Creating an Admitted Student Community

It is that time of year, when high school seniors are often anxious about their next step – college. What should I bring? What is there to do? Will I know anyone else there? These, among others, are common questions. Because of their access to the Internet and ability to maneuver it in ways we could never dream of, they quickly look online to alleviate this anxiety and get their questions answered.

What are you doing on your Web site to alleviate this anxiety, answer questions, and build relationships with your admitted student pool?

While it might be easy to just let these students connect on sites such as FaceBook and MySpace, our research shows that admitted students want to access student and faculty blogs and connect with other admitted students on your Web site.

Here’s why:

• They Trust You. You are the trusted authority when it comes to your school. Having the admitted student community on your site provides the comfort level necessary for students to reach out to each other and share information.
• It’s a single source of information both for “business” and “friending.” By keeping admitted students on your site, you can continue to communicate your distinctiveness and keep your school top of mind as they make their final decision to enroll. And adding community to your site, allows enrolled students to meet their fellow classmates and get answers to their admissions questions.
• They want to meet current students and faculty. Not only do admitted students want to connect with each other, they want to connect with current students and faculty. Many of them are on Facebook, but are not a member of the 2012 (your school’s name here) Group.

Given the power friendships have and students’ strong desire to fit in, a private social network on your Web site may be a critical initiative for increasing yield.

Interested in adding social networking tools to your Web site? Contact a Higher Education Consultant at James Tower.