The Social Side of College Admissions

We recently analyzed data on all the wall posts between January 1 and May 1, 2011, by Facebook Pages in our directory. This analysis covered more than 65,000 posts by these pages. We hope this provides an objective look at the most engaging college & university Facebook Pages.

We have grouped the pages in our directory into 4 categories for our analysis:

1. Very Large: More than 25,000 fans / likes
2. Large: 7,501-25,000 fans / likes
3. Medium: 2,501-7,500 fans / likes
4. Small: 2,500 or fewer fans / likes

We continue to use the following formula to measure the engagement of these posts:

Please Note: We required a minimum of 15 posts over this 4-month period to be included in our rankings.

Very Large (25,000+ Facebook fans)

Rank	School		Engagement Score
1		Auburn University (Auburn, AL)	6.770 71 posts
2		The University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)	6.434 66 posts
3		Texas A&M University (College Station, TX)	3.853 163 posts
4		University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI)	3.542 75 posts
5		Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA)	3.388 72 posts
6		Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)	3.130 80 posts
7		Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH)	3.056 131 posts
8		Kaplan University (Fort Lauderdale, FL)	3.036 85 posts
9		George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)	2.930 115 posts
10		The New York Institute of Photography (New York, NY)	2.882 51 posts

Large (7,501-25,000 Facebook fans)

Rank	School		Engagement Score
1		Siena College (Loudonville, NY)	9.580 30 posts
2		Brigham Young University - Alumni (Provo, UT)	6.329 89 posts
3		Eastern Washington University (Cheney, WA)	5.603 99 posts
4		Walden University (Online)	5.104 43 posts
5		Capella University (Online)	4.744 62 posts
6		Smith College (Northampton, MA)	4.328 179 posts
7		Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Carbondale, IL)	4.191 103 posts
8		Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI)	4.153 157 posts
9		Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA)	4.040 78 posts
10		The University of Montana (Missoula, MT)	4.028 20 posts

Medium (2,501-7,500 Facebook fans)

Rank	School		Engagement Score
1		Merrimack College (North Andover, MA)	10.564 32 posts
2		Shaw University (Raleigh, NC)	8.276 73 posts
3		College of Wooster (Wooster, OH)	7.000 48 posts
4		Sweet Briar College (Sweet Briar, VA)	6.971 27 posts
5		Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA)	6.879 88 posts
6		The Citadel Alumni Association (Charleston, SC)	6.853 66 posts
7		Denison University (Granville, OH)	6.499 24 posts
8		University of the South (Sewanee, TN)	6.449 80 posts
9		McPherson College (McPherson, KS)	6.446 43 posts
10		University of St. Thomas (Saint Paul, MN)	6.224 130 posts

Small (2,500 or fewer Facebook fans)

Rank	School		Engagement Score
1		Indiana University Kokomo Admissions Office (Kokomo, IN)	15.610 29 posts
2		VCU School of Business (Richmond, VA)	13.475 50 posts
3		Neumont University (South Jordan, UT)	10.272 56 posts
4		University of Minnesota Rochester (Rochester, MN)	9.838 38 posts
5		University of Scranton Admissions (Scranton, PA)	7.011 30 posts
6		Hesston College (Hesston, KS)	6.623 16 posts
7		Midway College (Midway, KY)	6.450 15 posts
8		Holyoke Community College (Holyoke, MA)	6.397 147 posts
9		College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME)	6.289 42 posts
10		Biola University Crowell School Of Business (La Mirada, CA)	5.690 17 posts

Posts and Engagement by Media Type

Posts and Engagement by Day of the Week

Labels: data, Facebook, Metrics, Pages