The Interfolio Blog

"Blog" has pretty much become a household term in the last few years. Individuals have used it as a means to put forth their own views and opinions and companies have used it as a way to increase transparency and share information with the public. Now, some schools are using blogs as an admissions tool to give prospective students more information on what it is like to be a student at their institution. These blogs, written by current students, wax poetic on a variety of topics - anywhere from the demands of being a collegiate athlete to complaining about the draconian parking enforcement on campus. Done right, I think this is an incredible idea. What is done right? The entries must be reasonably uncensored. Now, I understand that the goal is to promote the university, so foul language, discriminatory content, and anything else obscene should certainly be censored. However, striking out negative material (whether complaining about the campus dining options or complaining of the competency of a particular department) in order to maintain a clean, only-positive presentation of campus life is not only unethical, but defeats the purpose of keeping the blog in the first place. And, as Nancy Prater of Ball State University says in the article, kids can read what people have to say on Facebook or MySpace anyway, so editing content only creates the potential for a negative backlash. Use people who are going to write well, whether they are lauding or scolding the administration. No one wants to read material that is grammatically incorrect, lacking capitalization or incoherent. Writing is often seen as a lost art today, so don't be too quick to assign someone the task of maintaining a blog. Allow readers to post comments. It can help to start an open dialogue between the writer and prospective students. Additionally, it can allow for other current students to support or contradict a point of view put forth on the blog, helping to provide a more comprehensive perspective. Granted, there may be inappropriate comments, but they can be easily deleted if they contain offensive language. Get a variety of different people to write. Athletes, pre-med students, English majors, and so on and so forth. The more specialized the material, the better. Ideally, someone in each department could be blogging, but at the least, make sure there are a variety of voices so that rising freshmen can have as much information as possible. In a best case scenario, the rise of these blogs can examine the positive and negative aspects of campus life, detail the quirks and personal items that can't be shared in the university brochure, and open up dialogue between current and future students. Hopefully, schools will encourage their writers to be completely open, and provide applicants with an extremely valuable resource in their decision-making process.