The rise of the Internet has coaxed college admissions offices into revamping their Web sites, filming video tours, and recruiting freshmen to blog about campus life. But it hasn’t managed to kill off the college fair, according to The New York Times.
High schools keep holding the events, and even colleges that wouldn’t seem to need much advertising keep showing up. Representatives of the University of Michigan attended more than 450 fairs last year, reports the Times, and officials with the University of Texas at Austin stopped by more than 800 events.
A personal visit — from an administrator or from an alum — is still the best way to persuade a student to look up an institution’s Web site, say admissions officers. “You can’t shake an Internet hand,” as Richard Shaw, dean of admissions and financial aid at Stanford University, puts it. —Brock Read
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