Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: [00:00:00] Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome. My name is Julie Shields Rutina, and I am the Director of College Planning, Education, and Training at MEFA. And I’m so happy you’re here with us this evening to join in on this me for webinar called six keys to finding a good college fit. And lucky for all of us.

Um, we have two wonderful presenters here with us this evening. Um, and I’ll let them tell you a little bit more about it. More about themselves, but we have Dr. Amanda Sturck, who is CEO and co founder of College Unmazed. And we have Dr. Timothy Poynton, who is associate professor at UMass Boston, both very experienced and passionate, uh, educators, uh, who have so much to share with you about this college process.

So with that, and especially because I have a [00:01:00] voice, I’m going to go. on mute and I’m going to turn it over to you, Amanda.

Amanda Sterk: Thank you, everybody. Very excited that you are all joining us this evening. Um, just a little housekeeping, um, as we get going, Dr. Poynter and I love when we are interacting with you. So if you have questions throughout, you definitely want to use the chat.

feature. Uh, you can send us a message. You can send it to everyone. Um, but we will be answering questions and sharing resources with you, um, as we go. So definitely, um, put your questions in the chat and we will definitely try to answer them, uh, throughout, but then at the end as well, we’ll do a Q and a session.

So, um, let’s introduce ourselves, Tim.

Timothy Poynton: Hi, so Tim Poynton. Um, I used to work as a school counselor. I’ll give you the short version if that’s all right, um, so we can get to, get to the, get to the content. But I worked as a school counselor. I’ve been a school counselor educator preparing future school counselors [00:02:00] for nearly 20 years now.

It’s 19, I think. So, um, and I teach mostly the college counseling and the career counseling courses are, are the areas that I, that I teach the most. And, Yeah, but what I do, um, I see a small number of clients for college counseling, um, outside, but, um, outside of my work just to, to keep my, um, skills sharp and, and learn new things myself.

So, yeah, um, Dr. Sturck.

Amanda Sterk: Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. Um, similar to Dr. Poynton, um. Was in K 12 school counselor, college counselor for many, many years and actually got into higher education, really helping high school students navigate the college process. And that led us all to start working together and creating a really one stop shop for families to navigate that sort of.

overly complicated process of really deciding, um, you know, where to go to school, [00:03:00] what to do. And so we really looked at the research and, and the evidence based practices and wrote, um, College Unmazed, which is a student facing, um, workbook and curriculum. So what you’re going to see tonight is really the, um, kind of our, our main big ideas that we have throughout the book.

Tim, do you want to go to the next slide? So when you look at college on Mays, and we really wanted to break it down for families, we realized that there were really eight or actually nine essential things that families need to do as they navigate the high school to college process. The first four chapters are really about learning, um, How to prepare yourself to be college and career ready.

And we look at four essential factors that every student and every parent need to be aware of. First of all, your you factor. Um, and we’ll talk about that here in a second. So your you factor, we dive into your academic factor. What, [00:04:00] um, What are some opportunities at your school? What program should you be taking?

Grades, test scores, all that good stuff. Then we go into your career factor, really looking at your interests, abilities, values. And then we look at your money factor, because we do believe that families should have conversations about paying for college. earlier in the process than a lot of schools or other programs, um, suggest to do so.

And then lastly, we go through a process called the leads, building a college list, exploring colleges, applying to colleges. Deciding on a college and then developing a success plan and succeeding once you’re at college and we’re going to be focusing tonight, mostly on the leads chapters and talking about how the six keys of college fit is incorporated within that program, but do realize there’s a whole other section about college and career readiness and next slide.[00:05:00]

You will see one of the things that’s really unique about our curriculum and our workbook for students is that we really look at what is all the information that a parent, a student, even a counselor, what do they need to know at the right time, because there’s a lot of vocabulary and terminology out there that can get really helpful.

confusing and can really sort of, um, hinder your process. And so we have these things called the mind maps. And this is again, breaking down those kind of key sections of the different college knowledge and then the lead section. So you can see here as we really look at everything you need to know, how do you divide it up?

