Comments on: How to Engage and Recruit the “Social Networking” Generation

By: Scott Crow

Scott Crow — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:10:51 +0000

Print rocks! It’s good to see data back up my humble belief that we can’t neglect the print side just because of all the blah blah about IM, TM, etc. Thanks!

By: Stephanie Geyer

Stephanie Geyer — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:06:57 +0000

Glad to see that the report is giving you some discussion points with your Web teams and colleagues. We’ll be working on the survey instrument for the updated edition to be administered in Jan/Feb 2007.

So, what would you ask, if you could?

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:45:55 +0000

Here's an article I found on TargetX about recruiters using IM that you may find interesting, Sardionerak. There's a podcast on the same subject you can listen to.

By: Karine Joly

Karine Joly — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:44:12 +0000

Thanks, Sardionerak (from Australia), Tom (from the UK) and Robin (from Canada) for your comments.

Glad to see you share my opinion about this report (although anybody is welcome to disagree with me too ;-)

Sardionerak – you might want to have a look at a previous post I wrote about the Student Outreach Intern Program at Beloit College – in this institution, student employees/interns are the ones answering IM questions from prospective students.

Robin – interesting findings. I’d like to see the final results when you complete your study (if possible, of course).

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:01:39 +0000

I am enjoying these results! I’m currently doing research for my college on this very topic and I conducted a small survey last weekend – the results were about the same:

90% of the students said they visited the website before choosing their program
59% said they would read a presidential blog
66% said they would read a student’s blog
83% said they would like to use IM to communicate with admissions
90% said they would like a virtual tour online

I had a fairly small group (30 students) because I am just starting on my research, however this study will really help to back up my findings.

By: Tom Abbott

Tom Abbott — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:33:24 +0000

That’s a great report – very useful

By: Sardionerak’s tiny shed » Trends in high-school leavers looking for information on universities

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:40:44 +0000

[...] Collegewebeditor found a very interesting survey result paper on information-seeking behaviour of high-school students (8 page pdf). It’s quite an interesting read, and certainly makes a lot of sense. [...]

By: Sardionerak

Sardionerak — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:13:02 +0000

Thank you so much for this report, I actually started to read it even without your prompting :-) It is indeed very interesting, and has wide-ranging implications, if I now succeeded to convince the relevant people of its content.
However, that’s where my problem usually starts: selling an idea like instant messaging within a unit like student administration might be difficult, not because of an unwillingness to do so (we have fantastic and very motivated staff) but rather because of the fear of “even more work in the same time”.
Any ideas how something like this could be solved? Do US universities have special “online officers” that take care of this? I would be very eager to find out.