Surfing For College Roommates

(FOX Providence) - With more and more colleges using Facebook to reach out to new and prospective students, online marketers are trying to get information from students by creating their own Facebook groups.

The problem is that these marketing efforts can be misleading and cause students to think they are actually dealing with college officials.

Whether you are a student surfing for a roommate or seeking college assistance online, Peter Kerwin from the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority is here to tell you what to watch out for.

So how have these marketers invaded college websites?

Well, we’ve talked before about how a lot more colleges are starting to create Facebook groups to reach out to students interested in their schools and help them connect with different groups on campus. They’ve created online communities for different academic interests, sports and other activities. And it’s a really great way to help new students and prospective students start to connect with fellow classmates or people at the school who have similar interests.

The problem is that there have been a couple of high-profile efforts by online marketers to take advantage of this development for their own business interests. Insider Higher Education has really been highlighting this issue. They had a story back in December 2008 about an outfit called College Prowler, which created Facebook groups devoted to the “Class of 2013”, which seemed designed to link incoming students to these various schools. Unfortunately, it was just a viral marketing effort to gather data on incoming students.

Flash forward to a year later and there’s a new company called URoomSurf, launched by one of the CollegeProwler co-founders, which promises to help match potential roommates. They are creating Facebook pages with names like “Students of the University of Iowa Class of 2014—Looking for Roommates!” The problem is, URoomSurf isn’t working with campus housing offices—the folks who actually make the roommate decisions for incoming freshman. So at the very least, you have the potential for students getting confused, thinking they are dealing with an entity that can deliver something they really can’t.

What do students need to do to protect themselves?

It is a really tough situation. Colleges like to have their own Facebook groups out there, kind of springing up organically to help link students. But when you have companies coming in with their own agendas to confuse things, it’s hard. I think we’re going to see schools take steps to make clear which groups are officially sanctioned and which are not. They have to protect their brand.

For students, it’s a matter of just being sensible and careful about what they are looking at. If you’ve got people making promises about helping you find the perfect roommate, you need to make sure they have a legitimate connection to the school.