Over the past few months, a lot has been written about freshmen blogs initiated by higher ed admission offices to give prospective students a taste of the college experience at their institutions.
Whether they are maintained by individual bloggers or group of blogging students, these blogs can provide real insights on the freshman experience while allowing – via comments or emails – interested high school students to get the scoop on college life.
As reported in “Colleges using blogs to attract students,” an article by Anya Sostek published in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, students are not the only ones blogging on the behalf of their college’s admission office. Admission officers do blog too:
MIT is one of a handful of universities where admissions officers write blogs. But the idea is quickly spreading, as universities look for new ways to appeal to an applicant pool that barely remembers life before the Internet. It’s quickly shown itself to be a useful tool in boosting interest among potential applicants, and one with some downsides as well.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just going where they already are,” said Matt McGann, an MIT admissions officer who started his blog in August 2004. “We’re trying to take the mystery out of this college admissions process a bit.”
At MyMIT, a section of the undergraduate admission website, prospective students can access the latest blog posts from 15 blogs: three by admission officers (Matt McGann, Ben Jones and Bryan Nance), one by the Director of Student Financial Aid (Daniel Barkowitz , nine by students and the last one, a guest blog featuring posts from the Director of Recruitment, the Dean Of Admissions and the Director of the Educational Council at MIT.
Definitely something worth checking if you want to get your admission officers blogging in 2006.
In her article, Anya Sostek also cites a few other institutions with admissions blogs:
- Case Western Reserve University (a group blog launched in July 2005),
- Seton Hill University (another group blog launched in May 2005),
- Bryn Mawr College (an indivivual blog by Maureen McG started in July 2005),
- Harvard Law School (an individual blog by Toby Stock, Assistant Dean for Admissions),
- The Wharton School of Business (a group blog managed by members of the MBA Admissions Committee since August 2004).
So, what are you waiting for?