A letter from America

Gareth Saunders
Tuesday 3 May 2011

20110503-letter

A few weeks ago a letter was passed on to the Web team which congratulated us on the University website.

If the truth be known, it wasn’t the letter itself that was passed to us, it was a PDF file of a scan of that letter. It was a PDF file of a scan of that letter from the United States of America, and from the Texas part of the United States of America.

This is a snippet of the letter:

I am writing to simply congratulate you on the University’s website. Many universities, particularly in the United States, have websites that are often poorly developed, incoherent effort to represent their institutions in ways that they feel is what the reader is interested in. While some of those websites may achieve the desired objective (to attract new students) they do so in a way that is simplistic and lacking in any degree of dignity or sophistication in projecting their message.

That is not the case with the University of St Andrews. I was impressed with the design, content and presentation of what the University is, what it offers, where it has been and where it is going. The definitive text, beautiful photography and consistency throughout provides a precise and informative perspective on the University in a manner that has, for centuries attracted some of the most talented students in the world. Most importantly, the St Andrews website provides the reader with a comprehensive understanding of why they should seek to attend St Andrews and acquire the myriad advantages that would accompany admission/attendance.

In such a fast-paced society comfortable with communications that travel at the speed of light, in a culture of transient Facebook updates and forgettable Twitter statuses, how refreshing to have someone write and send a real letter, all the way from America, to say well done.

Thank you Mr C.

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