Speed-selecting a college

It's this personalization that will make or break college admissions in the future, says Chris Muñoz, who was dean of enrollment at the University of Dayton where he spent years personalizing the school's website. Now as vice provost for enrollment at Case Western Reserve University, he's done the same thing - totally remaking the school's admissions website.

In 1996, the University of Dayton had a website much like its printed viewbook. But Mr. Muñoz noticed a major difference after he made it possible for students to personalize the site and get information on their interests e-mailed automatically to them. The yield, or percentage of web visitors who personalized the site and later applied, leapt to 53 percent - compared with 14.7 percent of students who did not personalize the site.

"The campus visit is always the most critical desired touch point for a prospective student," Muñoz says. "But it's quite clear the website has become very critical in terms of influencing the decision to go visit."

No kidding. Just ask Scott Snider, a senior at St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio. Since he began his college hunt in eighth grade, he has visited and evaluated at least 150 college websites, spending as much as 45 minutes and as little as five minutes on each.

Getting serious last year, he and his parents together went to www.collegeboard.com and did a search that netted 200 possible colleges. A refinement narrowed the list to 50 schools - and Scott has since spent time four to five days a week, poking around on these schools' websites during study halls and at home after soccer practice.

A few websites allowed him to plug in his personal interests - political science, business, soccer - and then he received e-mails with custom-tailored information - an aspect he really liked. He also enjoyed the "virtual tours" some sites offered.

But a few others, he recalls, seemed to cast the school in a negative light.

"The websites are definitely important to me because, you know, if they're disorganized, or the links don't work, or you can't find what you're searching for, it's a real turnoff," he says.

His parents have been closely involved - especially on the Wednesday "family night" session, when his dad sometimes connects the computer to a pulldown video screen and together they visit and prowl the college websites two to three hours at a stretch.

His parents, he says, were impressed because they recalled having to look through "books and books" to find the same information he can obtain so easily.

Finally, he's decided to apply to five schools: Duke University, American University, the University of Virginia, the Miami University of Ohio, and Ohio University. Of those, American University had popped up years earlier - then again when sifting using the college board site. So he visited and liked it. Meanwhile, the University of Virginia was recommended by a friend and he has stuck with that, too.

"I wouldn't say the website was the biggest factor for me in where I applied - but it was pretty important," he says. "I think my grandchildren are going to find it a lot more important."

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