By: Jonathan Barber
According to an interview with University of Houston professor and associate dean John Butler, mass mailings from colleges and universities are time consuming and costly, and they produce a low rate of return from many recipients who simply throw the materials in the trash because they are not interested in the institution.
As a result, in recent years, educational establishments have started to recruit students via electronic means. Colleges, including Ursinus, now frequently post admission forms, course catalogs, advisor e-mail addresses, and more on their web sites. For instance, according to NewsChannel5.com, students thinking about attending a particular school can investigate the resources offered by particular campuses by participating in “virtual” college tours via a few keystrokes.
Ursinus has taken to the Internet to improve its communication with prospective students. By applying to Ursinus online, a student who is still in high school can save the $50 registration fee that they would have to pay if they applied via mail. According Richard DiFeliciantonio, Vice President for Enrollment at Ursinus, “applicants can now follow in real time the progress of their applications, learning what’s missing so they can work toward timely completion.” Other information provided in the Admissions section of the Ursinus Web site includes information on majors and minors, application deadlines, information on the Common Intellectual Experience, and instructions for arranging overnight visits to the campus. Additionally, the sign-ups for freshman orientation and the survey for freshmen housing are also completed online now, a change from just a few years ago.
Photos on the Web site can offer a visual sampling of what prospective students can expect when they make it to campus. This was the case with freshmen Maria Krolikowski, who explained, “I looked at the pics before I visited to make sure I liked the looks of the campus and everything it had to offer.” Such pictures can be especially helpful to those students who live a distance from Ursinus and are not able to visit the campus as easily as students living in the immediate vicinity. For an international student, the Web site of a college in the United States can be an indispensable resource, according to StudentAffairs.com.
The Web also allows prospective students to reach people on a college campus instantaneously. On November 11, 2008, then-Ursinus Director of Admissions Bob McCullough took part in a live chat with parents and prospective students on the Philadelphia Inquirer Web site. He fielded a variety of questions. For example, a father asked if the Merit Award earned by his son, who had applied Early Decision to Ursinus, would be affected by a decision to waive the son’s SAT scores. Within three minutes, the father had an answer to a question that could have taken as long as a month to answer by United States Postal Service mail.
Freshmen Mary Barbagallo says she used the Internet for admissions-related tasks as well. “I was constantly checking to make sure Admissions had everything they needed to process my application.”
The increased use of technology has lead to applications being sent into Ursinus from all 50 states. The actual enrollment has changed somewhat as well, as more students from Connecticut and Massachusetts are deciding to attend Ursinus.
Just the other day, I was on the Facebook page of a friend who is a tour guide. A student to whom he had given a tour of Ursinus to had made a post on his wall, thanking him for showing her around the campus. Ursinus, DiFeliciantonio says, has an official Facebook profile which it uses to inform potential students about the college and attract them to the campus.
The ability of prospective students to keep in touch with current students and admissions staff has had a significant impact on applicant rates, according to DiFeliciantonio. The increase in simple e-mail correspondence between prospective students and admissions staff has “increased our applicant levels from 2,000 to 6,000 over the past four years.” Furthermore, Ursinus is attracting “students from places where the college was relatively unknown in the past.”
Ursinus has a bright future, regardless of who you talk to. With the Web and other technological resources, there is no telling what possibilities are on the horizon for the college.
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