Trendspotter
Web 2.0 Helps the Choice
A December 2008 survey by CollegeClickTV of 2,000 freshmen from 50 US colleges found a whopping 56 percent
unhappy about some aspect of their college decision. What's
causing this majority malaise? Glenn Pere, founder and CEO of CollegeClickTV,
notes, "Campus tours give a biased view of each campus—
prospective students are led on the same route and told
generic, scripted facts about the school. What students don't get are
real, unscripted stories and opinions." CollegeClickTV is developing a
new website resource for prospective students, offering streamed
interviews with current students,
faculty, and others (such
as local merchants); collegespecific
blogs; and other content
and social networking
features aimed at providing
information that can help college
applicants weigh their upcoming college choices.
CT asked three education pros familiar with the vagaries of college
choice: Can Web 2.0 applications and social software help prospective
students get a more accurate picture of colleges and universities
before they choose? Where should this information originate?
Many Voices Tell the Story
Brian Voss, vice chancellor for IT and CIO at
Louisiana State University and A&M College,
remarks: "LSU has recognized that we must use
the communication tools that prospective students
today rely upon—that's why we have sites in Facebook, in Second Life, and provide online tours and insights via our
admissions and university web presence. But the internet is an
open and chatty environment, and as such there are thousands
more impressions of LSU accessible than just those made available
by the university. Prospective students have, then, these
thousand ‘windows' into life here; not just the view through the
front door that we provide. I don't believe that a third-party company
is needed to offer these unscripted insights into life at LSU, or
at any campus. The internet itself provides the solution. Students
today have a vast network for communication, and they certainly
rely upon it intensely to check out what they hear from us!"
Third-Party Contributions Debatable
Robert Brosnan, director of
web and digital communications
at Seton Hall University (NJ), expresses concerns
about third-party efforts: "I
think there's good reason to
be suspicious of the claims that a third
party can have an impact, positive or negative,
on the decision-making process. Subjective
satisfaction—as in CollegeClickTV's
survey—is a notoriously weak metric for guidance.
More importantly, with today's recruitment
marketing reaching up to and beyond
36 months, it's nearly impossible for even
the best web analytics software to show any
statistically valid link between a specific
content element and a business outcome."
A View From the Trenches
But not everyone worries
about the validity of third
parties entering the market.
Beth Taubman, a guidance
counselor and college adviser
at American Heritage
School (FL), has observed her college-bound
students first-hand: "There are so many
competing voices that students hear during
the college search process; they tend to
disregard their own inner voice. They are
told to go to the best brand-name school
or are guided to attend their parents' alma
mater. Websites like CollegeClickTV.com
give students an opportunity to explore
schools and find out what a school is like
not from a beautiful brochure but from an
expert—a student who attends the college
on a daily basis."
The Information Will Keep Coming!
CollegeClickTV has formed partnerships with U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and CliffsNotes, to build more content and attract website visitors. The company plans
to have info on 400 US-based campuses online in the first quarter of 2009, and will continue to grow the site.
