Roanoke College added one thing to its Web site — and that one move boosted the number of students who applied – and decided to attend.

What the school added was a calculator to help students and their parents determine costs.

Colleges across the country are redesigning their Web sites in hopes of getting students interested in their school. And for Roanoke, the calculator translated into 33% higher interest among prospective students.

Meanwhile, Connecticut College decided to put in a tab for the sciences.

“We found that people don’t realize a liberal arts college can have a strong sciences program,” observed Lisa Brownell, college publications director, in a recent New York Times article.

At Vanderbilt University, the emphasis has been on using photos and videos. But Wesleyan University learned more doesn’t always equal better. The school added various media to its Web site – only to have students complain the pages were taking too long to load.

And Connecticut College also found out daily news updates don’t appeal to prospective students nearly as much as they do to people currently involved with the school. Claiming the site used to look “like CNN,” Brownell says the site now has little news on it.

Other colleges are trying to reach out to prospective students through social networking. The homepages for Ohio State and Stanford University now feature Twitter, Facebook and YouTube links.

Do you think your college has an effective Web site? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Tags: Connecticut College, Roanoke College, Vanderbilt University, Wesleyan University