I know, I know: another post about student blogging. Will I ever get tired to blog about this? ;-)
As regular readers know, my last column for University Business deals with the ROI of admission-sponsored student blogs.
While more and more institutions have set up blogs targeted to prospective students and their parents, they are not the only ones.
In the past, I mentioned the blogs at TheU.com, but I’ve recently come across another interesting initiative launched by Kelly Xiayu Jin, a sophomore majoring in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania: The College Blogs Network
“Unofficial, unfiltered” is the slogan of this new – selective – network created to promote quality student blogs in institutions across the country as Kelly explained in her reply to my email inquiring about this project:
“The main problem in looking for these blogs was the sheer number of blogs I viewed before finding some quality ones – across all the major websites: Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress. For those few good ones, the only readers were a couple close friends, but anyone from fellow peers to prospective students could have benefited from the advice and words shelled out in each entry. So I came up with my solution this past summer: a selective website for college bloggers (by application, similar to any other high quality blog online). They would be connected overall by the College Blogs Network, but the closest ties remained within each college. Readers can find bloggers by college, and ask questions accordingly through comments. It’s something simple just for the college, or pre-college crowd. Without administrative ties, I find that what comes out is really honest – especially taking a look at some of the freshmen entries as they go off to college.”
Very interesting.
Right now, just a few bloggers have joined the network, but Kelly has plans for the near future:
- Einfach Königlich – Thomas, Yale ’10
- Hard to Spell – Jenny, Columbia ’09
- Schooling In The City – Brandie, Columbia ’09
- 3817 Live – Kelly, Penn ’09
- Suburban Dreams to Big City Realities: The Blog – Mandie, Columbia ’10
- Bungee Jump – Minerva, Cornell ’10
- Wasting Forty Grand – Zack, Cornell ’10
After reading a few posts on these blogs, you’ll see – as I did – that this is really quality student blogging.