Tell me about your favorite or least favorite department website!

[AnxiousNerd]

No matter the program, we have all been there. Some school seems perfect, but their website is god awful. There's no information on funding, the research interests were last updated in 2009, or you just cannot find the deadline to save your life. On the other hand, some websites have everything, are amazingly user-friendly, and very very clear. I'm interested in seeing your favorites and least favorites. 

For me personally, my favorite website is University of Nebraska - Lincoln's math department page. They have every piece of information available. They talk about funding, funding rates, health insurance specifics, old qualifying exams, and so much more. Look how good!! http://www.math.unl.edu/graduate/ I also like TAMU's math page http://www.math.tamu.edu/graduate/
I also like how WUSTL groups faculty research by topic: https://wumath.wustl.edu/people/faculty

I'll update with my least favorite when I decide. If you don't have a favorite or least favorite to share, then what specific things are important to you? What things do you hate? I'm hoping maybe when all of us become successful academics, we can ensure our pages are good. I'm hoping to get STEM and non-STEM alike.

I personally love a good FAQ, numbers in the funding section, checklists, and an easy to use research interest page. I, of course, LOVE when schools give an estimate of when you'll hear back, but I understand why that's rare. I really don't like when everything is on one page (http://mathstat.slu.edu/graduate-programs).

 

[HannahRae]

Oh my god the University of Wisconsin-Madison MSW page is a mess. It honestly looks like it was made in the early 2000's has never been updated. It take so many different, confusing steps just to get to the application. In the past few weeks it seems like they have tried to improve it but honestly, it is just more confusing. Now when you click the apply button instead of being rewarded with the application that it took 10 minutes to find, you are sent to a weird page that gives you all the details of the program that should be in the rest of the site.  You are then left to find another small apply button which finally takes you to the log in page. 

It is honestly distressing. Also, why is the original apply button all the way at the bottom of the page under the heading "Technical Support" ??

[Excelsior!]

The chemical engineering department of Princeton has a truly ugly website and I don't understand why: http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/
 

[PokePsych]

This always surprises me so much. Like you would assume they have the money for this sort of stuff (plus is it like that difficult to have info that makes sense?)

[FishNerd]

So this is in reference to my undergraduate institution which I loved and would rather not specify it's actual name, but it changed it's whole website design since I graduated and the main font they use for all the pages is almost as bad as Comic Sans. See the example below. Who decided this was the font that should dominate the entire website????

Edited February 21, 2018 by FishNerd

[Almaqah Thwn]

The University of Pennsylvania, which has one of the best NELC departments in the world, has a suprisingly 90s style webpage.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Almaqah Thwn
Forgot a comma.

[AnxiousNerd]

Honestly, I feel liken they could just offer it as a competition to web design students with, like, a $200 prize and they could get some really user friendly and 2018-looking websites...