FEATURES

Admissions 2.0

Demographics, expectations and, most of all, the radical growth of information technology make today’s back and forth between 
colleges and prospective students a brave new world.

By Jeremy Rosenberg


Back in 1976, when Robert Wilson ’81, Law ’85 hoped to attend LMU, he perused a catalog, handwrote his application and delivered it via the U.S. mail. A generation later, Robert’s son, Reilly — an incoming member of the LMU class of 2012 — conducted his own college search. The high school student went online to visit university Web sites, search for scholarships and, ultimately, regularly check the status of his application.

When he had questions, the younger Wilson would e-mail the LMU admission office and receive replies, he says, sometimes within minutes. He also exchanged e-mails often with the LMU representative who visited his high school. And since being accepted, Wilson says he’s using the social networking site Facebook.com in order to meet fellow Lions-to-be and search for a roommate. “These kids,” Robert Wilson says, “can make much more informed decisions because of the information that’s available.”

The elder Wilson also recognizes the institutional commitment necessary to meet the post-millennial generation on their virtual terms. “It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the universities to stay current and contemporary when it comes to the technology they make available,” the alumnus says.

Indeed, in today’s world of Twitter, MySpace, RSS, Second Life and so on, change has roiled all manner of traditional institutions and processes. College admissions, with its perpetual focus on teenagers, remains in the vanguard of this transformation. “Technology,” says Matthew X. Fissinger, director of Undergraduate Admission, “has affected both the way the colleges and students communicate with each other, and the way in which students research their college choices.”

This is hardly LMU-specific. “The college admission process has become less predictable over the past 10 years,” says David Hawkins, director of public policy and research with the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “The number of students seeking admission is at an all-time high, as is the number of applications each student submits. The result is a process that feels more chaotic and less predictable for participants on both sides, including students, counselors and college admissions officers.”

Nine thousand students applied to join LMU’s class of 2012, a number 28 percent higher than just four years ago, and 1,200 were enrolled. Fissinger and Anne M. Prisco, vice president for Enrollment Management, expect the number of applications to rise again next year, when the university begins accepting online “common applications.” These standardized Web-based forms are welcomed by nearly 300 institutions of higher learning — and credited in part for increasing the number of schools that individuals now apply to — eight to 10 each, in Fissinger’s reckoning.


The Traditional Online College Visit
The Internet’s growth and breadth has affected other aspects of the admission process. According to a Harris Interactive poll, 80 percent of a student’s college search is conducted online. A NACAC study determined a near ubiquity among higher education Web sites offering information about tours, costs, courses offered and online applications. And most college and university Web sites brim with far more sophisticated features, including virtual tours, animation, student blogs, streaming video and the like.

Consider lmu.edu, with its multimedia iLMU pages and other rich content features. John S. Kiralla '98, director of Web, New Media and Design, says that in 1998 the school’s official site attracted between 1.5 and 2 million unique visitors. The annual total today exceeds 24 million. Kiralla says lmu.edu is “externally focused” — aimed at the 15- to 18-year-olds currently considering college choices.

Does that outward reach make a difference? Kelly Farland says yes. Farland has worked as a college counselor for 16 years, including the past four at St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, where 16 of his advisees have or will soon go to LMU. He says students are comparing colleges by comparing their Web sites. “If [a college’s] Web site is old or slow, or the pictures are old, that’s going to create an impression on the student. It may not be enough of an impression to have them not apply, but it’s certainly something that he or she is going to keep track of.”

Frank Key ’96 is a college guidance counselor at Verbum Dei High School, a Jesuit school in Los Angeles. He says that many students use a variety of Web sites to learn about college choices, from the college sites themselves, to third-party sites such as Collegeboard.com, Facebook.com and MySpace.com. High school students also share their own impressions of college visits on their personal blogs.

But for students who come from low-income families, the Internet is the preferred or only option for exploring colleges,” says Key. “They don’t have the opportunity to visit colleges in places like upstate New York. But to have the chance to learn about a school that is far away, to have interaction with the admission staff and develop a relationship gives them an opportunity to consider colleges that they would never look into otherwise. By communicating with colleges over the Internet, they can be earmarked for a university’s special scholarship programs or special recruitment efforts,” he explains.


Web Site = University?
Back at LMU, the way students use the Web is not lost on the university admission team, whose admission pages won bronze in the 2007 Horizon Interactive Awards in the colleges and universities category.

“We pay ongoing attention to our Web site,” says Fissinger. “This is one staff member’s principal responsibility. We have an attractive design … and we work to keep the info we post both current and timely. We make it interactive where we can, using the Web for everything from sharing information on various aspects of life at LMU to providing the mechanism students use to check their application status or R.S.V.P. for recruitment events.”

Kiralla goes further. “There is no longer an intellectual distinction between a university’s Web site and the university itself,” he says. “Although this may sound like hyperbole, the Web [site] is the university. This is analogous to how the campus and the facilities are considered the university — the Web has realized that level of association.”

Regardless of what is happening in the real and virtual worlds, LMU’s goal in building a class remains the same. “LMU seeks a diverse and dynamic student body,” says Fissinger. “We’re interested in students from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds, and with a variety of talents and interests.”

So while some schools might hold lectures in, say, a virtual environment, every Lion knows there’s something special about real life lived up on the bluff. That’s a perspective school officials figure is shared by prospective attendees as well. “Here at LMU, we know that a visit to this campus is a key driver in a student’s decision,” Prisco says. “Our location — in L.A. and near the airport and on this beautiful bluff with fabulous facilities — just cannot be captured in a brochure or on a computer.”

Jeremy Rosenberg is a Los Angeles-based writer. His “Flying High” appeared in Vistas (Spring 2008).

What Parents and Prospective Students Should Know

Vistas contacted high school and college admissions, enrollment, counseling and Web services professionals. Here’s some of the advice and inside information the pros offered about making the most of a college search:

1 Make sure of the fit, from academics to location to the school’s mission.

2 Concentrate on a smaller number of schools and communicate with the schools. Your “demonstrated interest” will be an admissions plus.

3 Meet the requirements. If the college mandates certain tests or materials, make sure to include them in your application.

4 Visit. Check out your schools in person, after your virtual visits.

5  Take the online campus tours. Some schools offer parents virtual tours that emphasize safety and graduation rates.

6 Look for language alternatives. For parents who don’t speak English, some college Web sites offer tours in other languages.

7 Listen and encourage. Don’t force your children into certain fields; help them be the best in their chosen realm.

--Jeremy Rosenberg