How Online Connection Opens a Whole New World for Colleges

With this improvement in the ease of online connection, the game is changed for college applications in a number of ways.

If you are from Generation Y or older, picture your college application process. You probably filled out physical, handwritten copies of college applications to mail to the universities you were interested in, and since this required so much effort on your part, it’s likely you applied to three or fewer institutions. Additionally, you always went to visit colleges in person, if you went to visit them at all. This experience, compared to the college application process today, is like night and day. Much of applying to colleges has been moved online, which has completely changed the game for students and colleges alike.

The Impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the way colleges and their potential students communicate and interact with one another. Normally, students would go in person to visit campuses, meet professors, and experience what life is like at that college. However, fears of spreading and being exposed to COVID forced many colleges to cancel in-person tours for their students, and transform much of their advertisements into a digital form. At first, it seemed like the pandemic was limiting students from beginning their college application process, but as it progressed, students and colleges alike realized that all of this emphasis on online communication and connection actually opened up a whole new world.

Zoom Calls and Video Sessions

Hundreds of people across the United States have now used Zoom, a video communication software program that exploded in popularity once the pandemic began, whether it was for a class for school or a virtual get-together with friends. But colleges have now begun to use Zoom sessions for Q&A sessions with potential students, and informational sessions that promote the school and the surrounding area.

By hosting these Zoom calls, students can learn more about their colleges of interest from the comfort of their homes. For a lot of kids, this is a lifesaver. For example, a high school student in Michigan no longer has to make the cross-country trip to UCLA just to learn more about the college. They can simply hop on a Zoom session and have all their questions answered by current students, current faculty, and alumni. A college-sponsored Zoom call is an excellent, knowledge-filled experience that eases communication and is becoming more and more popular.

Virtual Tours

Due to COVID-19 safety concerns for both their current students living on campus and their visiting guests, colleges that did choose to have in-person tours and meetings were often unable to show their visitors a dorm room or other parts of campus that are essential to the college experience. So to make up for this hole in a student’s picture of the campus, universities used photographs and virtual reality software to create digital, three-dimensional tours of dorm rooms and other areas of campuses, complete with digital decorations and accurate measurements. This development in virtual reality has allowed students a picture of what their life would look like if they chose to go to that campus, and eased some of the stress of going in blind.

Applying to and attending college has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Most applications are done online, and a lot of research that students do is also online. By taking advantage of recent changes in technology, such as by setting up a Zoom session or creating virtual tours for students from far away, colleges are able to connect with a wider audience of students than ever before, and students get to engage with more colleges, too.