And these posters are available. If you are interested in a poster, um, definitely just email us and we are happy to get those out. So let’s show them the other mind map. There we go. There’s the other leads mind map. You can see as a family and both Tim and I have had students [00:06:00] go through the process ourselves.

And it’s hard, right? There’s so much that you have to learn and talk about and then communicate with one another. And when you’re not on the same page as a family, or you are missing that critical information, it could be very costly. And you could end up at a school that maybe isn’t the best it. fit for you.

Um, so that’s why this having the right vocabulary is really essential.

Timothy Poynton: So, um, just let me go back to this for a second. Describe what the lead strategy is. So, so as Amanda mentioned this, this is a, a strategy that, that we, um, promote really to, to help people engage in informed decision making and that’s what this is really all about is, is helping students and families make an informed college decision.

One that, one that’s informed by both the facts, which we’ll talk about, and the feelings or the emotional side of decision, decision making. If you’re just paying attention to the numbers, so to speak, [00:07:00] without paying attention to the emotional side of the decision. Like, that’s not an informed decision.

Just like if you make a purely emotional decision without paying attention to the facts, that’s not an informed decision either. So we really put together a process here that helps you attend to both. Um, and it begins with making a list. Um, exploring the colleges on that list, and then figuring out which colleges to apply to.

Um, from the places you’re accepted, deciding which one to attend, and then as Amanda said, succeeding, and then transition, um, once you’ve made the decision, so that you can hit the ground running, so to speak. So that’s just a quick overview of the LEAD strategy, and that is what we’re going to focus on, um, today.

But first, like, what is FIT? So, some of you may have seen this before, um, When you look at this picture, some of you might see two white faces that are, that are staring at each other, right? If I tell you to focus on the white space, you’ll see the faces. Um, and if I tell you to focus on the black, the, the black space, then, um, you’ll see a, I believe it’s a chalice or a fancy vase, an ornate vase, right?

But, um, [00:08:00] usually when we first look at things, we just see one or the other, and we don’t see both unless somebody says, look more closely. Right? So that’s what we’re trying to do is to have you look at colleges and see the whole picture, right? See the entire picture. So, um, to do that, we suggest using what we call the six keys of college fit.

Um, and each of these six keys is important. Um, some as we’ll, we’ll, um, talk about here in a little bit. Some may be more important to you, uh, your student and or your family, um, than others. And, and that’s okay, but at least a little bit of attention should be paid to each of these six keys of college fit.

And, and the six keys of college fit are what’s the academic match? Like how do, how do my, um, academic qualifications, if you will, um, grades, uh, rigor of curriculum, test scores, et cetera. How do those things align with students that are typically admitted? Right? Um, at the college. That’s what the academic match is getting at.

The career match is getting at, what are the career development opportunities that [00:09:00] are there? Do they have the major, um, that I’m interested in? Um, you know, how can I grow, uh, into a career that I will find satisfying and fulfilling? Right? So that’s the career match side of things. The financial match is one that a lot of students and families do pay attention to.

Um, and we’re going to help you focus in on really, uh, getting to the bottom of what attending a college actually costs before you submit an application there. There’s, um, Always a little bit of you need to wait and see until you get that award letter, but you can make some educated guesses about how likely you are to get a scholarship at a college, and we’ll show you how to find some of that information so that you can focus on the net price of the college instead of the sticker price of the college.

Um, the personal match is something that else that a lot of students and families often pay a lot of attention to. It’s how diverse is the student body, what type of college? Is it private versus public versus how far is it from home? How close is it? Is it in a city or et cetera, et cetera? Do I like the dorms?

All of those things fall under the personal match. [00:10:00] Um, and then the last two are student outcomes and student support. So the student outcomes really get at what are the success metrics for the, for the college? Um, how good are they at graduating students on time? Like, did you know something a lot of people find surprising?

It’s the, the four year graduation rate. of students who start as full time freshmen at colleges is about 50 percent. Only about half of the students who start as full time freshmen graduate on time. Um, and there’s variability among the colleges in how successful they are in supporting students to on time graduation.

