The NYTimes has a short piece on effective practices for college web sites.

The key points:

* Information on academic programs should be prominent and seek to not only describe content, but to answer student questions about time, costs, etc.

* Financial aid calculators are very popular with students

* Students like video, but only if load-times are quick and no additional plug-ins are required (i.e. use Flash video)

* The high-school students targeted by college sites were not all that interested in news and announcements... I wonder if that would be the same for our applications ( i.e. grads)

* Colleges are making greater use of Facebook and Twitter to interact with students