Admission Accomplished

This summer, Yale student blogger Sam Jackson listed 5 reasons why Yale should have an admissions blog. They were:

1. to assist students (especially those who lack good admissions-support resources)
   
2. to counteract misinformation


3. to keep up with the competition


4. to meet prospective students on their terms and connect w/ them in a medium they're comfortable with


5. to gain feedback from prospective students

Good reasons all, but so far Yale has resisted them; its admissions office has no blog, nor any plans to institute one. Dozens of other universities have launched admissions blogs, however, for some or all of the reasons Jackson enumerated. Indeed, Yale's own newspaper ran a nice article about the trend, which provided the fodder for Jackson's 5-point list. Many of these blogs have launched within the last 12 months, but at least a few are a number of years old.

One of the oldest, the Wharton School's MBA Admissions Blog, dates back at least to 2005, when it was profiled by blog consultant Toby Bloomberg. Asked to explain why Wharton was blogging, associate admissions director (and chief blogger) Alex Brown explained:

The blog essentially serves as a portal for MBA applicants, so in that sense it helps us reach out to a pretty wide audience of those potentially considering the MBA, as well as Wharton in particular. . . . it has become an important part of our marketing / communications / customer service while also being a central resource for others.

I highly recommend that profile, which details not only the rationale behind the blog but also some nuts-and-bolts matters of implementation.

Admissions blogs come in two basic flavors: staff-written and student-written. MIT combines the two approaches with an admissions blog featuring 12 student contributors and four bloggers from the admissions staff. That blog has been extremely successful in building community: the typical post draws 10 or 20 responses, and some of the discussions run as long as 50 or 60 comments.

The following list of admissions blogs is far from comprehensive; it's what I could throw together in 40 minutes or so of surfing. I originally had them sorted into staff- and student-written categories, but at a certain point my lines got crossed, so I wound up w/ this unsorted list. Have at it:

• Rochester Institute of Technology: http://www.thetigerbeat.com/blog/
• Oregon State: http://oregonstate.edu/admissions/blog/
• Case Western: http://blog.case.edu/admission/
• MIT: http://www.mitadmissions.org/
• Wharton MBA: http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/
• Bryn Mawr: http://www.brynmawr.edu/admissions/blog/
• Johns Hopkins: http://hopkins.typepad.com/
• SUNY Stonybrook: http://sbuchris.blogspot.com/
• Valparaiso: http://www.valpo.edu/admissions/blogs/
• Harvard Business School: http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html
• Harvard Law School: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/admissions/
• UCLA: http://blog.admissions.ucla.edu/
• South Carolina: http://www.uscbloggers.com/allblogs.php
• University of Illinois: http://blog.oar.uiuc.edu/
• Seattle University: http://community.seattleu.edu/blogs/default.aspx
• Virginia Commonwealth: http://blog.vcu.edu/ugrad/
• Creighton: https://blogs.creighton.edu/admissions/
• University of Richmond: http://admissionsblog.richmond.edu/
• University of Michigan: http://www.admissions.umich.edu/blogs/
• Cornell School of Engineering: http://cornellengineeringadmissions-jill.blogspot.com/