<p>I also have “worldly experience”, but, I’m with the students on this one. I heard the fearless campaign and thought it was marketing hype without substance. The old slogan about changing the world really was about Oberlin. We looked at a lot of different schools for my son, who is most interested in progressive politics, and believe me the ones that emphasize changing the world are few and far between.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think it is right to rely on “worldly experience” for two reasons. One, it seems like a way to say you can just ignore other people’s opinions without addressing what they are saying. Two, for a marketing campaign the reactions of the people the campaign is aimed at seems really important, even more important than the reaction of others (such as those of us with more “wordly experience”). If I was selling a product I would be more interested in what my prospective customers had to say about my campaign than what their parents had to say.</p>
<p>Inquisitive Mom: Both parents AND students are customers. Parents are paying the tab. There is no way my kid could or would go to a college my wife are dead set against. It is simply not going to happen. Colleges know this, which is why parents get letters addressed directly to them from college presidents. My wife and I received SEVERAL. </p>
<p>But if you want to focus on the student, let me repeat: My D was blown away by the “Fearless” tag. She’s the customer, right? She framed her entire “Why Oberlin?” essay around it. It might be the reason she was admitted. </p>
<p>“Fearless” impressed her so much she asked us for a visit. Remember, she’d never heard of Oberlin. How she interpreted the meaning of “Fearless” (fierce advocates for social justice) made Oberlin stand apart from other Top LACs that seemed so much alike. She can’t be the only one in the crop of incoming freshmen who loved “Fearless.” </p>
<p>Remember, the customers for marketing information are NOT the college’s current students. They are the high school students the college wants to attract. If my daughter is an example, it worked. No marketing campaign including “change the world” will click with everyone. You’ve got to target your message for the type of person you want to attract. I can only assume Oberlin wanted to attract the type of high school students who would identify with or be inspired by “Fearless.” It worked. What’s not to like?</p>
<p>Well, your daughter is just one person. My son, another future Oberlin student, is another. My son agreed with me that the campaign was lame and contentless. So we have to step outside of our immediate experiences to see the reactions to the campaign. Unless Oberlin is trying to significantly change the types of students they are attracting, which we have no reason to believe they are, the current students are a good measure of how the campaign plays with prospective students. Also, I attended an information session where the Oberlin staff asked prospective students and parents what they thought of the fearless campaign and there was no support for the slogan. Most people were polite and sidestepped the question. I spoke up.</p>
<p>Well, here’s a third view: we chose Oberlin regardless of the slogan, based on “fit”; in our instance, both parents and kid thought the “fearless” campaign was ok, kind of fun - we “got” the point and didn’t think it meant “athletes” or “people who don’t think before they act” but we also saw it as a slogan, which it was, and it showed that there was a perceived need to rebrand because of a perception that Oberlin is underrated. So the effort was clearly to appeal more broadly. Many students at Oberlin when it came out felt it was not sufficiently vetted with them; and they felt they were betrayed. Surely that was not the intent. The materials (factbook and the now defunct internet fearless portal) were a bit lurid for my taste, but apparently tested well enough in marketing studies for the effort to go forward. There’s a lot of stationary that says “fearless” but I will bet that it is at best, in future, only one of several approaches. Certainly the new website is not “fearless” focussed; it is filled with stories, blogs, videos (there are videos for most of the conservatory faculty and many of the A & S faculty); there is a new administration and new communications going on. So this argument is really about something that is no longer a big issue and not worth wrangling over. One thing, though, Fearless does make for some good jokes and ironic t-shirts.</p>
<p>Why did they include the question about the impact of “Fearless” on your decision to consider/come to Oberlin, on the admitted students survey, if the Fearless campaign is history?</p>
<p>Fearlessly, Oberlin has risen to the occasion after the public transit bus from Oberlin to the airport was cancelled a few weeks ago. Here is the link, which shows a daily schedule for buses to the airport (where you can link up with transportation to Cleveland) at $15 per ride and special buses for the beginning and end of the semester and breaks.
[Oberlin-CLE</a> Airport Shuttles - Oberlin College](<a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/transportation/shuttles.dot]Oberlin-CLE”>http://new.oberlin.edu/transportation/shuttles.dot)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link on the airport transit. I just wish they would have included transportation on 8/18-8/19 when the fall athletes have to return to campus.</p>
<p>from the Oberlin twitterfeed:
Comments or questions about the fall semester shuttle schedules? Send feedback to <a href="mailto:studenttransportation@gmail.com">studenttransportation@gmail.com</a></p>
<p>As Social Media Coordinator here at Oberlin, I feel like it is my civic duty to introduce a number of other cool Oberlin resources, specifically our various social media sites. Many of our presences are aggregated on our [about.me</a> page](<a href=“http://about.me/oberlincollege]about.me”>Oberlin College | about.me) – you can view most of our presences within that site, but just so y’all can find them in their natural habitats as well:</p>
<p>Maayanplaut, thank you for this helpful information. (Being completely transparent here, but what the heck…). Since our son’s visit to Oberlin a couple weeks ago (and in the process, him having fallen in love with this place) we parents have suddenly become interested in all things Oberlin. We’re working on having him applying Early Decision–and seeing where the chips may fall. :)</p>
<p>My son is also applying ED to Oberlin. He was wowed by it during his visit a few months ago and is choosing it over the USN&Rs top ranked east coast LLCs he had been considering. We are keeping our fingers crossed for good news in December. Thanks Maayanplaut for all the info!</p>