So, um, we didn’t talk about our colleague Rich, uh, Rich Lepan, who, who has been instrumental in helping us work on this. He likes to talk about that, um, in that, um, not graduate, graduating on time, leads to additional costs, both personally, like, In addition to paying for the tuition, it’s another year of not working as well, so there’s an opportunity cost associated with that as well.

So, paying attention to the student outcomes is, is critically important with the graduation rates, and then the retention rate [00:11:00] that we’ll probably talk about a little bit later, the retention rate, if you’re not familiar with that, um, retention rates. Of a college describe how many freshmen were supported and satisfied enough to return as sophomores.

So, um, I also like to call the retention rate. It’s the freshman satisfaction score of the college. It tells you how satisfied and supported those freshmen were, um, with their experience. As sophomores and again, it’s a, it’s a metric that varies sometimes, um, greatly among the colleges that are on the students list.

So it’s worth paying attention to. And the last piece that we have here. The last of the six keys is the student support. Um, and that is the student supports like the academic supports. The counseling supports that are available to support mental health, um, and emotional development. Uh, if you have a student that’s on a 504 on IEP, what kinds of disability, um, supports do they provide and access, accessibility services?

Um, do they have, you know, sports that I’m interested in, or, uh, sorry, do they have, um, supports if you have a student athlete? Sometimes they have [00:12:00] special supports for those kinds of students. So that’s what the student support gets at, uh, globally speaking. So, um. As I alluded to, um, this wasn’t part of our original work in College in Mays, but it’s something that we realized was kind of important as we got into the work and started working with students and families through the process is, is, as I think I mentioned earlier, not each of the six, six keys of college fit is going to be a super high priority for everyone.

And that’s okay. And that’s natural, but identifying them and being able to understand, um, what your priorities are as a parent, perhaps versus what your, what your child’s priorities are as a student. And. Great. Understanding where your priorities might be different gives you an important vehicle for communicating with each other about those differences.

Instead of them being arguments, um, you can just talk about there being, there being different priorities. And remember that all six keys really are what we should be paying attention to, to some degree. So it’s not that one is more right or wrong than the other, it’s that you just have different [00:13:00] priorities.

So this hopefully gives students and families a good vehicle for talking about that. It’s relatively new. Um, we haven’t got it out there too much. We’re just starting to talk more about it now. So, we’re interested in feedback if you use the activity. Um, and want to reach out to us, like, please feel free.

Um, so this, these, uh, identifying your college fit priorities and what’s important to you and your students, um, is good for all types of students. Sometimes we work with students who are overwhelmed by, by the process and they don’t know what to pay attention to because everything’s important. Um, so this process works well for them to really feel safe.

To really distinguish between those things that are more and less important, and for students who are new to the process, and aren’t sure what to look at, this also gives them some ideas of things to focus on, right? So, there’s two different ways to use this, to use the card sorts, and we have two different methods that I’ll show you here in just a second.

One is what we call the structured approach, and that’s the one for the [00:14:00] student, uh, or perhaps you, if you think everything is important, this, it will force you to distinguish between those things that are more and less important. And then we also have the unstructured approach, which is for, for folks who may not have clear ideas, um, not exactly sure what they’re looking for.

The unstructured approach might work a little bit better, um, and basically is to show it to you. It’s on this website, um, maybe, uh, Amanda, maybe you could throw this in the chat if you don’t mind. College of Mays dot com slash my CFP online. Um, And if you go to the website, you’re brought to our College Unmazed website.

You can find it in the navigation too if you just go to collegeunmazed. com. Uh, under the resources, right there it is, the My College Prep Priorities Online. And it gives you this, um, interface essentially for, for doing either the structured card sort activity, which is up here at the top. Or the unstructured activity, which is down here at the bottom.

Um, I recommend you don’t try to do this on a phone just because it’s small. Um, it works best on a tablet sized device or bigger and I’d recommend that you click on these blue arrows here before you get started. And [00:15:00] then it just gives you a set of 24 cards that you need to place into each of the columns in the, in the structured activities.

