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Boston University’s latest public relations campaign is designed, surprised, to help the school climb the U.S. News & World Report ladder. The school now ranks 53rd in the country. But oddly, this one isn’t targeted to appeal to potential students. The new campaign is aimed at “thought leaders.”
According to an article By Stuart Elliott in the New York Times:
The campaign, now under way, promotes Boston University as a center for world-class research. The image-building campaign, in print and online, is different from the typical campaign from a college or university that is aimed at potential students and their parents.
That target audience is composed of deans, provosts and presidents at other universities and colleges — the people who respond to those [reputation] surveys.
Under the currently methodology used by U.S. News & World Report, 25 percent of the college ranking comes from a survey of a college’s reputation. This reputation survey, or peer assessment, measures how people “feel” about a college. This ambiguous category counts more than anything else the publication considers.
The roughly $500,000 BU campaign is run by Allen & Gerritsen, a Massachusetts advertising agency. It’s an interesting operation.
As Elliott explains:
The campaign carries the theme “The world needs to know,” which is meant to have two meanings. One is that “the world needs to know” more about the important discoveries being made at Boston University. The other meaning is that “The world needs to know” more about B.U.
The text of each ad describes those findings as a reason that Boston University is among the “leading,” “most respected” or “great” centers of “research and knowledge” — and “why thinking differently about our world begins with B.U.”
None of this actually indicates, however, that BU is a better school. Though surely BU does have “great” centers of “research and knowledge,” so do all other national universities. The world should probably know that fact, too.
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Arlington BigFish on September 26, 2011 6:31 PM:
My daughter recently experienced another form of colleges' attempts at US News-ranking boosting. Early in her senior year, she was subjected to a barrage of slick mailings from Washington University in St. Louis. Our first reaction was, "Wow, that's a really good school. If they're so interested, maybe we should take a look at the place." That impression kept building as the mailings kept coming. My daughter even flew out to St. Louis with a school friend to they could both have a look around. We kept getting encouragement via MORE mailings, & my daughter ultimately applied. To our surprise, she was rejected. Not too long afterward, I did a little research, & discovered that one of the key rating factors is selectivity. Our conclusion: WUSL (& a few others, such as Rice & Tulane & Mt. Holyoke) actively encourage applicants simply so they can turn them down -- thus boosting their selectivity rating. It's brilliant, when you think about it -- & breathtakingly cynical.