April 18, 1998
Contact: Andrew Careaga: 573-341-4328; [email protected]
CAMPUS USES INSTANT MESSAGING SOFTWARE TO RECRUIT STUDENTS ONLINE
ROLLA, Mo. -- For college recruiters and admissions directors, the Internet's "killer application" may not be the World Wide Web or online application forms, but instant messaging programs that allow recruiters to engage in one-on-one Internet chats with potential students.
At least that's the hope of Martina S. Hahn, director of admissions and student financial aid at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Hahn and her staff are using instant messaging technology to tout the campus to prospective students online.
"More and more of our prospective students prefer to communicate online," Hahn says. "the least we can do is learn their language and communicate with them in a style they feel comfortable with."
Instant messaging programs are similar to one of the Internet's oldest communication tools, Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC allows Internet users to enter chat rooms for real-time communication. An added feature of IRC software is the "notify list," which lets users build lists of online acquaintances. When those people log on to the Internet, the IRC user sees their nicknames flash up on his or her computer monitor.
Similar instant messaging services have been cropping up all over the Internet in recent months. Hahn and her staff are using one such service, America Online's Instant Messenger, to stay in touch with UMR prospects who have AOL accounts. The UMR recruiters have compiled "buddy lists" of more than 800 of these AOL prospects as part of the campus' Internet recruiting campaign. Now, any time a prospective UMR student logs on to AOL or the Internet, that person's name will pop up on UMR recruiters' buddy lists.
The UMR admissions staff began using instant messaging for recruitment purposes in early March, soon after Hahn came on board as director. Over one weekend, Hahn added 95 prospects to her AIM buddy list, and contacted 23 in one afternoon.
"The responses were great," Hahn says. "One prospect wrote, 'I'm flattered that you would take the time for me,' and the brother of another prospective student wrote, 'Thank you for taking the time to do this.'"
The idea for building relationships with prospective students via instant messaging came to Hahn while on AOL one day in February. While surfing AOL member profiles for people who listed "Rolla" in their information, Hahn "met" a prospective student from Texas, and struck up a chat.
Through the online conversation, Hahn discovered that the young woman had visited UMR last summer and was planning to enroll in the fall.
"She told me that she had met Dawn Medley (a UMR admissions staff member) and that she was excited about coming this fall," Hahn said. "I was able to speak with her directly about UMR because she happened to be online at the same time I was."
AOL's Instant Messenger isn't the only such program now available. Similar instant messaging software is cropping up all over the Internet. They include Ding, PeopleLink, iChatPager, Excite PAL and ICQ.
Experts predict these applications to become more popular and user-friendly. "I expect the popularity of buddy lists to explode over the next few years, in much the same way that e-mail took off," says Christopher Barr, who writes a column about the Internet for the popular World Wide Web site C|Net (www.cnet.com).
"Unlike e-mail," Barr writes, "you don't get any attachments or spam messages with buddy lists. Even better, buddy lists don't clog your mailbox (or mail server) with messages that you wouldn't normally keep. Some of the products even let you organize an online chat ... for more than two users."
Hahn expects this recruiting approach to not only meet the needs of the new generation of techno-savvy students, but also to save the campus on long-distance telephone calls.
Using instant messaging is the first of several ideas Hahn plans to implement at UMR to make the techno-connection with the country's best and brightest college prospects.
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