I know sometimes, when I’m looking into a college and go to their website for information, the site can either be hard to navigate, kinda ugly looking, or both. A couple of times, especially if I’m trying to figure out whether I should apply, this is the deciding factor. I think, well, if they can’t put up a decent website I doubt they have a decent school.
Am I the only one guilty of this? 
No, but I ended up being more interested in schools with decent websites because I was more motivated to research them. My school’s website doesn’t really convey what it’s like to go there, though. There are a lot more opportunities than what gets posted online.
I remember going on Yale’s website a year-or-so ago and it was very poorly designed. However, that definitely didn’t mean the college itself was low-end.
People eliminate colleges for all kinds of crazy reasons…they don’t like the school colors, the campus is hilly, etc. so you are not alone in having your own reasons, logical or not, for eliminating a college. The website (like the school colors) is probably not terribly indicative of the experience you could have at the school so if the school seems like a great fit other than the website, I’d still visit.
I have not expressly eliminated schools on the basis of their websites, but it does definitely color my opinion of the school. Remember, though, that schools usually hire someone to do all of their media (my uncle does the websites for a university), so the quality of the website is not necessarily the responsibility of the university as a whole but of one individual.
I think MIT’s website is pretty lousy considering that it is such an elite technical school.
No, but we did eliminate one school after following a link from the school’s admissions page to a “10 Reasons to Attend Our School” list. There was a mention of extracurriculars in #7, and internships in #10. Other than that the entire list was as frivolous as could be. “We’re close to the beach!” “We have great shopping!” “You’ll love our weather!” D and I figured if they didn’t care enough about academics to mention them in a “Top 10” list it wasn’t the school for her.
Well, I’m looking for computer science, so yeah. I don’t care about their overall website but the CS department had better be easy to navigate at the very least.
^ My school’s CS department site is super crappy in terms of design, lol.
I certainly do judge schools based on poorly designed websites (I’m looking at you Florida A&M)