The influence of public relations and advertisement at the university choise of the students: Gazi University models

m ABSTRACT In our country, the demand for universities has tended to increase. In this sense, it is clear that the number of private universities as well as state universities has gradually increased. Within the competition atmosphere in question, these higher education institutions will inevitably develop strategies to exhibit their facilities that will dominate in the market. Each considered as an institution which serves people, it is a must that these higher education institutions should give primary importance to public affairs. Accordingly, the study of the public affairs and advertisement activities of higher education institutions forms the basis of this paper. Gazi University is recently favored much for the following reasons: the quality and the capacity of the educational services it provides; the personnel staff selected with great care and which is devoted to self-development; physical and technological facilities; and finally the point of view which aims to meet the needs and expectations of students. While presenting the educational services to the target groups, namely the students, universities both form and implement public affairs activities. Thus, these are given more credit to be preferred by students. This study aims to identify the advertisement and public affairs activities carried out by universities, to establish the materials used in these activities, and to figure out the influence of the activities on students' choice of universities. In this scope, 346 prep, and first-year students, which have chosen Gazi University and enrolled, have been investigated. The findings clearly show that the students already had some idea about the university and that they obtained much of the information from the internet with their high school teachers before choosing the university. This case has proved that Gazi University is one of the top universities about which students already know and finally choose. The study has demonstrated that the advertisement and public affairs activities helped students to familiarize with the faculties and departments, physical andIV academic properties, artistic and sports activities, and the academic stuff, and that these factors have simply influenced the students' choice. In the investigation conducted, the top three factors for the choice of Gazi University by the students are the availability of the scores they got from OSS, the convenience of transportation, and last the secure atmosphere for education.