Social media aid in the college search

RELEASED: January 14, 2010

By Leigh Ivey

DANVILLE, KY—High school students in the midst of their college searches spend countless hours perusing college catalogues, brochures, flyers and Web sites. Yet many overlook some of the most useful tools for discovering the character of a college—social media Web sites.

From Facebook and Unigo to YouTube and Flickr, social media sites can be quite helpful in the college search. Centre College's digital recruitment specialist Adam Brown '07 explains why.

"By its nature, social media implies that there’s a conversation occurring between you and the college," he says, "whereas traditional contact—brochures, Web sites, DVDs—suggests that you’re listening to a monologue. So yes, you can dig for trivia through a college’s Web site, but you can’t discuss the impact that this information really has."
 
Enter social media.
 
"If you look at Centre’s student-to-teacher ratio, you’ll see it’s 11:1," Brown says. "Great, but why not head over to Facebook and post on the College’s wall, 'Are classes all that small, and how much personal attention does that mean for students? Any answers from students would be appreciated.' Boom. Now you’re talking to 1,215 students, each with different perspectives."
 
Because most colleges and universities have only recently begun using social media for recruitment, many prospective students are hesitant to post comments or questions online.

To Brown, this makes sense.

"If you look at the high-pressure stakes students are facing, sometimes high schoolers may think it's best to avoid any unnecessary contact that could potentially cast them in a negative light," he says.
 
Centre's admission counselors, however, hope that prospective students realize that comments tend to portray the students in a positive light instead.
 
"We remember the students who cultivate relationships with our office," Brown says. "If I’m reading an application and know that a student has commented on the blog or on Facebook, I’m going into it differently than if I'd never heard from or met the student."

Besides its Facebook profile, Centre has a presence on a multitude of sites, including YouTube, Unigo, Flickr, Zinch, Twitter, College Confidential and the Admission Centre.

"These sites are intended to remove the veil of marketing and present schools for what they are," Brown says. "They separate image from character."

And because social media sites can be updated constantly, they provide up-to-the-minute information about admission events, application deadlines and more.

"That’s the beauty of social media," Brown says. "You post something, you get a response. Add that to the fact that we’re consistently creating content to generate conversation, and you can see how it updates organically.”

During the coming months, Centre's admission office hopes that prospective students will utilize the many social media tools available to them.

"Put out requests to students for anecdotes and descriptions of what their life is like at various schools," Brown says. "And most importantly, have fun and start creating relationships with colleges!"

Have comments, suggestions, or story ideas? E-mail leigh.ivey@centre.edu with your feedback.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.