College Sell Outs
Essay Preview: College Sell Outs
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In todays world, even colleges need to sell themselves to convince students to enroll there. Colleges might accomplish this through television advertisements, paper advertisements, and through their web page. Students want a web page that is easy to navigate and conveniently provides the information they need to make their decision. Strategies such as placing an “Apply now” link on the homepage make it much easier for students to apply. Information in the “about me” section also attempts to sell themselves to the student.
The University of Rochester is one example of a college web page that attempts to sell themselves in order to convince students to enroll into their school. One way in which they accomplish is by presenting a large, high resolution graphic photograph on the homepage, instead of a typical menu and logo. Every time you access this page, the graphic changes. The picture goes from photos of different buildings on campus, to a soccer goalie defending a goal. This can provide a bit of eye-candy to the viewer and shows the technology that this university can present on its website. It is also a stark contrast to other college websites which catches the viewers eye.
Another way that the University of Rochester tries to attract students is their “About Us” page. In their “About Us”, they explicitly state in the first sentence that they are one of the countrys top tier research universities. It then goes on to tell about the number of buildings, staff, and number of students enrolled. Then it says it has small classes for a research university and an alleged “9:1 student to teacher ratio”. Smaller classes is always a good thing and tends to attract more students so that they can learn better and develop teacher-student relationships.
In the “Student Life” section, it is advertised that most undergrads live on campus all four years. This would mean that the on campus life is exceptional and this becomes very important when students are looking for colleges. U of R also advertised that there are more than two-hundred student organizations. For students looking to become active in campus activities, this would be perfect. In the “Dining” section of Student Life, in bold letters it is read: “From subs to Starbucks; burgers to vegetarian fare; home-cooked breakfasts to late-night munchies”. This is telling students that this particular college has a variety of food and even at a late-night time. This is particularly attractive to students looking to apply, because if you are going to live on campus, you will be eating their food every day and will want it to be at least half decent.
In the main menu on the homepage, there is a link titled, “Working Here”. The title of the first paragraph is, “Diversity at the University”, which then states that the University accepts all kinds of people