Colleges use online fairs to recruit students

By Laura Diamond

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gary Bush, admissions director at Southern Polytechnic State University, met a prospective student in China on Wednesday. After that he met a Georgia high school student interested in the college's robotics program.

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Johnny Crawford, Jcrawford@ajc.com Southern Polytechnic State University Admissions Director Gary Bush answers questions from prospective students in an online college fair on Wednesday, November 3, 2010.

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Johnny Crawford, Jcrawford@ajc.com Southern Polytechnic students Trent Anderson and Jessica Harrington are shown on-screen answering questions in an online job fair that involved more than 300 colleges.

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Johnny Crawford, Jcrawford@ajc.com Colleges including Emory, Georgia Tech, and Clayton State participated in CollegeWeekLive, a virtual college fai. Here Southern Polytechnic students Trent Anderson and Jessica Harrington take part.

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He talked with both while typing on the computer at his desk in Marietta.

Southern Poly is among the more than 300 colleges participating in CollegeWeekLive, a virtual college fair that makes it easier for high school students and their parents to talk with college representatives about everything from SAT scores to financial aid packages to fraternities and sororities. Georgia Tech, Clayton State University and Emory University are also participating in the event that ends Thursday night.

In a time when more colleges and families are struggling financially, virtual college fairs allow both groups to reach out to one another without traveling across the country. The fair is free for students, while colleges pay a fee. The site is run by PlatformQ, a company the produces online events.

Georgia Tech paid $4,000 to participate in four online college fairs, said Rick Clark, director of admission. The college spent about $1,000 on a recent recruiting trip to Charlotte. About 800 students registered for that event, while about 50,000 are expected at the virtual event.

"We don't go to Missouri for college fairs, but now they can come to our booth," said Clark, adding that about 950 students visited Tech's virtual booth last spring.

Dezsarae Gill, a senior at DeKalb Early College Academy, will go online to speak with representatives of colleges in Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Arizona. She recently attended a college fair at Northlake Mall, but there were lines and some schools weren't there.

"Some of these colleges may have open houses but you can’t always travel to where they are or you have to study or do homework," she said. "This is just easier and you don't have to wear dressy pants or anything."

When students enter the site, they're in an "exhibit hall" with booths and the murmur of crowds. They scroll through an index of participating colleges and click to visit that school's "booth." There they can find links to the college's Facebook and Twitter accounts, campus videos or application and brochure downloads. If students have questions, they can enter the booth for a real-time online chat with admission officers, financial aid directors and students.

Southern Poly students Jessica Harrington and Trent Anderson participated in a video chat with high school students. They sat at a conference table with a keyboard, mouse and a laptop computer with a camera in front of them. Nearby were brochures and reports with facts about the college.

For about 45 minutes, high school students typed in questions about sports, academic majors, dorm life, the accessibility of professors and other topics. Anderson admitted the cafeteria food used to be so-so, but a new vendor provides better meals. Harrington talked about the new construction on campus. They talked about Sister Hazel, Zac Brown Band and other bands that performed on campus.

High school students said they like the variety of people they can speak with during the virtual college fair. A traditional fair has just one or two people from admissions.

"At other college fairs, you grab a pamphlet and then you move on, but with this you can talk to people for hours and really get to learn a lot about the college," said Asya Evans, a junior at Morrow High in Clayton County. "You get really good insight to figure out if this is somewhere you want to go."

A couple of weeks after the fair, event organizers send each college the contact information for the people who visited their booth. Colleges can follow up with the students.

About half of the nearly 900 students who visited Tech's both in November 2008 were high school seniors and about half of them applied, Clark said. Of that group, about 45 percent enrolled.

"It’s not just that we’re attracting students, we’re meeting the students who are qualified to attend," he said. "We are getting quality."

How to attend

CollegeWeekLive, the virtual college fair, continues until 10 p.m Wednesday and runs from 9 am. to 10 p.m. Thursday. For more information, www.collegeweeklive.com.