A good website is a must for any college today. It is their greatest digital asset. It not only shows to parents and perspective students that the Institution has been able to embrace technology but also helps you show to The World the great work you are doing. Marketing might be slightly frowned upon in the education sector but Education Marketing is a must in today’s scenario. Maintaining a good Website, Social Media pages is not just about good marketing but also about staying up with current trends.
What is common in all the websites we have jotted down? Well, they understand the primary reason of the website:
What we looked for while choosing them
In short they create meaningful touchpoints for students to interact with the college. Lets take a look at the top 50 educational institution websites out there. The list is divided into three parts: top 20 college websites followed by top 15 School websites and top 15 Pre-school website.
A modern website, abstract and something that cannot work for all colleges and universities but works brilliantly for a cutting edge arts university. A University which prides it’s creativity and forward thinking cannot stick to a mundane website and this is a great example of that. how many times do we end up seeing great engineering schools with horrid websites. What do you think that tells us about them?
A clean easy to understand website. With everything important available in the left panel. The designs draws attention to the left panel as the rest of the page just comprises of a beautiful picture that sports the sprawling green campus. By creating the heading “Inside UMD” they have been able to group in all the clutter that makes a college website look cumbersome. A separate tab for admissions and a search makes it simple for perspective students to easily navigate to whats important to them.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbors’ website is crisp and simple to navigate. If you scroll down in the home page, there Carpe Diem section is what excited us the most. This section shows 24 hours at Ann Arbor in visuals. A beautiful deception of what life of a student/faculty looks like.
On the top menu, they ask whether you are a prospective/ current student, faculty or parent. Clicking on that helps them curate content most relevant for your needs. This again is cost effective way of personlising your website.
A list of beautiful and great website design cannot be complete without a few design school websites. If they can’t do it right who can. What we love about the Rhode Island School of Designs website is the fact that even though there are several tabs and the design is abstract, it puts two important links right in the center of the page- Explore Programs and Take a Campus Tour. If you scroll further the School boasts and showcases the great work done by them, not much is required from their on to convince a perspective student!
Bucknell Universities website ticks all the right boxes. The “I am Looking for” tab in the top menu is perfect and helps in making it simple for students and parents to navigate through the website. Along with it is the Visited Pages tab which is a cost effective way of personalizing a website. We all have heard the importance of personalization and how Amazon and likes are doing it. However, most if not all think it is out of their league to implement this on a college/ schools’ website, which may be true but this simple and cost effective method is an ingenious solution.
A section dedicated to “Your life will change” with stories of Alumni’s, Campus Life and current student views connects emotionally with a prospective students and makes them inspire to be part of the Bucknell Family.
Mount St. Mary’s website shows significant though has gone behind it. The website works well with their campaign “Live Significantly” The use of a cinematographic video ads to the excitement and beauty of the website. The campaign along with the website, video and photos was managed by Up & Up, an agency based out of Greenville, USA.
Middlebury has taken a very unique and creative approach to their website. They communicate through stories and the entire website seems like a great collection of short stories. With no vertical scroll and shifting the header to the bottom of the page it is surely a bold move but the approach will surely attract its target audience. We will not recommend this approach to colleges who are struggling to list on the first page of google.
The website developed by Converge, an american agency, is to the point and uses a simple video to capture the magnificent school building. The aim of the website is simple to improve enrollments in these tough times and attract quality students. We have to admit the website does just that splendidly.
A city university usually lacks the scenic beauty to attract students with great visuals. George Washington University’s approach to this is rather interesting. By putting an interactive map in their homepage they not only show students how big their college is but also makes it easy for them to explore the several building campus of the university. All important tabs our available right on the top for perspective students.
Drexel has maintained a great website for several years now. There website is to the point and captures all the touchpoints. It focuses on admission conversion and does it well.
A beautiful , crisp and simple website, focusing on women and their achievements. Powerful visuals with to the point copy makes this website incredibly powerful.
A clean website, which has meaningful touchpoints which one can easily navigate to. A mobile first approach with web speed in mind, it is a SEO delight.
What are the touchpoints:
Admission & Aid -Work –Apply -Live -Visit -View -Research
The University has traditionally always maintained a clean look for their website. In 2019 they are currently showcasing the work of an Alumni, who is working on restoring artwork at the Vatican Museum. What can be more powerful than this? An alumni of the college scaling great heights should be given the maximum exposure. This forms an instant connect with perspective student who start dreaming of their future the moment they land on your website. Developed by 16over90
When a School with an impeccable record and unmatched legacy decides to get a website facelift, it’s always a challenge to do justice to the Brand. However, The Primacy has done brilliant job in developing a clean and brilliant design for them.
An extremely powerful website, we have not seen better story telling. The website makes sure the important links like Apply and Visit are accessible and yet do not compromise on design and idea.
Designed by Mstoner, Mills colleges website showcases their diversity. A libral arts college which encourages its students to “make a statement” surely sets an example with their website.
Keeping Enrollment in mind, Ashoka hits the nail on the head by announcing its Scholarship program on the landing page. A relatively young college and one of the few libral art schools in India, Ashoka’s website does a great job of exciting students about their future.
Taking a personlised approach like some other websites in this list, University of waterloo can curate relevant content for its viewer. This approach helps them improve engagement and convert perspective students by showing them exactly what they want to see.
Even though this website does not have the admissions or apply tab in the hero screen as soon as you scroll an entire section is dedicated to perspective students looking for admissions.
Above are the top 19 College websites that we though are great. The 20th slot we want to let it remain open for our latest project. We are launching a new look and campaign for CBIT, Hyderabad and we are sure once it is completed in early February it will deserve a place on this list!
What do you think about our list of top 50 educational institution websites? If you need to get a brand strategy for your School/College worked upon feel free to connect with us. If you think your website or a website you have seen deserves a spot on this list, you can mail us the ink at [email protected]
October - 10,2018 | Posted by: Iosignite
