When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, could he have imagined it would literally change the world? Social network sites have reinvented the way the world communicates, and are taking a more prominent role in the college admissions process.
Yancy Freeman, the assistant vice chancellor of enrollment services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, says their college admissions process is now completely online. With the Banner student information system, students can apply, check their admission status, know what their admission portfolio is missing and communicate completely with the university admissions online.
Social media has added even more convenience and communication to this process, Freeman says.
“Admissions has a Facebook page and everyone is using Facebook so it’s a great way to get students to ‘friend’ you and then get information to them about upcoming things,”
Freeman says. “It really is another mechanism for getting information out to students and giving them an opportunity to ask questions about what is next, what’s coming up, any information that they don’t understand, and it’s another contact opportunity for the student to connect with us.”
Another benefit of social media in this process is that it allows information transfer to be instantaneous, adding to the other communication methods UTC uses such as traditional letters, postcards, and emails. Some schools even use a text messaging system to keep the students informed.
Freeman says UTC using a combination of social media outlets may cause a bit of repetition across the different mediums but it makes sure that the university is communicating with current and future students to let them know the next step as they think about UTC.
The University’s Blackboard system allows students to navigate their courses, and the student portal called My Mocs Net uses this to help with classroom administration as far as tracking for grading and uploading and downloading assignments.
“It doesn’t stop as students are thinking about the institution, but once they get here, it’s a great medium for getting the word out about things that are happening on campus. It’s a communication piece for the campus, and you are trying to meet students where they are, whether it is through Facebook or email or the student portal or Twitter or whatever it might be,” Freeman says.
Heidi Cawood, a designer with Chattanooga State Tech-nical Community College, coordinates all the college’s social media accounts, is the “voice” of the college’s main social media page, seeks out college information and events to promote via posts, photos and videos and responds to fan posts or questions.
For the last two years, Cawood has been producing and editing video for online viewing as well as Cable 3. She places nearly all of their marketing videos or Web banners on YouTube, Facebook, chattanoogastate.edu, Cable 3, WDEF.com, Chattanoogan.com and other outlets as they become available.
Plain and simple, Chattanooga State uses social media as a way to disseminate information to their students and the general public, Cawood says. This may include admission/registration/financial aid information, ball game scores, campus events or new program information.
“We use Facebook heavily to make our students aware of deadlines or requirements. They are also sent vital information through their campus email accounts. We do not use social media in the actual admission processes, but applying, registering and applying for financial aid can all be done online,” Cawood says.
By using social media, she says, the campus is able to communicate with thousands of students, parents, business leaders and alumni with one tool: Facebook.
“I use the term communicate because we have open dialog with the community, something you can’t do with typical marketing such as radio and billboards. We are able to gauge student likes and dislikes, where we need to make improvements, and what they expect from their college experience,” she says.
“In addition to the main Facebook page, there are dozens of small groups using social media to communicate with their fans. The best of these give students a means to discuss assignments and to critique each other’s work, like a virtual study session.”
Chattanooga State continues to grow their social media presence in an effort to meet students on their territory, she says, and their home Web site is full of tools and information for future and current students including online components of all classes and all admissions and registration services. They are also currently working on apps for the iPhone and other handheld devices.
The London School of Business and Finance has picked up on the fact that students are spending more of their time on Facebook, and, accordingly, the school is offering an MBA application that students can install on their own Facebook profile and earn their degree completely through Facebook. As part of the application, users access 10 learning modules that include video lectures, online study tools and interactive exams that are all free. Students who decide to earn their degree through the program will have to pay a fee only when it comes time for exams.
Freeman says never say never on this coming to UTC, but this cutting edge type of change to education and new format is not yet in their plans.
“We are concentrating a lot of our efforts now on expanding the online offerings for students. We have Blackboard, which we use with the brick and mortar type of classrooms, but it helps significantly when you are doing the online process because it allows you to communicate with your professor back and forth, and you can upload and download assignments there,” Freeman says.
Expanding these options to include Facebook is an interesting concept, he says, but there are things to consider about security and precautions to put into place for protecting student grades, demographic information, how they are tracked and courses completed.
“Social media’s role in my job is to provide an alternative delivery method for information,” he says. “It really becomes another way to market the institution and talk with students about what they should expect when they get here, what are their fears and thoughts about coming into this situation, and so that’s the main role in providing that outlet for information and the exchange of information and ideas between the university and prospective students.”
With technology applications expanding into the realm of social networking and beyond, Freeman says it’s almost guaranteed that what the university is doing now will be very different from what they are doing in the future.
“In a lot of ways, the expectation from people who come into our environment, in terms of having technological savvy and the willingness to do things in a nontraditional format, will change as well. As we continue to move forward, I think things like the business program in London become more of an expectation as folks begin to understand social media, technology and the many uses that we haven’t even tapped the beginning of the bucket in terms of what we could do,” Freeman says.
“It’s something that is changing daily, and the way we communicate with students now will likely be very different from three years from now and I can’t even think about 10 years from now, what will happen.”