Virtual Recruitment

With the economic downturn, have you considered a virtual open house for your college or department? What about organizing with a number of your academic partners and having a virtual college fair? We have an post associate degree initiative called the New Jersey Coastal Communiversity, located at our Wall Township Higher Education Center. The Communiversity is a strategic alliance between my college (Brookdale) and seven other colleges and universities, which allows students to pursue associates, bachelors, and masters degrees. Many of the courses are already offered online, so this would seem a perfect opportunity for a virtual college fair. Grown Up Digital » Virtual college fairs

Today’s youth, the Net Generation, is increasingly comfortable with exchanging real life experiences for virtual ones. The latest is the annual college tour that many high school students undertake before selecting a post secondary institution. While their parents would take the time and incur considerable expense to visit the few colleges that they were interested in, their children rather jump online to browse hundreds of schools at once.

One of the largest virtual college tours is put on by CollegeWeekLive. The first event which took place last November attracted 15 000 students from 28 countries who “visited” 130 U.S. colleges. The events are highly interactive – there are live video sessions with admissions experts and counselors, live chat with current students, virtual speakers and video contests. The events also allow schools to set up virtual booths with brochures, videos, webinars, podcasts and live IM.