In the summer before his senior year of high school, videos of students waking up in dorm rooms or wandering down the college quad started to flood Ryan Fuhrman’s TikTok For You feed.
The algorithm clearly knew that he should be researching college— and he took it as a cue to get started.
“Dorm room in NYU,” he typed into the TikTok search bar. In a matter of seconds, he could tour the dorms of New York University, checking out the bedding and wall art of each student who had chosen to share.
In a similar manner, he went on to judge the food quality at the University of California, Los Angeles’s dining halls, and get a feel for what a day in the life of a college freshman might look like at the University of Southern California.
Unlike scrolling a school’s website or browsing a brochure, TikTok allowed him to see colleges through other students’ eyes.
“It made me believe, ‘Wow, that actually could be my day,’” Fuhrman, 18, told Business Insider.
Fuhrman is not alone. According to Google’s internal data, nearly 40% of Gen Z prefers searching on TikTok and Instagram over Google Search and Maps, BI reported in July 2022.
When it comes to deciding on a school, these TikToks illuminate parts of college life that previous generations had little access to and often didn’t discover until their freshman year — after the decision of where to go had been made.
Instead of the typical campus tour hosted by one of the college’s brand ambassadors and led along a curated map of the school’s most attractive amenities, Gen Zers have multiple feeds through which they can examine a campus’ vibe. And unlike the 15-minute promo videos produced by schools, much of what’s featured on social media is coming from people they can relate to.
The rise of college content creators
As of October 29, there were 2.3 million TikTok videos under the hashtag “college life.” The hashtag has gone viral, with 30.5 billion views.
The popularity of college content on TikTok has introduced a slew of content creators covering their school life.
From her very first day, Helaine Zhao, a Harvard freshman, started posting vlogs about life on campus.
In a video posted in September, she shared her morning routine at college. The video shows her getting out of bed, putting in her contact lenses, picking out clothes, applying make-up, exercising at a gym, and getting breakfast. The video gained over 6 million views.
Zhao, who started posting content in March, has gained over 92,300 followers on TikTok. And while she’s eligible for TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, which allows creators to monetize their content, she has not yet joined. Still, she occasionally signs paid collaborations with study brands like Notability, a note-taking app. Zhao preferred not to share how much she earns from the sponsorships.
She recalls using the app to research colleges when she was deciding between Stanford, Harvard, and Yale.
“It was definitely a very helpful tool to get to experience these campuses without actually going to them in person,” she said, although she eventually did visit the schools in person during their admitted student days.
One college content creator she followed at the time was Elise Pham. Now in her junior year at Harvard, Pham has more than 155,800 followers.
“As the child of a single immigrant father and a mother who passed away when I was 9 years old, I didn’t necessarily have a lot of resources and mentorship regarding the college application process,” Pham, 20, told BI.
She saw the value of providing resources for students who need college advice. So, when she started college, she began posting college admissions videos on TikTok about Harvard to help prospective students.
She then founded the Ultimate Ivy League Guide, a college admissions consulting business that provides students with online guides and courses on college admissions. She’s running the business while finishing her last two years of undergrad, and plans to continue working there full-time after graduating.
Pham told BI that while she doesn’t take personal income from the business, it earns a low six-figure amount a month. “The money is used to build a program that can make education more accessible for students from all socioeconomic and geographical backgrounds,” she said. Pham provided BI with documentation of her business earnings.
Similarly, Lillian Zhang, a University of California Berkeley graduate, started posting content about her college life and internships during her junior year. It was during the thick of Covid, and she decided to cure her boredom by providing useful content for students.
As it happened, some of her UC Berkeley vlogs went viral. In one vlog, which gained over 200,000 views, she wakes up early to go to the gym, has a mid-term review at school, then grabs a matcha latte and quesadilla for lunch.
“I think people just want to see what life at the school was through my experience,” said Zhang, 24, who has more than 113,100 followers on TikTok.
She added that prospective students had reached out to her to ask questions about school and internships.
“When I was still at Berkeley, there were people who recognized me from the videos. That was a really cool experience hearing how the information that I’ve shared has helped,” she said.
These days, Zhang works as a product marketing manager at a Big Tech company and posts mostly career and financial advice.
In her first year of receiving income as a content creator, Zhang made around $47,000, mostly from sponsorships. This year, her revenue from content creation amounted to a low six-figure number. Zhang provided BI with documentation of her social media income.
An authentic first-person perspective
TikTok can be a useful tool for students to gain extra insight into colleges they are interested in.
Lucie Vágnerová, the cofounder of the higher education consulting firm BKT Education in Brooklyn, advises her students to use social media during their college research.
“You might see a snippet from the cafeteria, people kicking a soccer ball around the quad, or even whether it’s stressful to study in the library,” she told BI. “Just real-life stuff that a college website won’t necessarily tell you.”
Students can get a “vibe check” to see if they can relate to other students and appreciate the school culture, she added.
At the same time, college content can also change how prospective students view a college for the worst, Greg Kaplan, a college advisor, said.
“We have seen students change their school lists based on what they observe about fraternities and sororities and not apply to those schools if they don’t think they will fit in,” said Kaplan, whose company, Kaplan Educational Group, provides college application guidance to around 350 high school students yearly.
TikTok is useful — but it has limitations
Vágnerová said prospective students should use TikTok with a discerning eye.
“As much as I love to see what’s happening with social media creators coming out of campuses, I always tell students, ‘This is one piece of the puzzle; don’t linger anywhere too long,’” she said.
“Look for other social media creators. Look for location tags on Instagram stories. Get a comprehensive picture of a campus or an academic culture rather than just looking at it through the prism of one person,” she added.
And while TikTok can influence students’ perceptions of a school, other factors that students consider before making their decision typically include cost, rankings, and location.
Of the 17 schools he applied to, Fuhrman said the schools he was accepted to included NYU, USC, and California State University. When it came down to his decision, he decided on the University of California, San Diego, because of its reputation, rankings, and cost. Fuhrman, who grew up in San Jose, also toured several schools in person.
Still, he says it was TikTok videos that gave him confidence in his decision.
On the app, he has a collection of saved videos titled “UCSD.” One video shows the beaches of La Jolla: “That kind of made me fall in love with the school,” he said. Another video he saved shows the modern interior of Franklin Antonio Hall — an engineering facility with an auditorium, 100-seat classrooms, and collaborative study space for students. The building opened on campus in 2022.
“I would never have known because every single promotional content for the school just shows a picture of the library,” he said.
“But the school is so much more than that.”
In between studying for a degree in structural engineering, Fuhrman, who has around 3,400 followers, has also joined in on documenting his college life on TikTok.
“I think that inspiring others like me who didn’t really have the school on their radar is my goal, ultimately,” he said.
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