One thing we are sure about when it comes to colleges with their campuses, their students, faculty, alumni and staff: there are many great stories to tell. But somehow, none of them seem to make it to the college website. They make it into the printed alumni magazine that is sent out quarterly, but never seem to hit the pages on the website.

Here's another mystery we can't seem to fathom: almost every college, even today, still puts out some kind of master brochure "viewbook" publication, where a photographer is hired, brought on campus with special equipment and perfect photos are generated for the 4 color publication. Those photos seem to get lost when it comes to the college website.

And here's another one, one that we really shouldn't be seeing anymore, but still find in abundance on too many college websites: the post-neutron-bomb campus photos...showing the intact facilities with no people, no students, no faculty, no one.

One of the biggest mysteries of all: with all college campuses filled with students pointing digital cameras at each other, generating thousands of images every day, there are almost no decent photos of engaged students on the college website. A few schools have started to tap into this enormous pool of digital photos by having a "photo of the week" or "photo of the month" but not enough.

And the last Andy Rooney item about college websites: can you look up basic information about the college easily on their website? Things like tuition, comprehensive cost, financial aid awards, special scholarships available, average test scores of the incoming freshmen, etc. No, that information is only available for the US News Rankings.

And speaking of rankings, has any college hired an independent assessor to determine if their website [not their college] is better than the competition's? Is that important?

We think it is important and that's why we provide that service.