Colleges Turn to Web Tools in Hunt for ’08 Freshmen: Interactive sites aid recruiters, school-shoppers

Peter Schworm:

Once dominated by glossy brochures, college fairs, and campus tours, the college admissions landscape is rapidly shifting toward online social media, as schools blanket the Internet with podcasts, blogs, and videos to recruit wired high school students.

With virtual campus tours, live chats with college students, professors, and admissions officers, and videos about campus life, colleges and universities are increasingly turning to interactive and multimedia technology as recruiting tactics to connect with prospective students who are far more likely to scroll down a Web page than thumb through a college viewbook.

Think of it as College Admissions 2.0, college officials and consultants say.

"Higher ed is really trying to embrace it on all fronts," said Nora Barnes, director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. "There's no doubt that's where their audience is."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 16, 2008 12:00 AM
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