AMA Symposium: Get the stats on the role of social media in college choice

This session is presented by Richard Hesel from the Art & Science Group.

Why this research?

studentPOLL is quarterly survey done since 1994 about different issues with a national sample.
Now, sample is done through The College Board and their SAT takers database.

90% of every college-bound students visits social networking websites (97% of African American)
84% have a profile page (93% of African American)
Why don’t they have it?
Parents 28%
Don’t have time 46%

Facebook and MySpace dominate
79% on Facebook (55% for Hispanics), 69% on MySpace (Hispanics 88%)
60% Facebook the most often visited with MySpace far behind 38%

70% visit site at least once a day, 32% 3 or more time

Why do they use social networking websites?

86% to stay in touch with friends they rarely see
80% with friends they see regularly
61% to talk about homework with classmates
41% have friends they met for the first time on a site (Hispanics and African American are more likely)
18% claim that they met their closest friends on the site

Only 7% report attending an event sponsored by a college they are interested in, 9% an event related to college admissions.
56% for parties.

What about privacy?
69% extremely or somewhat concerned that private information on their profile might affect their chances of admission to college.
59% that employers might use this information
50% keep private everything on their personal profiles
64% have changed the default privacy settings
83% are careful because their parents or other adults might see it.

22% looked for college pages on social networking sites
18% used sites to gather information or impressions about colleges (looking for friends, comments, students groups, pictures)
16% would be more interested in a college where a friend attend, 48% somehow interested

Campus visits have still the biggest influence (72% much more interested)
College websites 47%

Some conclusions from Richard Hesel

• No digital divide on uses of SNS with college-bound students
• SNS not a primary or effective marketing/communications tool for prospective students
• Direct marketing through SNS may be seen as an invasion of private space and become counter productive
• Greater commercialization of SNS may further dilute potential value as college communications tool
• Focus on nuanced personal social connections
• Use of SNS as a communication tool may be more effective with minority students

Get all the details of this survey results on the presentation PDF file (attention, this is a big PPT file)