The official e-newsletter of The Equestrian College Advisor.

From the blog:

It doesn’t happen often, readers, but on occasion I’ll speak with someone who – upon learning that I work with college-bound students – outlines to me the story of a college student they know (a son, daughter, cousin, friend, cousin’s-brother’s-girlfriend, etc.) who went through the college search process, chose a school, enrolled, and then got there and had a horrible experience because (and this is usually a direct quote): “It wasn’t what s/he expected.” Read More

Filed under the category of "boring but important,"

Skidmore has dropped the standardized testing requirements for applicants

, beginning next fall.

The Five Lessons My Competitive, Life-Consuming Sport Taught Me

- can you relate, students?

Navigating College Web Sites

You know the information you’re looking for; you know it’s located on the college’s web site – but the question is, where?!Colleges and universities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on their web site maintenance because they know it’s the first place you will go when you have questions or seek specific information about their campus and programming. The problem is that no two campuses have web sites that are alike – which means if you know where to find the information on one site, you’ll still have to hunt for the same data on another one.How can you speed up the process?

• Know where to start. Most colleges break their web sites into categories – “current students,” “alumni,” “prospective students.” Yet for the most part, the prospective student section is entirely designed for three purposes: to get your application, to schedule your campus visit, and to direct you to other parts of the site. Thus, unless you want to apply or visit, you’re better off skipping that section and going directly to the section that best fits your question. This begins with…

• Understand your needs. Do you need information about the major you’re interested in? Head directly to the academics section – or better yet, go directly to the online course catalog. Conducting research on campus clubs? Check out the heading “Student Life” or “Campus Life.” Want to know about your housing options? Look for terms like “residential life” or “housing” – which are also typically found in the “Student/Campus Life” section.

• Follow breadcrumbs. Sometimes surfing a school’s web site can turn into a trip down the rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland – you see one intriguing link, click it, find another, and then you don’t know how to get back where you began. Colleges know this happens – and most of them embed breadcrumbs into their web pages (look for a line of text with arrows up by the page header) that can return you to the beginning with just one click.

• Save bookmarks. If you’re in the thick of comparing the school of business at one of your prospective colleges and the school of business at another, save yourself a lot of time down the road by bookmarking both pages, signing up for the mailing lists of both programs, and even making bookmark folders for updates from both in your web browser.

The purpose of a college or university web site is to provide information to visitors in the most straightforward fashion possible. That said, some schools have more flash than substance in their sites so you’ll need to be savvy to obtain the information you seek. Good luck!

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