So for example, professors are easy to access and classes are small. Um, you can think about how important that is to you and place it in one of the columns and you can move them around after you’re done. You can change your mind as you learn more about the cards. You can hover over the card, it gives you a definition for what it is a little bit more clearly.

That’s the essential features of it, I’m not going to go through and put all 24 cards in here, but you move them around. and figure out what your priorities are. And then I’d recommend you take a screenshot. There’s no way to log in and save this, so just take a screenshot or a screen snip to save your results so you can reflect on them, um, a little bit later.

Um, the other thing I’ll mention, just the other piece of information on these cards that That doesn’t make sense. There’s two pieces of information. The cards are color coded for each of the six keys of CollegeFit. Um, so, that’s one piece. And the other piece is the, [00:16:00] um, it says student to faculty ratio, for example, here.

This is the piece of information that you can use to evaluate a college. on this priority for you. So if having easy access to professors and small classes is important to you, the number that you can look at and get that’s available for every college is the student to faculty ratio. If the cohort default rate is on here, that essentially is a measure of the financial health of students, of graduates of a college.

Right now the cohort default rate In most colleges is zero because, um, as a result of the pandemic, students, uh, were not required to repay their loans, so nobody is in default at the current moment, so that, that number doesn’t exist right now, but it will in, uh, I believe it’s about two more years because we just restarted, um, restarted loan payments, so, so that information’s not there, but I just wanted to give you a sense of what those, you know, how to use the cards and what the information meant.

On there. All right, so that’s the structured version. I’ll just quickly show you the unstructured [00:17:00] version just so that you see the difference instead of making kind of granular differences between what’s very important and what’s somewhat important and what’s what’s less important or not important.

Breaking it down into six categories just has you put the cards into three buckets. Maybe it’s not important. It’s somewhat important, and then you have to choose five things that are very important to you, and the most important things. So sometimes, again, if you’re not exactly sure what your priorities are, and distinguishing between things in a little bit more of a granular way isn’t working for you, the unstructured way might work a little bit better for you.

All right. So that’s the card sort activity. Um, do you want to take a shot? Of

Amanda Sterk: course. And I will say, you know, I have done this with countless students and I, and even my own daughter, you know, going through the process this past year. And what we really found is really kind of understanding it, like Tim said, what was important [00:18:00] to each of us.

Typically as a parent, we kind of focus on the finances and as we went through this process, uh, in my family, we actually did it multiple times as we learned new information. So for example, one of the, after several college visits up near the Boston area, um, it came very apparent that my daughter, um, what really measured highly for her was attending an all women’s college.

And so all of a sudden sort of things that were not a priority, maybe early on became a priority. later on. And so these cards and doing this process really allowed us to continue to talk about that and realize what our thinking was as a family as we went through. So, um, and, and thank you for Tim, for all the work on creating that card sword and getting it up for everybody.

It really is, um, instrumental in having those conversations. So one of the things that we think about when you look at the six keys of CollegeFit and you look at all of the information that we started to present, it can be a [00:19:00] little bit overwhelming. And so one of the things that we, um, as I mentioned earlier, we really believe in scaffolding the information.

So that way, um, you are looking at the key information at the So as we go through the LEADS strategy, We really look at what information is most important at that stage. We don’t want to introduce everything because that would be really overwhelming. So in the list stage, we want families to look at only three of the keys, um, personal match, career match, and.

Academic match. You can see, um, under the personal match, things like location, distance from home, size of campus, that religious affiliation, um, that special mission, like I talked about the single sex with my own daughter, um, also career match. Do they have my major? Do we have the programs that are offered?

I know Tim and your family, [00:20:00] that was a big deal. Do they have the major that your student was looking for? And then we have those academic matches, right? So do they have online or distance learning opportunities? Do they have weekend classes? What type of degrees do they offer? Is it a two year or four year public versus private?

You can go to the next one. And so the reason that we want you to look at these three keys. First is because when you look at the different search tools that are out there, such as college navigator, the big future college board, KPEC, some of them, they really start with those three big keys. And so when you are thinking about those key criteria, this will help you build that kind of initial list.

