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[00:00:00] Welcome to the MEFA Pathway Learning Series. My name is HS Dhar and I’m here for MEFA. I serve as the Mefa Pathway Program coordinator. MEFA is the State Authority created in 1982. Committed to helping families plan, save, and pay for college. Now as an extension of MEFA is MEFA Pathway. MEFA Pathway is a free college and career platform for students in Massachusetts serving grade six through 12.

Let’s get started.

This session session will focus on how to utilize me a pathway [00:01:00] to compare colleges and to build a college list. I am on org. I’m going to select, I am a student. For first time users, students are encouraged to create an account. But for any student that already has an account, they can easily put in their username and password

and select log in.

Here we have the student dashboard. We can see that Zoe is an 11th grade student. Now since we’ll be talking about comparing colleges and building out a career list, I’m going to hover over to search for colleges, [00:02:00] and here I’m also going to select college search.

Students can utilize the college search feature to search and narrow down the type of college that they’re interested in. Or maybe they would like to learn more information about a particular school, or maybe students aren’t sure which type of college they would like to attend. The college search.

Feature allows students to search an entire database source directly from Peterson’s. Students can filter their search by school type, location, major keyword, degree type, school size, and so on and so forth. Students can also utilize the search criteria, so perhaps they have a name of the school in mind, so we can put in Marist College [00:03:00] as an example.

Hit search.

So one thing that’s important is when a student searches for a college, they’ll be able to learn more information about that particular school. They can also save that school to their list. So I’m going to select Marist College. Here we see a, a college information card about this particular school, so students will be able to learn more information such as location, tuition, ratio of student ra, student ratio, makeup setting, so on and so forth as well.

By scrolling down the page, students will also be able to see more information such as majors. Admissions tuition, student, body life, campus life, and so much more. [00:04:00] At the bottom of the page, students will be, um, also may have contact information about that particular school, so maybe they are interested in applying.

Students can select the website, um, and also select on the admissions website to apply for that particular school. So since let’s say that this student is interested in this particular school, um, students are encouraged to save a college that they see to their list by selecting this screen saved to list button.

Now that this college has been saved to my list, I’m going to hover to my college list, which is right next to college search and mass transfer benefits.

Now with the college list, this represents for students, schools that they have found to be a match. Based upon their interests and career goals. [00:05:00] Um, here students can add more colleges from the college search tool. And the college list is important because it allows students a place to keep track of all of their schools, but also keep track of all of their favorite schools that they are interested in applying to.

They can also remove a college from the college list, and they can also mark off if or not they are interested in applying to a particular college on the list.

And there’s no limit to how many schools that the student can’t add to the the college list. It’s nice that they can have a place to keep track of all of their colleges. Now that we have our college list, we’re gonna hover over to College Compare, which can be found in [00:06:00] between mass transfer benefits and standardized tests, and the navigation menu.

So within the college compare, this will allow students to kind of get an idea of which school fits them best. Now that students have built their college list and they have an idea of what might be best for them, now it’s time to kind of do a side by side comparison of how the schools stack up next to each other.

By utilizing the college and compare tool, students can compare up to five colleges at one time that just ideally match their preferences and which ones are not matching their preferences. So the, the college compare tool is broken down into three steps. The first step is to choose the College. Now students can.

Import a college from their college [00:07:00] list, or they can import a plan from their mass transfer benefits. Now, if you’re not familiar with mass transfer, it is a program that allows students to start at a community college and transfer in to a state college. Within the program, students can also browse a college or search by college name.

The sake of this learning series, I’m going to select a few from my college list and I’ll select one from my math transfer.

So we’ll put in Howard Amhurst Brown and we’ll do Be You,

and then we’ll do one from the Mass Transfer Benefits.

Now that I have my colleges, I’m [00:08:00] going to next think about the criteria. So these are the criteria. So key factors, undergrad information, tuition and fees, and academic information that are important. So I’m gonna leave these checked off. And then last but not least, is the preferences. So students have the option to either use their preferences or do not use any preferences, um, and as part of their college compare.

Now we’re going to select show comparison.

Now we can see a side by side comparison of the colleges that we have added. Um, in purple we see this is the mass transfer plan. In blue are the four universities and colleges that have been added from the college list. We can see key factors such as school type, setting size, and admission difficulty.[00:09:00]

Students can also view information such as undergrad, uh, data. They can also view an estimate of tuition and fees savings. And last but not least, academic and test scores. This gives students a side by side view of how their colleges stack up against each other. So maybe a student is interested in going to a particular school on the list, but they find that it’s not a good fit for them.

The college compare will allow students to view side by side schools and make a decision about which is a good fit for them or not. Students can also. Save their comparison. So there are a variety of ways to compare colleges and it’s important that students note that they can save their comparisons within the college College compare tool.[00:10:00]

So we’ll just name this comparison

and students can also. Load a comparison. So if a student has done a college compare, uh, comparison in the past, they can save and load that into the tool. So we’ll just view a comparison that we saved.

We’ll show this.

So this another comparison that was saved. Uh, this is Bu BC Bowden College, Northeastern and Clark University. So here we can also again, see side by side comparison of the colleges that a student might be interested in. Uh, students can also add a college from, from a college [00:11:00] compared to their list by selecting add to my list.

So we’ll just add to my list for Clark. Maybe your student has looked at this and the key factors, the info and, uh, savings and academic information works best for them and their, uh, preferences. So we’ll just select, add to my list,

and that pretty much is the college compare tool in, uh, a nutshell. And remember, students can, uh. Compare up to five colleges at once. Within the college compare tool, students can utilize the college search to search for a variety of colleges that might be a good fit for them. And last but not least.

Students can utilize the college list to keep track of all of the colleges that [00:12:00] might be a good fit for them, for them, or even schools that they are interested in, um, or even schools that they might not end up applying to. This is a great place for them to utilize the college search and keep and stay on track.

Thank you so much for joining. Have a great day. Thank you for attending this EA Pathway Learning Series. If you have any questions about e, a pathway or you want more, please feel free to email us at [email protected]. Also, you can get in touch with Mefa at 1 804 4 9 6 3 3 2. As always, definitely feel free to follow us on social media.

Mefa can be found on Facebook, [00:13:00] Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Thank you and have a great day.