Two years ago, Sam Jackson, a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy, started blogging about his search for a college. His blog, the Sam Jackson College Experience, offers his perspective on an array of issues that should be of interest to higher ed marketers.
Sam on web vs. print marketing:
“How much thought went into making this?†That’s the first thing I ask myself when I get something. This is why thin envelopes filled with nothing but bland “please consider†form letters are used as coasters and never make it to my “keep for later†pile. It’s also why I delete on sight most of those summer school e-mails. If you got my name from the Student Search service and make that fact painfully obvious, don’t expect me to consider your 25 cent investment in my contact information hugely indicative of your interest in me. Likewise, just because you e-mail me five times after I don’t respond to your first form e-mail asking me to “please request†something, doesn’t mean I’m going to care any more about it the sixth time.
Sam on the value of student blogging:
More would read them if they knew about them (when I point a friend to a blog from a student / adcoms at a school they’re interested in, they tend to become frequent visitors) but at the same time, my friends and I are more inclined to trust the statements of bloggers who maintain a strict independence from the institution they are blogging about. …
For the admissions-flavored blogs, we look at them — or at least, I look at them–and regard them as a different type of marketing. Something else to be looked at and considered when thinking about schools and admissions, but something which has to be looked at in the same sense that the viewbook or postcards that inundate our mailboxes are received.
Sam on his visit to Yale:
I would say that he [the admissions rep] fairly and accurately presented Yale as an institution, focusing more (as administrative officials are wont to do) on the administrative side of things, though what he said about student life was well-received. Jackson said that Yale looked first and foremost to student transcripts when considering applicants — grades and rigor. Not surprising, but worth knowing, even if was a little disheartening given my 2nd quintile lifetime performance to date.
There’s more — much more — worthwhile reading here, so take a look, and tell your admissions officers to have a look, too. Sam Jackson may not be representative of next year’s freshman class at your institution (certainly not ours), but still, his thoughts are worth pondering, and his blog is a service to all of us in the higher ed marketing business.
Hat tip to Karine Joly, who interviews Sam on her blog.
Andrew Careaga 