This morning, Campus Technology published a great article outlining student recruitment through Social Networks. Instead of a standard news article, the author scripted an interview with Brad Ward from Butler. The article touches a few points: Zinch, student blogging and Facebook.
For those of you unfamiliar with Zinch, it is a social network created by a few innovative undergraduate students who were frustrated with the current admissions search process that starts with the typecasting based on ACT/SAT test scores. Instead, they wanted to empower the prospective student by giving him/her an electronic avenue to display "more than a test score." The result is a social network that works as an intermediary between prospective students and colleges. Prospective students can create an account and colleges can "shop" for students based on self-identified student information (demographic, geographic, etc...).
To date, Zinch boasts:
- More than 475 colleges currently recruiting students on Zinch.
- More than 300,000 high school students have already created Zinch profiles.
- All 50 states, more than 160 countries, and over 19,000 high schools are represented by students currently on Zinch.
Other Recruitment Social Networks
While Zinch has set itself as an intermediary between prospective students and colleges, many colleges are setting up their own social networks for recruiting. A quick search on Ning.com, pulls up 10 pages identified as colleges with social networks. After sifting through the spam and alumni networks (since we are looking mainly at recruitment), a few stand to the top:
Alfred University
Alfred University which connects accepted students, current students, faculty and staff. Discover what makes AU truly special - the individuals who inspire the Alfred University community.California Lutheran University
This social network site has been created for YOU to get to know more about California Lutheran University and to let you meet other students who have been admitted to CLU. Log-in to post-discussions, photos and much more.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Last month, we started a social network for admitted High School Seniors. The social network - branded as ClubRed - currently has over 1,000 regular users and gives admitted students the ability set up their profiles and upload photos, search for friends, check and send messages, join discussions, read and comment on blogs, and review their Office of Admissions checklist for preparing to enroll at UNL. More information can be found here.

8 thoughts:
That ClubRED looks awesome. I'd love to see some screenshots of what's going on behind the (red?) curtain. Any demo logins floating around?
Thanks for the shoutout too! Are you Zinching?
I agree, I'd like to see some more of ClubRED. It reminds me that we have a homebuilt social network for new admitted students to get to know each other better. http://woffordfyi.com/
I think we have already used it for three maybe even four years now? I don't really do much of any work with it so I tend to forget about it most of the time.
Anyway... share some ClubRED!
I'll get some screen shots and some numbers for my next post.
i checked out the article- looks good. wish they would have had this when i was in school!
What percentage of your admitted students are taking advantage of ClubRed so far?
...and it looks cool!
Wow...this just popped up on my Google reader this weekend, but I found it very pertinent to my current project...I have been trying to convince people that we need a social network for admitted students. I have tossed Ning around as a base for a while now, and you mention using it, but see mention there's no CRM. Due to end of the year money crunch, there's no money to spend on any type of service. What are some of the drawbacks you see with using Ning?
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Wah.. these Other Recruitment Social Networks are great social networking sites.
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