Is your child's college web site navigable?

[Dizzymom]

I don't want to judge the book by its cover, but I find myself wondering a bit about S2's college as every encounter with the school's web site results in un-navigable or un-findable information or false links. And this is a university that requires almost everything - including billing - to be done on-line.

Today was the fourth time I had to call the university for information that was purported to be or should have been easily available on the web site. The employee with whom I spoke today said she has been swamped with calls from students and parents who are having similar difficulty with the web site.

S1's college web site is fabulous and a great resource. The contrast is disconcerting and leads me to draw conclusions about quality and commitment to students and their families.

Anyone else finding this to be a problem or is this an isolated issue?

[visionquest09]

ya i found some of the best technical schools have very boring and hard to navigate sites (but i also found good schools with awsome websites)

sometimes i think my highschool has a better site

[MQD]

Yes ...I do judge a book by its cover on occasion!

If they can not get themselves organized on the web ... what does it say about the organization of the place? Do they take technology seriously? Are they a forward looking enough institution?

I think it speaks volumes. The "attitude" on the web also speaks volumes ... the web site and a visit are a great one-two.

[NewHope33]

Dizzy - Yes, it does seem that many college Web Sites are disorganized. It's not just you, and it's not just your S's school. I'm sure your S had navigated worse though, so don't worry about it (a lot). JMHO.

[RacinReaver]

My undergrad school was a top-notch engineering and science school, but their website was a catastrophe. It was often much easier to just go to google and use a site:school.edu type of search (For those that aren't aware, you can type "site:website <search terms>" in order to restrict search results to a single domain. For example, "site:collegeconfidential.com racinreaver" would return only search results from CC with my name in them.) than use the school's own search engine.

I found the use of the website to not really that big of a factor, unless it was totally broken. Once I started attending the school, I learned the three or four address that lead to everything else (in my case: hub, myandrew, webmail, and blackboard), at which point the terrible website front page didn't matter.

And, for the record, the rest of the technology taken care of by my school was fantastic. Nearly 100% wireless coverage in the dorms, academic buildings, and in most public places, blazing fast internet, tons of webspace to save files (no need to keep track of USB thumb drives), and computer clusters in practically every building.

[Lafalum84]

DS's college's website is fairly navigable, but does have some outdated links. The section he had to use to register for freshman year classes was particularly confusing. There was a really helpful page, but it wasn't easily found - we came across it by accident, then couldn't remember how to get back to it. If not for a CC'r who was a junior at his college and was giving us advice, we'd have been pretty frustrated with that task. Otherwise, the website is pretty good.

[ebeeeee]

I find son's fairly navigable. However: there is a parental portal and a student portal. Parents have access to a LOT less information so you either have to ask your kid or get them to share their password/logon.
I do not have and do not want my son's password/logon. Sometimes he will call me with it and ask me to logon so I can look at something. I promptly forget both the user name and password.

[BunsenBurner]

I like the fact that D's college website is frequently updated, and its pages have "expiration dates" on them. D seems to like her students' portal. I've never seen a single page of it.

[LilyMoon]

I have found the website of the school my S attends, to be very user friendly. They even sent a questionaire to the families asking them to rate the website and wanted ways they could improve. I think it's important for a school to have a good and easy to navigate website since so much is done online these days and prospective students also get lots of information about schools from their websites.

[jmmom]

Maybe time will help.

After DS transferred, I found his new school's site annoying and far less user friendly than his original school.

Now I move around with ease. So it may just take a bit of time.

Although their employee being swamped with phone queries that should have been handled online is a bad sign, for sure.

I wonder if there is an effective way to communicate this to the U/web designer?

[Dizzymom]

The Parent Portal is a really helpful feature - S1's school has one, and it's very well organized.

It's not merely an annoyance when the web site is poorly organized/out of date/badly managed. If you are restricted to conducting registration/financial/health decisions ONLY through the web site and these things are not accessible, it's a real problem.

I can usually find what I want on a site via the search function, but on this web site, relevant information just doesn't turn up. There IS a parent/family page, but no link to it from the university home page and no way to find it through the search function. You have to know the exact URL with all the attendant forward slashes and acronyms.

On the phone, it's clear that university employees are equally frustrated because of the amount of time they spend answering the same questions over and over. Makes me realize just how productivity-enhancing a well-organized web site can be.

I think the IT people will someday rule the planet and make the rest of us their slaves...

[NorthEastMom2]

My d will be attending WUSTL, and so far their website is terrible. If we find a useful page we bookmark it, because it's almost impossible to recreate the navigation.

However, on the phone everyone is wonder ful and very helpful.

[Jolynne Smyth]

The schools need to put the exact street addresses of the admissions dept/site of tours so families can find the proper locale via gps. Many schools make this info hard to find (or, you must call to obtain it).

[hikids]

I think many (significant majority) of school websites need serious improvement. And, some of the "better" schools have the least user friendly sites, even when you know what you are looking for.

[younghoss]

I'd be concerned too.