What are type of the schools that if I want maybe, you know, a list of 15 to 20 schools that I’m sort of interested in. You can put in this information on those six keys and develop a better list. We suggest college not sorry, College Navigator [00:21:00] because it is an open program and it is run by the federal government.

And so lots of data, lots of information. Now it is not pretty, but it has lots of really great information. So some of the things that we suggest looking at is again, those kinds of career pathways or those majors, um, housing, how far do you want to be from home? Maybe school size, institution type, level of award.

So things that we don’t want you to consider is things like cost because as Tim will. Go on and talk more about cost can really, um, all of a sudden, sometimes we look at the sticker price of a private school and we realize that we get kind of sticker shot, like, Oh, there’s no way I can pay 70, 000. But when you actually peel it back, you realize that sometimes private schools with the scholarships and everything they offer can actually be cheaper than some in state tuition and so.

That’s why we don’t want you to include that at the beginning stage, and then we [00:22:00] also don’t want to look at chance of admission. So really try to remove that. You know, what is their acceptance rates? What are they doing? Um, we believe that that should come in second or later on in the process. So really, right now, looking at those kind of three keys is a good way to start in these college search tools.

Go ahead, Tim.

Timothy Poynton: And I’ll just add, if I may, that to me, the list phase is kind of the most important part of the process because it’s the point at which you run the risk of eliminating potentially good options just because you didn’t know they were options to begin with. So I’ll say that the college my daughter ended up attending.

was one that was on the fringe, so to speak. It was one that I kind of put on there because I said, well, we should consider this. It fits everything else, but it’s a little further from home than you want it to be. So we’ll put it on there, but, and, and explore it. And it ended up being the place that fit her really well in every other area.

Except the distance from home, which is something she decided was less important as she learned [00:23:00] more about how the college fit her well in other ways. So, to me, this making the list part, like, um, it always, to be a little bit, um, a little bit blunt, it always drives me a little bit batty when people say we’re only applying to private, to public colleges because they’re cheaper, as, as Amanda said.

It’s often true, but it’s not always true. Particularly for talented students, and students that are above the typical profile of an admitted student at a private college, tend to get more merit money, which can bring the cost of attendance to either match, or be less. than, than a public college. So, uh, I would just encourage you to not eliminate colleges based on cost at this point for, there’s that reason.

And then the other reason is, is that they’re, the search tools right now don’t give you a good way to sort colleges by net price. They only let you do it by sticker price. So, um, so you do need to, as, as Amanda said, you know, learn a little bit more and peel it back, but we, at this point, really want you to be inclusive as opposed to exclusive with building that initial list [00:24:00] of colleges to explore, and then you whittle it down as you go through the rest of the process.

Okay, go ahead. Oh, sorry. So, so the next phase, so now you develop your initial list of colleges, um, I think we recommend somewhere around 12 to 15. The number is not terribly important, but, um, it should be a good number of colleges that, like, I think for my daughter it was actually less than 12. It was more like 10 or 11.

Um, When we got to this point, because those were the ones that fit her. She had a kind of niche major. She was looking at game design. Um, so not a lot of colleges in the area, but, but enough. So our list was a little bit lower. So don’t get hung up on the numbers.

Amanda Sterk: Ours was like 30. Yeah. You had a more nationwide

Timothy Poynton: search.

Yeah. You were willing to go on airplanes and things, but, um. We were not but um, but yeah, but so now you’ve got your initial list of colleges and you’re happy with that. So now Um in the explore phase you look at different parts of the first three keys So you’re looking again at different things related to academic match career match and personal [00:25:00] match as as amanda said now You look at selectivity like what are the SAT and ACT scores of typically admitted students?

What’s the GPA if you can find that information that’s sometimes hard to find um, you know What is the student to faculty ratio in the learning environment like? And, and the pro, you know, a little bit more about the program. And now is when we add. So it’s not that the cost isn’t important, but again, we just don’t, we really want to try to set this up so that you’re not excluding potentially good options because you think they’re too expensive.

