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Colleges using blogs to attract students.

By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On a Monday this month, the admissions officers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had pizza for lunch.

That week, they also chose 377 high school seniors to admit to MIT, out of 3,098 who applied in the early action process.

They stuffed admit letters into confetti-filled cardboard mailing tubes
and deferral and rejection letters into 4.125-inch-by-9.5-inch
envelopes.

And then they put this information, from what they had for lunch to the
size of the envelopes, into their Web logs, or blogs, which are read by
thousands of prospective applicants and their parents.

MIT is one of a handful of universities where admissions officers write
blogs. But the idea is quickly spreading, as universities look for new
ways to appeal to an applicant pool that barely remembers life before
the Internet. It’s quickly shown itself to be a useful tool in boosting
interest among potential applicants, and one with some downsides as
well.

"We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just going where they already
are," said Matt McGann, an MIT admissions officer who started his blog
in August 2004. "We’re trying to take the mystery out of this college
admissions process a bit."

With entries that are often as much personal as they are business, the
blogs leave few stones unturned. Admissions officers post that they
listened to the new CD from the group Resonance, ate Indian food for
lunch or went to see "Harry Potter."

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