Creating a Separate College Admissions Website

There's a new trend in college and university advertising and site navigation. Some schools are moving from a single website aimed at both current and prospective students, to separate sites; one for current students and one for prospective students. Stonehill College has done just this, keeping their main website focused on current students and alumni, and the Stonehill Admissions website focused on prospective students. The main website, stonehill.edu, still contains information about applying to Stonehill, however, the admissions website is focused solely on information prospective students want to know, and presents it in a very user-friendly way.

A good college admissions website, oriented towards prospective students, should include information about the school's admissions policy, and statistics about the currently enrolled students. Statistics that many students are interested to know include the average SAT and ACT scores, average high school GPA, demographic data (where students come from, and information regarding racial and religious diversity), and the percentage of students involved in various extracurricular activities such as groups, clubs and athletics. Other information colleges should include on their "prospective students" website is blogs written by current students about campus life, links to social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and descriptions of annual events that happen on campus.

Prospective students also want to know the cost of attending college, the financial aid and scholarships available, and a detailed description of the application process. Photos are another important thing to include on a website geared towards prospective students. Glamorous photos of students having fun, hanging out together outside, and enjoying a well-manicured campus are excellent selling points for a college or university. Lastly, be sure to include plenty of methods for contacting the university. If prospective students have to work hard to find the phone number or email they are looking for, they may just move on. Dedicate an entire page to contact info and be as specific as possible about where to call for admissions information.