NACAC on Social Media in Admissions

This week, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) reported it’s findings on the use of social networking in college admission processes.

As expected, the report displayed a blanket increase of the use of social media within the college admission process. More insightful, however, was the conclusion on how college administrators currently use social media. Today, institutional use of social media is limited to vetting prospective students pre-selection. While social media tools like Facebook and Google give admission counselors insight into prospective students, NACAC’s CEO Joyce Smith acknowledges that it’s just the tip of the iceberg with this statement:

Social media tools, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs, are key to communicating with this generation of students. While still no substitute for face-to-face interaction, social media have opened lines of communication and inquiry for both students and institutions that were inconceivable only a decade ago.

Based on Facebook’s vision for their platform, it will not be long until Smith’s prediction is met. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has often stated his vision for evolving the Facebook platform to realistically mimic a user’s real-life communication experience (see here and here). This is the same vision that our team at Inigral has perpetuated in our Facebook application for college students, Schools on Facebook™.

Schools on Facebook™ allows college administrators to make richer use out of the Facebook platform than simply acquiring students and prospects as “fans”. Imagine the ability to provide prospective students access to learn about groups and organizations at your institution via Facebook. Or the ability to allow students to identify other members of their campus tour beforehand, and keep in touch with them afterward. In less than a week, we can deploy a custom application for your institution, bringing the dialogue that occurs during throughout a student’s lifecycle, onto Facebook, while adhering to FERPA. For more information regarding Schools, or to provide feedback on how your institution could use Schools during your recruitment process this summer, email me at tzanders@inigral.com.

Joyce Smith is the CEO of NACAC. Follow their updates on Twitter at @NACAC.