Sunday, March 8, 2009

About SMC "online admissions"

Hey everyone! The following entry is being submitted for a scholarship contest from onlinecollege.org, so send the link along to your friends and CLICK ON THE CONTEST BADGE AT THE END OF THE POST. The focus is on “higher education online” and I think simply discussing how important everything we do as bloggers is would be a perfect entry. Additionally, it’ll be great for all of you to know everything we really do aside from writing our blogs.

Keeping a blog for SMC, along with other “online admissions” participation, has been a truly rewarding experience. At first we were worried that no one would read the blogs or that only our parents and friends would read them (as prospective students we weren’t really involved with the online aspect of admissions). However, once we got ourselves up and running, we were able get a hit count for the blogs and found out that each of us receives more hits a day than we ever thought we would get. We receive comments from a ton of people, not only those we know, and we also receive emails with questions from loyal readers. We are able to blog about whatever we want concerning life here at SMC, and it makes a huge difference for prospective students to be able to hear from actual students regarding what we do on a daily basis. A huge confidence booster for us this year was when the admissions office received an application that actually mentioned the blogs and how their down to earth nature really put the school high up on the student’s list. We knew then that, despite our initial doubts or concerns, what we are doing for Saint Mike’s makes a huge difference.

In addition to the blogs, we participate in virtual open houses, where students are able to go online and chat with us and with other accepted students, have their questions answered, and relate to us in a more personal way than the blog allows. We also have a presence on facebook, with two groups dedicated to listening to applicant’s questions and concerns and responding with what we have to say (check them out here and here). Additionally, we’re on SMC knightspace, another outlet for prospective’s questions and concerns. We post photos and videos on our blogs and some of us are starting up with twitter too. The amount of students we’ve probably reached goes far beyond our expectations and the online aspect of SMC admissions is definitely responsible for a huge portion of the applicant pool.

Hope this provided some insight for everyone, and I'll update on my weekend soon! Until then,
-Christine

Online College Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest

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