…for prospective students

Want to find out what the weather is like in Montreal? There’s an app for that. Want to talk with your uncle who lives in Chile? There’s an app for that.  Want to find out what being a college student at Gustavus is like before you even go here? There’s now an app for that, too.

Gustavus recently announced the release of an iPad application directed toward prospective students on August 21st. The application will allow for prospective students to access videos and information about academics, off-campus research, arts and music. Interviews and features with current students

and alumni will also be highlighted.

It has been three years since the college launched Campaign Gustavus and people started to look at updating the viewbook. Vice President for Enrollment Management in Admission Tom Crady and Vice President for Marketing and Communication Tim Kennedy, ’82, looked at new mediums of information and communication. They decided to think outside of the box.

“Essentially, young students get all their information mainly through electronic mediums. This is a generation that has grown up watching videos, looking at pictures, and listening to music to get information. And the purpose of this app is to use a multimedia perspective to tell the Gustavus story,” Kennedy said.

“As far as we know, it’s the first iPad app of its kind in higher education. While other schools have iPad apps, ours is the first that is a viewbook directed towards prospective students. The app is clearly comprehensive and robust as a view book that a student would get in the mail,” Kennedy says.

The iPad app is user friendly and easily accessible for students, parents, and guidance counselors.  In addition to the features, it will have links leading to the website and college applications.

The key part of the app is its multimedia functions and interactive capabilities. The app has already seen success.

“Within 24 hours of it releasing it, 7 countries around the world downloaded the application. And we immediately received feedback,” Crady said.

“The other thing that is neat about it, is it does a lot for video. It works more effectively than a print viewbook. Instead of waiting another four years to make changes to the viewbooks, we can immediately access the app. and update it for the students,” Crady said.

The elements that make the application really grabbing include high quality videos of Sesquicentennial events, the Make Your Life Count campaigns, and different videos illustrating the college’s five core values featuring various students, alumni and faculty.

Viewbooks can typically cost up to a million dollars, from creating to printing to distribution. The costs for  creating an iPad app is significantly smaller, while students can download the application from the Apple iTunes store for free.

In addition, the college will also release an app available for the iPhone in conjunction with the release of the highly anticipated iPhone 5.

“This is really exciting for us and scary because we’re entering a new era in communicating with young students, parents, and alumni. The early feedback is incredibly positive. We feel that this is a really important first step, and one we’re proud of,” Kennedy said.