Facebook Steps Into The College Game

Facebook, the popular social networking site, is stepping in the college game and trying to help students pick the college that is best for them. To accomplish this task, Facebook has designed an application called SkoolPool.

SkoolPool is designed to help students discuss their college choices. High school students can add SkoolPool to their Facebook profile and keep a lookout on what colleges they applied to and why. The application is also helpful because it allows users to see where their friends are looking to go and what universities they are considering. SkoolPool also notifies users when a friend is accepted to a certain school.

"The exciting thing for admissions departments", said Ken Steele, vice president of Academia Group, "will be the potential to gather research data. Every time a user starts considering a school, or drops it from their consideration set, and the reasons they give, we capture the data and time stamp it. We'll be able to determine the most frequent cross-applications and timing of decisions. And we're also capturing a willing pool of research subjects for further study in focus groups or online panels".

Jonathan Lekstutis
November 26, 2007