WATERVILLE -- Colby College graduate Mindy Favreau remembers getting plenty of brochures from college admissions offices when she was a senior at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham.

To get more of an inside view, one that would provide a better sense of what a college was all about, Favreau said she consulted sources like the Princeton Review or sought out classmates who had ties to schools that interested her.

"It was kind of detective work," Favreau said, "trying to track down useful information. The only time I heard from current college students is when I actually went to the school (for a visit)."

Favreau, who graduated last summer, would have a much easier time getting that inside view today. And she is part of the reason for that change.

Now a reporter at MaineBiz, Favreau was one of the first staff members for insideColby, a magazine with both a print and online presence (www.insideColby.com) that is entirely student written and produced -- including photos, blogs, podcasts and video podcasts -- and aimed at a readership of classmates and prospective Colby freshmen.

Colby features the award-winning insideColby -- the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education named it a 2008 gold medalist in the communications category -- on its admissions office home page.

Parker Beverage, dean of admissions and financial aid, said Colby came to realize that high school students are more adept than ever before at using online resources to skirt traditional channels to get the information they really seek about a college.

InsideColby, he said, was Colby's way of giving those students what they want.

"The idea that college can still control the message is by the boards," he said. "You can't do it anymore, so we said, 'Well, look, we trust our students. They are going to communicate with prospective students anyway, so why not be a part of this process.' "

STUDENT MESSENGERS

The Boston Globe wrote a front page story on that trend recently, using insideColby as one its prime examples of the phenomenon.

Other colleges are also getting into the act.

The article mentioned that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology features student blogs on its Web site and that Northeastern University places video clips of student life on iTunes.

Mick Hagen works on the other side of the student recruitment process.

He is president of Zinch, an online site (www.zinch.com) based in Provo, Utah, that enables high school students to provide in-depth profiles of themselves to colleges they are interested in attending.

Hagen, who dropped out of Princeton University to start Zinch about a year ago, said social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook are increasingly where teenagers communicate and socialize.

Colleges, he said, have begun to realize this. That they are adapting their recruitment techniques accordingly, then, is hardly surprising.

"This is exactly why admissions offices are going this direction," he said. "They know this is what students want."

Hagen said more than 400 colleges have signed up with his site so they can use Zinch in their recruitment and outreach efforts. Change, though, does not happen overnight, and most college administrations, Hagen said, still control the school image that goes out to prospective students.

Colby, he said, is more of an exception in giving students great freedom to shape the message of what Colby is all about.

TRUSTING

ADMINISTRATORS

So far Colby administrators have no regrets about insideColby. In fact, they are pleased with what they see.

"These pieces that go out," admissions dean Beverage said of insideColby material, "I think are very easily consumed. They are lucid and authentic. They are students communicating to students, and the feedback we have received has been very positive."

Ruth Jacobs, Colby's associate director of communications, supervises the student writers, photographers, bloggers, podcasters and vodcasters (the video version of podcasters) on her staff (22 strong), all of whom are paid for their work.

Jacobs, who has a degree in journalism, offers story suggestions, helps with organization and edits. But she doesn't write. She insists that insideCoby be a voice for students exclusively.

"With everything I do," Jacobs said, "I tell them they are just suggestions, because it really is their publication."

The goal, she said, is to produce a magazine that is honest and that gets to heart of what Colby is academically and socially.

"We really want them to produce a straight-forward publication," she said, "because if it's not, it defeats the purpose. We want students to tell what it is really like to come here."

That means articles that tackle some arguably less than positive aspects of the college experience.

Favreau, the 2007 graduate, did just that in her article, "Coming Home," which appeared last spring in the magazine's inaugural issue.

In the article, she explored the subject of Colby students returning to campus after an extended study -- usually an entire year -- abroad.

Favreau discovered that many students found the transition back to Colby life more difficult than the adjustment to the foreign lands they returned from.

The directive from Jacobs, Favreau said, was to be honest and "not to sugar coat things."

At the same time, insideColby is not meant to be a radical, anti-establishment publication, freshman podcaster and Waterville native James Violette said.

"We are not a sort of loose cannon trying to post the latest Colby scandal," Violette said.

MULTI MEDIA

Along with providing an authentic message, insideColby is delivering that message in formats that today's teens prefer.

Sure, the magazine still has a print version.

But for many young people, insideColby is all about the blogs, podcasts and vodcasts.

Senior Martin Connelly started as a podcaster for the magazine and lately has moved into video podcast production.

Connelly, who is from Brunswick, said the chance to work in several media formats-- he also has written a feature article for the magazine -- has been great fun. And that is another aspect of insideColby: It serves as a great training grounds for online journalists.

"I actually went to a summer program at NYU (New York University) and learned the video stuff there," Connelly said. "We are learning a different program (at Colby), but once you learn one program, it is easy to learn another."

Connelly understands that insideColby serves as a student recruitment vehicle.

Yet that's not his focus. He is learning the tools of the modern journalist, he explained, mainly because he likes telling a good story in the most intriguing way possible.

"I'm doing it," he said, "because I think current students will find it interesting. I can't speak for everybody, but I do it for my friends."

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com