Report from the AMA: Understanding Website Usage in Undergraduate and Graduate School Research

Note: This research was begun in December 2005 and concluded in March 2006.

I’ll admit I focused a lot more on the data from prospective undergrads than from prospective grads and that’s what I’ll cover in this report. There’s clearly a lot to learn from this research and I encourage you to download your own copy of these materials here.

The survey divided the college search and choice process into four different phases:

• identification: when a student is trying to figure out which school is right for them
• visit: when a student is “visiting” institutions (or their websites!) to determine which institution
• application: when a student is applying to an institution (or to several institutions)

• final choice: when a student is determing which school he or she will attend

  Not surprisingly, during the identification phase, nonschool sites are much more important, with 60% of undergraduates saying they’re very important. This makes sense because they’re trying to learn what’s right for them. During the visit stage, these sites drop in importance: then, institutional websites are rated as very important by 47% of prospective undergrads.

  Time on web
  During search, these visitors spend “at least” 3 hours a week on the web and 63% visit 3 or more college or university sites during a week.

  So what do they look for? High school sophomores are more into interactive tools on the web, are more engaged and spending more time on web than seniors.

  One of the important messages: print is still important! Prospective students said that 55% said web is more important vs. 45% said print was more important. And 59% said they used the web more frequently than print, and 41% said they used print more frequently than the web. Interestingly enough, for prospective undergraduates, emails are near the bottom in value as sources of information.

  In contrast to prospective undergraduates, Drexel said, graduate students crave attention from the institutions to which they’re applying and want to be more personally engaged. That means they respond to emails and like microsites. It makes them feel special.

  But-and here’s some interesting news-relative to grad students, undergraduates feel that microsites actually inhibit them, they feel as if they’re missing other information and don’t want to be excluded from anything.

  Spend more money on your website than on print
  Here’s an interesting question that the survey asked: “If college has $1,000 to recruit you, how much should it spend on ….” For prospective undergrads, the website was number one at $316; print was second, at $197. They suggested spending $111 on email.

  Drexel says that prospective undergraduates don’t dismiss cool web tools like social networking or other features. But here’s the important point: “They want this core process information, they want it to be easy to get to. You can’t bury this stuff!” he emphasized. His advice: “Pay attention to the basics, then do the cool stuff.”

  The Princeton Review asked students to rate the value of 26 different types of web content. The high value web content for undergraduates, in this order: admission requirements, scholarships, school-at-a-glance, acaemic programs, financial aid, FAQ, online apps, photo gallery, virtual tour, catalog, enrolled student profile, admitted student profile.

  At the bottom of the list: podcasts, IM, chat rooms, microsites.

  Recommendations for your site

  In sum, the lessons from the research on what undergraduates want from college and university websites:

  *more interested in “cool” communication tools than graduate school-bound students, but they want core process information first

  *younger prospective undergraduates are more open to direct communication and want to know about scholarships and alumni

  *closer to application time, prospective undergrads want core info and process info and want to know more about financial aid and their future peers

  *undergrad-bound applicants are more reliant on non-school websites (e.g., FastWeb.com, Princeton Review—they’re unsure about their choices and need to do more research about them

  *you need great, digestible profiles on your site as well as non-school sites to help undergrads with their choice set

  One of the points that Drexel made in his presentation is that this year’s survey was posted on the Princeton Review website, and so the results reflect the community that uses the Princeton Review site: primarily white, rich, and homogeneous. Next year, Princeton Review will partner with Royall & Co., so the survey will reflect a larger sample size and demographic and be more statistically accurate.

  Again, copy of the presentation here. For more info, contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

  NOTE: I’m attending the AMA Symposium and will post entries about interesting sessions I attend tomorrow.