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Christian Home & School
|
High School Ed.
|
www.csionline.org
PARENT STUFF
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OCK
With
a generation that's connected through technology,
many high school students are using social media to size
up prospective colleges and universities. And colleges and
universities have discovered that social media is a great
way to communicate with prospective students. According to
Tunheim (www.tunheim.com), a full-service strategic commu-
nications firm, the number of colleges using social media to
recruit prospective students is now 100 percent.
Social media benefits not only the students but the colleges
and universities in multiple ways, such as recruitment and
visibility, as well as providing a way to engage past, present,
and prospective students. According to Tunheim, 78 percent
of people trust peers, while only 14 percent of people trust
ads. Because of this, visibility is crucial. And it's working: each
month there are 30.4 million online and social media searches
for colleges and 20.4 million searches for universities.
Higher learning institutions are finding that social media is an
effective way to reach out to potential future students, and
schools are taking full advantage of this. While Facebook is
the most popular forum that prospects utilize, students are
also taking advantage of blogs, podcasts, mobile apps, live
webcams, and video blogs that colleges and universities
have set up to inform prospective students.
A study published in The Journal of College Admission that
looked at the top 100 colleges and universities (as ranked
by U.S. News & World Report) found that universities use an
average of 3.7 social networks--with one university using as
many as seven different sites.
A recent survey of more than seven thousand high school
students by Zinch (www.zinch.com), an online college and
scholarship matching service, shows that 68 percent of the
respondents used social media to research schools. And 38
percent of the survey participants have used social media as
a resource when deciding where to enroll.
Maintaining a forum that allows for ongoing conversations
between a school and prospective, current, and former
students is essential for promoting the college or univer-
sity's culture. In the Zinch survey, more than 55 percent of
respondents said they used Facebook to review a school's
background.
While social media is a better way to research a college or
university than simply flipping through a glossy brochure,
keep in mind that the method is not foolproof. With social
media you will get more facts and answers to your questions,
as well as a basic feel for the atmosphere of the school, but
ultimately the decision should be made using a combination
of research methods and a lot of discussion and prayer.
Tammy Darling has over 1,100 published articles and writes from
her home in Three Springs, Pennsylvania.
Using
Social Media
to Research Colleges
and Universities
By Tammy Darling