NRCCUA NEWS!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 10/7/2006

10/7/2006

Freshman Bryanna Hansen had only to send an instant message to an admissions officer last year if she had questions about applying to Covenant College.

The 18-year-old from Winter Haven, Fla., said that as a prospective student she found the instant messaging option on the college's Web site to be helpful.

"It was very quick and practical and just easy to use," Ms. Hansen said.

Covenant College, in Lookout Mountain, Ga., recently was ranked as having the fourth best admissions Web site in the country out of more than 3,000 colleges, according to the National Research Center for College and University Admissions.

Ron Morris, the center's director of admissions marketing research, said it's critical for colleges to have the latest technology on their sites if they want keep the attention of Internet-savvy applicants.

Features that were common among the top-rated sites included blogs maintained by current students, instant messaging, live chat rooms and the ability to track an applicant's status online.

Wallace Anderson, vice president for enrollment management at Covenant College, said the college has worked for the last two years to "add all the latest bells and whistles" to its site.

Students can download applications and other forms they need, get answers to their questions by instant messaging and apply online, he said.

The site also has student profiles that visitors can look at to get a feel for campus life, Mr. Anderson said.

"Students today want things that are real," he said. "They can tell if people are glossing things over, so they want to talk to real students and real people."

Mr. Anderson said half of the students at Covenant come from more than 500 miles away, so the college's Web site is a critical marketing tool.

Chuck Cantrell, spokesman for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said students now can apply for admission online, and the university is considering adding blogs to its site.

Officials with Chattanooga State Technical Community College said they updated the look of their Web site three weeks ago. Plans are under way to improve the online application process and allow for students to register for classes online, they said.

TOP 10 SCHOOLS: The nation's top 10 schools with the best admissions websites:

1. Mount St. Mary’s College
2. Whitman College
3. Arizona State University
4. Covenant College
5. York College of Pennsylvania
6. Fort Hays State University
7. University of North Carolina, Pembroke
8. Augustana College
9. Southern Utah University
10. College of the Holy Cross

Source: National Research Center for College and University Admissions