Internet Use in University Admissions Applications

Team: Mukesh Darke, Michelle Kim, Joyojeet Pal

Description of the project

The project seeks to examine, through a detailed survey project, the adoption of technology among high-school youth, using the college application as the key element of the process.

We have taken the college application as the “product”, and plan an ethnographic and technology proficiency study of the “users” of the product. Specifically, we are interested in examining the transition from paper-based application to electronic-formatted application, and its effect on different groups of students and their predisposition and ability to apply to colleges. We believe that the project is a “Needs Assessment” of the users of college application, and can reflect interesting trends in the re-engineering of a mass product (college) a technology interface (the necessity of the Internet).

We will do the following:
Survey --We will survey randomly chosen youth in:
a. The juvenile detention system of San Francisco City
b. An inner-city high school in San Francisco
c. A private / college-prep high school in San Francisco
d. (Tentative) Admissions counselors (separate survey)

Surveys for Students
These surveys will examine the proficiency of the youth in the technologies used to enter college. The survey will include an ethnographic aspect of looking at whether or not youth in all the given situations are interested in going to college. We feel this is important to keep the project close to the realities of the subject population. The following questions will be addressed in the surveys:
1. How much time do users have on computers?
2. Do they have access, and if so where are the key access points? Also do they have a means to use the Internet for communication (i.e. an email address)?
3. What technologies are users most comfortable with? (We need to configure this question in a form of a quantitative analysis to determine the level of proficiency, since perceptions of proficiency may differ vastly.)
4. What are the perceived uses of the technologies?
5. What would be the first choice technologies for considering college applications (personal advisors vs. internet)?
6. What is the role of family in facilitating these technologies? (This question is essential to determine the key roles family plays in access.)
7. What is the level of information on universities? What are the sources of this information? (Do the youths have an existing perception of which university they want to study at? Is this driven by the university's reputation or knowledge of programs they offer?)
8. What is the existing level of Internet use for information on colleges? (This issue will be divided into a series of questions, which will be the key elements of our study.)

Surveys for Admissions Counselors

1. What level of Internet proficiency do they expect from applicants?
2. Expectations aside, how does Internet use (in the application process) strengthen applicants' case?
3. What is the primary source of contact between them and applicants?
4. How many of the college application resources that they recommend to students are online materials?

Analysis

The analysis will be based on the results of the survey, mainly issues to be looked at are:

1. The level to which Internet technology has become a dominant technology in college application processes.
2. The strength of individual applicants' situations based on usability proficiency with technology.