If hindsight is 20/20, then college reviews from your school’s alumni are worth big pots of magical gold to your prospective students. Put yourself in their shoes (or their parents’):  Back when you were looking at colleges wouldn’t you have given anything to learn more about the schools you were interested in from the students themselves?

Before parents and students are setting foot on your campus for a tour, you can bet that they’re searching for reviews of your college online. Sure, you may have tons of awesome case studies, interviews, or testimonials from recent grads and current students on your website. But here’s the kicker: parents and students don’t always trust them!

Between being bombarded by glossy viewbooks and flashy admissions websites, your potential applicants are Googling for reviews of your college to sort out fact from fiction in their own minds. Just like using Yelp! to see what people are saying about the new restaurant in town, they’re going on third-party college review sites to get that coveted unbiased perspective.

So what can you do?

Google Shows More Reviews of Notre Dame

Do your homework first.

Search for college reviews on popular college search sites to see what people are saying about your school. You might even want to check your school’s Google places page by seeing what external review sites are automatically being aggregated. If you’re not seeing any reviews for your college on these sites that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it means that there’s ample opportunity to start encouraging your students and alumni to leave their feedback and opinions.

Work with your alumni office.

If your admissions and marketing departments don’t communicate with your alumni office you’re missing out on tons of excellent collaborative opportunities. Suggest that in your next alumni newsletter that you include a recommendation and a link to leave a school review one of the third-party sites you’ve discovered. If your alumni office is active on social media (like they should be) you can request that they spread the word that way as well.

Don’t be shy to leave reviews yourself!

In some cases you don’t necessarily have to be a student or alumni to write a school review. For instance, StudentAdvisor accepts reviews from school faculty and staff members in addition to students and grads. Don’t just limit to your reviews to college review-specific sites either:  Why not share what you love about working at your school on Glassdoor, Yahoo Local! or Google Places?

Make it a yearly effort.

A lot can change at a college in just a few years. Parents and students searching for information will often put in the current year when searching to make sure they’re getting the most recent reviews. For example on our site we get plenty of search engine hits for “X name college reviews 2011″ or “University of Y reviews 2012″. If you notice that there haven’t been any new reviews on third-party sites of your college in over a year or so, it’s time to encourage your community to write some fresh ones.

1. The Credibility of College Info from Social Network Sites (or Lack Thereof)
2. sex…Sex…SEX! Now I Have Your Attention.
3. #heweb10 – Progressive Personalization for Alumni-Driven Sites

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