If colleges really want to win the affection of prospective students, they ought to rip a page from the playbook used by Facebook and MySpace, says a new report.
The study, "Engaging the Social Networking Generation," found that 43 percent of 1,000 collegebound juniors have created Facebook-esque personal profiles on college Web sites. And of the students who hadn't done so, nearly half said they wished they could.
The report was sponsored by the National Research Center for College and University Admissions, along with Noel-Levitz, a consulting firm, and James Tower, a marketing company. According to Diverse, the survey respondents seem excited about nearly any college recruitment scheme, as long as it is high-tech. Fifty-four percent of the students said they would gladly download college podcasts, 63 percent said they would read a blog written by a professor, and 82 percent said they would consider responding to an instant message from a college admissions officer.
Taking advantage of all those online tools is certainly easier said than done for many high schoolers, but the apparent enthusiasm about high-tech recruitment should encourage colleges that are already beefing up their Web sites with an eye on wooing Millennials. –Brock Read
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