But here in the explore phase, right after the list phase is when you begin looking at the actual costs. And it requires having some knowledge about the difference between the sticker price and the net price and looking at gift aid or merit aid as it’s more commonly known Um, and and the amount of debt that students have when they graduate which varies from college to college You’re also going to look at the student support services that are offered.

Not every student needs every student support service, but you’re going to think about Um what you and or your student needs to be successful [00:26:00] Uh, at the college, uh, and make sure that they have the, the supports, uh, available. Um, for example, uh, mental health counseling, uh, services are important. Um, some colleges offer unlimited access to the counseling center, um, and have enough resources to, to, Pretty easily meets student needs and other places limit it to a certain number of times per each semester.

Um, or or it’s billed through insurance and it’s and it’s not a free kind of student support that’s offered So if that’s important to to you and your student, it’s something worth looking more into Um, because the policies vary from college to college. And here is also where we’re going to begin looking at the student outcomes.

Um, just to be clear with the student outcomes, I would never recommend, for any of these really, I would never recommend at this point excluding a college from your list because it’s the one with the lowest retention rate or the lowest graduation rate. But you’re looking at these student outcomes to ask questions.

So if you’re going to visit a college and that their graduation rate is at, which is common in public colleges actually tend to struggle more than private colleges with [00:27:00] graduate with four year graduation rates. So if you go to the public college, you might ask them like, what are some of the things that students can do to graduate on time?

Um, to answer some questions or what are some of the reasons students transfer after their freshman year? Um, you can ask questions that. Admissions counselors and students who run the tours often know the answers to, but they won’t share them with you unless you ask. So, um, so going in as an informed consumer, um, with some questions, um, can give you some insight that you might not get if you didn’t know which questions to ask.

And the student outcomes can give you some of that, some of that insight. Right, lost my mouse. There it is. Another tool that you can use that we really like, it’s not available for every college, but it’s called the Common Dataset. There’s this thing, long story short, called the Common Dataset Initiative.

It’s a voluntary initiative that colleges report, that colleges participate in, that helps them reduce their reporting [00:28:00] burden. So it’s really meant to make The live of the lives of people at college is easier because they’re reporting these statistics. The US News World reports, they’re reporting these statistics to the federal government.

They’re reporting things to, um, Petersons. They’re reporting things to all these different places. So what they do if they participate in the Common Data Set Initiative is instead of fielding questions from all these different places and asking requests for information, they po publicly post all the information on their website.

Which means that you can go get it. One of the things that they put on there, um, which can be very helpful in the explore phase, in, in the early stages of figuring out which colleges to apply to is, is, if you look in section C7 of the common data set for a college, um, you’ll find the, what they rank as the relative importance of different academic and non academic factors in first time first year freshmen, right?

So it’s basically people like your student and people like you who are considering applying to the college. And it tells you essentially, um, [00:29:00] what they think is more or less important in their application. And the one thing I’m going to hone in on here is this level of applicant’s interest here that’s at the bottom.

Um, this is one of the things that students and families don’t often know that you can learn from the Common Data Set. Or you can also learn by asking an admissions counselor. They’ll tell you if you ask, but they probably won’t tell you if you don’t ask. Demonstrated interest, or level of applicant interest, is doing things like, the most common thing is doing a campus tour and visiting the campus.

It could be following the school on social media. It could be opening and reading their email messages. But some colleges will base their admission decision in part on how interested you appear to be to them. So this is important. Um, I’ll say without getting into details to throw any colleges under the bus, but my daughter was, was, um, not accepted to a place that most places would, most people would have considered her safety school, her, her high chance of admission school.

Um, Because I [00:30:00] think they did not, they did not perceive that she was very interested in them. So in spite of her academic qualifications, she was deferred, um, when she applied early. So, um, and if you saw all the other colleges that she was admitted to, this college was much less selective. Um, and part of it was because they used.

Demonstrated interest as part of it, and while she did go do the tour, there were other things that they must have been using, I’m guessing. I didn’t talk with anybody there, but, um, I’m guessing that’s why. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t a big loss, um, for, for us, uh, to have that college off the list, but it would have been nice to, to know that it was an option and perhaps learn more about it.

