had a public blog, it was interesting to see that college admission departments continued to lead the organizational pack with blogs at 41% of US colleges and universities.”

The authors go on to write, “500 (22% have a corporate blog) and the fast-growing Inc. 500 (42% have a corporate blog). The latest research shows 51% of colleges and universities have an admissions blog for their school…The results are fascinating and continue to support what the 2007 study documented for the first time: Colleges and universities are using social media to recruit and research prospective students. It is clear that online behavior can have important consequences for young people and that social networking sites can, and will, be utilized by others to make decisions about them.”

Below is a chart from the Ganim Barnes and Mattson study:

 

 

 

 

 

See the research on the use of social media by college admissions offices in the recruitment process here.

Read our Newsletter on Using Social Networking Sites to Your Advantage.

Read our blogs on Social Media and College Admissions and Social Networking in College Admission.

Social Media and College Admissions


Social media is a hot topic in college admissions. The question so many students and parents often pose is: Do college admissions counselors check the Facebook pages of their applicants? The short answer is…no. College admissions counselors don’t have the time to peruse every applicant’s Facebook page. In a word, it’s impractical. But does that mean you should have content on your Facebook page or on other social media outlets that you wouldn’t want an admissions counselor to see? Of course not!

Just because admissions counselors don’t check every applicant’s Facebook page doesn’t mean they won’t check your Facebook page. What if you’re a borderline candidate whose application has gone to committee? And just because admissions counselors tend not to check your Facebook page, that may not be the case for alumni interviewers.

Alumni interviewers quite frequently take a look at your Facebook page either before the interview when they are trying to figure out how to recognize you at a crowded Starbucks, or after the interview when they are completing their evaluation. Since alumni only interview a certain number of students, they want to be able to share information that can be helpful to the admissions office in formulating a decision. Alumni interviewers thus often have the time and the motivation to check your Facebook page.

In an article this week in “The Seattle Times” linked below, the author writes about ways to use social media to your competitive advantage in the college admissions process. We agree — there are indeed ways to market your art portfolio or accomplishments on the viola online for college admissions counselors. There are ways to carefully use the Internet to help your case for admission. But by keeping your privacy preferences open to the public or by having it up there at all, you run the risk of unintentionally sharing information with people who will have an influence on your admissions decisions. Is it worth the risk?

Read our Newsletter on Using Social Networking Sites to Your Advantage.

Read our blogs on College Social Media Recruitment, and Social Networking in College Admission.

Check out the article in “The Seattle Times” here.