A viewbook that fits in your wallet?

By Zander Dryer

The real secret to the success of America Online CEO Steve Case is this: CDs. Lots of them. By carpet-bombing the country with free CDs loaded with AOL software, Case was able to build his online service into the largest in the world. It now has over 25 million members.

As Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Richard Shaw plans the University's future, he appears to be borrowing a page from Case's playbook. In the last week of October, Shaw's office mailed out 6,000 promotional CDs, and plans to mail out 4,000 more by the end of the year. But these are not regular CDs.

"It's the coolest thing!" said Richard Brodhead, Dean of Yale College, BR '68, GRD '72, as he shuffled through his office trying to find one last week. "It's one of Dean Shaw's really bright ideas." Shaw seized on a promotional idea that has been used by large companies for a year or so: the "business card" CD--a regular CD-ROM cut to roughly the size of a business card. The CDs are rectangular with rounded corners, and are slightly taller and narrower than a credit card. One side of the card can be printed like a regular business card, while the reverse is coated with the conventional silver die of CD media. "It's different and it gets kids interested," said Shaw.

"Yale is not primarily a public relations establishment, but in the world of admissions you want to make sure smart people have a chance to learn about you--you want to catch their eye," said Brodhead. "And of course, the way you catch people's eye is rapidly changing these days."

So as the University looked to the future, it began developing its promotional CD. Using outtakes from a new recruitment video and still photographs from old view books, admissions officers assembled a three-minute multimedia presentation using Apple's QuickTime video technology. The cross-platform CD plays on Windows or Macintosh computers.

The fast-paced presentation seems designed for the MTV generation. Against a Yale-blue backdrop, widescreen video plays. Interviews with members of the Class of 2000, still photographs of the residential colleges, and comments from faculty members and administrators all flash by--often at the same time. All the shots are cut to a rhythmic, upbeat drum-and-synthesizer soundtrack. "It's a very honest but winning account of what Yale is like," said Brodhead.

At the end of presentation, a widescreen shot of a student on Old Campus expands to fill the entire monitor, "creating the feeling that you've arrived," as Brodhead put it. Prospective applicants are then presented with a barking Handsome Dan and the option to print out an application or visit Yale's website--which Shaw said is undergoing a sweeping redesign.

There's not room for much else on the CD. Because the discs are much smaller than conventional CD-ROMs, they hold far less data--a maximum of 100 megabytes as opposed to 800 megabytes. A data area a half-inch wide holds 40megabytes. But what is included may go a long way towards recruiting more applicants. Shaw carried the CDs with him on a recent trip to Mexico and has sent them to rural areas across the country.

International students and rural students--groups outside of Yale's traditional orbit--are two potential applicant pools Shaw hopes to tap with new digital technology. The business card CD is only one component of that technology. Shaw hopes the new website will also "connect students directly to Yale."

"Schools are publishing better material and making a stronger effort to market their programs," said University President Richard Levin, GRD '74. "We don't want to stand still and be complacent while others are trying very hard."