The university’s recently redesigned Undergraduate Admissions site (along with four other microsites) reinvigorates Cornell’s Office of Admissions and Enrollment and Graduate School Web presence.

The older Cornell sites had grown cumbersome to navigate and hard to administer. Since the sites serve as the worldwide public face of the university, the school needed an intuitive design that clearly presented Cornell’s tradition of academic excellence and focused on the needs of prospective students.

The result is an intuitive, efficient and clear online portal into all aspects of the institution that encourages prospective students to explore and make further inquiries. Thanks to a thoughtful information architecture, nicely integrated design elements and clear language, the home page provides easy access to a large amount of content without being overwhelming or obscure. News is prominently fed into the site’s homepage next to an interactive calendar of events that allows visitors to filter content by event type, rotating graphics provide fast access to the most-visited pages on the site and dropdowns in the main nav offer quick, clear descriptions of section content.

• The four sites for admissions and enrollment were completed in six months—to coincide with the newly admitted student announcements that Ivy League schools send out each Spring—and the Graduate School site was finished one month later.

• The Admissions and Enrollment sites work in concert with the university’s efforts to secure commitments from prospective students while a companion site, Admitted Students, is the welcoming site for newly accepted students.

• The home page maintains its design aesthetic even when viewed on devices without Flash and a streamlined design for mobile is in the works.

• The main admissions site has received 150,042 absolute unique visitors since its launch in March 2011.