College marketing uses idealized media references

BY JAHNAVI PRADEEP ’23

Colleges have found a way into the movie industry, with many beloved on-screen characters attending or being associated with different universities. Colleges control their on-screen characters and use this as a marketing  strategy. However these representations are not a complete and honest representation of what these colleges are.

According  to the Washington  Post, “A citation in fiction means an institution’s brand is sufficiently familiar  to help define a fictional character: Princeton preppy. Penn State party boy.  MIT brainiac. Harvard kingmaker. Berkeley radical. Notre Dame jock.”

In this way, schools are able to create archetypes for  themselves and market directly to prospective students through the media in which they are represented.

The  Ivy Leagues  are in the lead  for being able to reap  the most from their on-screen representations. Before coming to Mount Holyoke, I had a conversation with one of my friends during my process of applying to colleges. I remember her asking me why I was applying to such an unheard of school.

“The  problem  is you don’t  watch enough TV  and aren’t in touch  with which colleges are  best liked today,” she jovially said. “Go to Yale, be like Rory Gilmore.”  It was instances like this that got me thinking: how much do we let this on-screen portal get to us?

Outside  of the Ivy  Leagues, other  highly competitive  schools also use media  references to market themselves.  Sarah Lawrence  College has created  an entire pop culture  reference page on their  college website.  From “10 Things  I Hate About You” to “The Notebook”  to their brief mention in “Gossip Girl,” the college has all their media references covered on this page. By associating these movies with the college, we are also made to associate the fame, the reception, the characters  and the portrayal of these films with the college. When colleges promote their media references es,  they are playing into the popularity and perceptions of these movies as well.

Mount Holyoke College itself plays into this on-screen portrayal. We may not have a website, but  the screening and excitement revolving around “Dirty Dancing” is a clear example of this  idealization. Despite the reference to Mount Holyoke being confined to just a single piece  of dialogue from the movie, the movie is still played for all incoming students, and “Baby”  has become a representation of the Mount Holyoke student. Before starting college, I found many  of my peers sharing stories and posts on social media with the line “Baby’s starting Mount Holyoke in the fall.”

“Colleges may derive tangible benefits from pop culture cameos as well, although such benefits are difficult to measure,” according to the Washington Post. “The sheer number of intelligent people in ‘The Social Network’  — not to mention the sybaritic partying — surely contributed in some small way to Harvard’s record 35,000 applications this year.”

By promoting their pop culture appearances, colleges  attempt to sell a glamorized image to prospective  college applicants. The characters probably do carry aspects that make them representative of these institutions, but this should not form a linear perspective  about the colleges, or and prospective students should not be swept away by the glamour and popularity of Hollywood decision-making.