What's the point?

When I was looking into B-Schools-, I'd often end up on the "official" weblogs; many schools have them now. They're great; you get to read about all the interesting courses and how great XXXX school is and how "XXXX is preparing me so well for life with their rigorous academics and world-class faculty".

What a bunch of crap.

I'm embarrassed for the stuff they put up there.  I was looking at one the other day- great layout, had 4-5 "real" students, all writing these eloquent, uplifting little snippets about their school.  You'd find phrases like someone was there to "build up the toolset for business" and "nowhere can you find a better balance of real-world expertise and top-notch research".

If I didn't know any better, I could swear there was one admissions officer writing all these entries... Honestly. Come on.  Nobody writes like that, unless they've recruited a class entirely made up of Stepford wives.  Either that, or they're being forced at gunpoint...

There is no value to prospectives reading artificial brochure-style jargon... would a school want to recruit a student that couldn't read through the artificiality of these "blogs"?  Any halfway intelligent individual knows when they're being hand-fed a plate of company-line garbage; it's so transparent it's almost offensive.

It's my current feeling that about 80% of what you're going to get out of B-School will be intrinsically tied to the environment of the school; the other students, the workload, the overall atmosphere of the place. You can't get that from the marketing message or the glossy mailers, and you cant use the uber-trendy blogosphere to cover up just another prepackaged advertisement.  People see right through it.