When Is a Boast Not a Boast?

Most colleges and universities have no idea just how much time serious applicants spend scouring campus Web sites for information, especially if the institutions are not particularly well known.

But the same information that administrators seem proud to post on their “Campus Highlights” page often leaves candidates cold. How can anyone really think that phrases like “a newly installed computer lab,” “our first hi-tech smart classroom,” or “recently air-conditioned” will attract high-quality faculty members in 2008? Even the photos that are selected tell a story: Dingy classrooms with no technology visible are distressing on one end of the scale, while too many model-pretty students who look like they are attending the University of Ralph Lauren are unnerving at the other.

Have you ever decided not to apply for a position based on something you’ve seen on a campus Web site?