YouTube Videos
About
In focus groups with students, Vassar kept hearing that they wanted to know what it was like to live at Vassar—what the dorms were like, what the social life was like, etc. The message the college wanted to get across is that student life at Vassar is created by students. Vassar students come from everywhere and have a zillion interests, passions, and perspectives--and that multiplicity is student life at Vassar.
College Relations considered developing a student life publication to communicate this message, but about the same time, YouTube came into existence. We created a Vassar YouTube channel, focused largely on student life--brief interviews with students, videos profiling student organizations, comedy troupes, athletes, etc.
Vassar was the first of its peers (selective liberal arts colleges) to have a fully developed YouTube channel. In the first year, Vassar videos received over 100,000 hits. Did they have an impact on admissions? No hard evidence, but these days, when we are on campus videoing, first-year students recognize us and sometimes even quote from the videos. “And that’s a fact!”
Designer: Nesnadny & Schwartz
Videographer: Yang Miller