Admissions Web

[ry]

What do we want the Admissions Web to do?

[Matt Schumacher]

Here are the state public schools homepage links and some of the things I saw in regards to their Admission features or something else that caught my eye.

http://louisville.edu/ - It's happening here. Cardinal Cam. Virtual Tour. U of L Advocates. Stomp http://www.s4.louisville.edu/stomp/

http://www.uky.edu/ - See blue. Link Blue. MyUK. Undergrad photographs. Videos.

http://www.wku.edu/ A leading American University with International Reach. Ask Big Red. Counselor Corner. Virtual Tour.

http://www.murraystate.edu/ - Kentucky's Public Ivy University. Answer Center. President blog. Message board.

http://www.nku.edu/ - Quality Made....Norse Q&A. Student blogs. NKU personal web page.

http://www.morehead-st.edu/ - Achieve. Experience. Succeed. Ask MSU.

http://www.eku.edu/ - what if? EKU Cast. Meet our students (slideshow). Photographs.

[Matt Schumacher]

Other Admission ideas:
Apply Now clearly posted on Home page.

Xavier U. - https://roadto.xavier.edu/
In January of 2006, the office of admission launched The Road to Xavier, a special website dedicated only to accepted high school seniors. With it's own on-line community, extreme interactive elements like cartoons, videos and photo galleries, and completely personalization for each prospective student, The Road to Xavier was hailed by the Web Marketing Association as the 2006 Best University Website in the Nation.

Dalhousie U. http://myguide.dal.ca/
Breaks through the organizational structure and allows students to explore in a step by step fashion.

http://www.seattleu.edu/home/admission/undergraduate/ - Very clean Admissions main page. Put information on other pages.

http://www.masonmetro.com/ - George Mason has the Mason Metro. Unlike anything I have seen.
My favorite are the Gunston files (mascot) Ask Gunston. http://www.masonmetro.com/gunstonfiles.cfm

[Parker Owens]

Okay, I'm the one dreaming about the EKU web this time.

In my dream, the admissions web was completely separate from the EKU web. It had a different look and feel. Instead of the main links splitting up audiences, like they do on our current homepage, the admissions web page provided main links based on activities. I think this makes more sense because the audience is essentially the same, but the activities are different. Dur.

So the links I saw on this dream page were all power verbs. For instance, explore, enroll, learn, fund, watch, manage, search, share.

What do you think about using power verbs for links? When I woke up, I still thought it was a good idea, so that is why I'm throwing it out there.

[Parker Owens]

I went out and looked for some blogs about EKU. I decided maybe we need to rethink that idea.
At http://www.studentsreview.com/KY/EKU_comments.html I found the worst comments:

EKU is a pretty good place if you are going there to learn and not to socialize. Do not live in the dorms! They are run-down and can be unbearably hot in the spring and summer. The staff are all knowledgeable and most are friendly and willing to help. My only complaint about staff comes from the math department. I also attended UK for 2 years and both UK and EKU have TERRIBLE math professors, especially college algebra professors. Something really needs to be done about these classes, as they have a 50% fail-rate. Nice campus, GREAT staff but the students here absolutely RUIN it. I mean to tell you, the student body here fits every bad stereotype you would expect. They are SO rude, SO close-minded and have the biggest lack of interest in anything. This is not everyone, there are some amazing people here that are doing there best. The school is safe, I will give it that. But between the African American student ALL sitting on the steps everywhere you try and go (and acting as if you are imposing on there space when you try to walk on them) & the fact that everyone goes home, every weekend. It makes this place a very unfriendly, and unwelcoming place to call "home." If i could do it all over again, this would be the last place I would come. I will be gone ASAP, Take my advice, Don't come to Eastern Kentucky University.

I'm not fond of Dorm Life at EKU. I did my 2 years in the dorms and was so excited to get out. They are moldy and run down and the housing department is a pain to deal with. But on a plus note, there are a lot of apartments close to campus with great prices. It actually cost more to live in the dorms than it does to get an average apartment.
Parking Sucks at Eastern, for both residents and commuters, but that is something you will most likely find on any campus. (The campus police are ticket happy!!!)

Blog links
http://support.resnet.eku.edu/sphpblog049/index.php
http://www.wtvq.tv/blogs/category/eku_sports_blog/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Kentucky_University
http://www.studentsreview.com/KY/EKU_comments.html
http://ekulibrarylearning.blogspot.com/
http://www.easternprogress.com/
http://community.livejournal.com/eku/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickcoe
http://ekunews.onethingiknow.net/

[ry]

I think guidelines for student bloggers at EKU for the privilege of being linked from the main EKU site would take care of us well. If we want students to come to EKU, we need to encourage students AT EKU to tell them what it is like. If we're just promoting the university ourselves without student voices, our work will have significantly less impact.

[Parker Owens]

I was looking at something entirely different, but came across a nice admissions portal at http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/ if anyone wants to check it out. It's not fantastic, but it is clean and well organized.

[Lisa Moore]

I like these pages:

http://web.mit.edu/admissions/

http://www.bucknell.edu/x68.xml

http://www.ferris.edu/admissions/

http://www.ncsu.edu/future-students/apply/index.php

http://www.stcloudstate.edu/admissions/

http://www.rit.edu/admission.html

[Lisa Moore]

I also like this idea, it's own URL for incoming students:
https://roadto.xavier.edu/

[Lisa Moore]

I like this admissions page:
http://admissions.rutgers.edu/

Love the "Questions," "StudentBlogs," and "OnlineChat" features!

[ry]

Could this be us? (Yes, I like the content of the Rutgers Admissions page also.)

http://beyondthepostcard.com/

[Parker Owens]

I stumbled on a couple of student centered university sites by accident, and thought they were really different.
Here's MIT http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/notable_alumni/the_next_g...

And also this:
UCLA http://happenings.ucla.edu/lectures/

[Colin Reusch]

I really like what schools like Skidmore and the University of Cincinnati has been doing with interactive virtual maps and/or campus tours as part of their admissions site. I think we really need a way to showcase what EKU has to offer.

Example: http://www.skidmore.edu/map/