But, again, back to the moral of the story here, um, If you don’t know that a college uses non academic factors, and in particular, Your demonstrated level of interest in the college. If you don’t know that the college is going to use that as part of. They’re saying yes or no to your application, you can be significantly disadvantaged.

So, um, so finding out this information is [00:31:00] important, um, really. Of course, you should go visit and be, you know, demonstrate that you’re interested in colleges. But not everybody has the means to go visit every college on their list, right? Even though they’re very interested. So, what that means is if you’re not able to demonstrate interest in the traditional ways, you need to demonstrate interest in other ways.

reach out personally to the admission counselor who is going to be reading your application, um, and, and, you know, ensure that you’re following them on, on social media and that you’re reading their email messages and, and interacting with the email messages because they have these customer relationship management systems that are tracking how many times you click on links to create an interest score.

Like this is the age of big data. We should not be surprised by this. And again, it’s not the only thing that colleges are using when they make, when they’re making decisions, but it is one of the things that they’re using and making an informed decision means knowing as much as you can. So that’s why I’m sharing this.

So what I didn’t share with you is how do you find the common data set? Um, the easiest way to find the common data set to see if a college participates is to [00:32:00] just do a Google search. Um, Google, for example, uh, UMass Amherst common data set, and it will bring you to the page on the college’s website. with the Common Dataset.

Um, sometimes there is, there are some, um, how can I say this gently, clickbait. Um, there are some websites that know that people are looking for the Common Dataset um, and will try to get you to click on their click on their links. I don’t, I haven’t found anything nefarious other than advertisements, but um, but know that um, the Common Dataset The official version of the Common Dataset Report is going to be housed on the college’s website, so you shouldn’t need to go to another website to get their Common Dataset Report.

Um, Dr. Sterk, do you have anything to add to that?

Amanda Sterk: No, I think it’s such a valuable thing as you’re going through that Explore phase to do this step, and we’re going to show you we actually have a really cool download that you can really take every school’s information and really compare and contrast. Um, what are those academic and non academic factors, especially if, um, some schools in [00:33:00] light of test optional is to really understand are they truly test optional and the common data set is one of those areas that can help you, um, understand that a little bit more too.

So, no, it’s a great tool that I think every family should know about for sure.

Timothy Poynton: So this is, um, some information that you can get from the college navigator. Um, what I want to focus in on here is, uh, here at this college, this is a Massachusetts college, but I’m going to leave them nameless for the time being. But, um, this is a Massachusetts college that has a sticker price for tuition of 58, 000 and room and board of 14, 000, almost 15, 000.

So this is a, uh, 64, 000 college. 62, 000, 63, 000 school, like the cost of attendance. But the average discount, or the average merit scholarship, every student, 100 percent of all students, receive an institutional grant or scholarship. In the amount of 40, 000. [00:34:00] So, let that sink in. Like, literally, nobody paid the full price.

And the average, meaning some people got more and some people got less, but the average was nearly 40, 000. Off of that 58, 000 tuition. So, um, this is why we say you don’t want to exclude colleges based on, based on the cost of attendance or, or their sticker price. Because There are a lot of moderately to less selective private schools that operate like this.

So, um, so now you know. Um, you know not to, not to exclude those colleges. And you know in the, um, financial aid section of the college navigator you can find this information. You can find this information relatively easily. And this is publicly reported for every college. Um, in the United States. Just know that if you’re looking at attending a public college as an out of state student, the, the information may be a little bit different, um, on the,

skip that for now, on the net price, which is what we’re talking about here. So this is [00:35:00] for UMass Amherst. Whoops. This is for UMass Amherst. Um, when you look at the net price, the net price factors in things like the, um, the amount of a discount or a merit scholarship that’s awarded to students. So this breaks down the net price by income, so you can plug in your income level on here and get an average for the net price for the indicated school year that’s listed here.

So this is for UMass Amherst. Um, the net price for a low, low income student was about six thousand dollars and a high income student was, was about twenty four thousand dollars, so Um, I’ll just go back to LaSalle again something about Some colleges are starting to recognize that like LaSalle University, this was in the news a couple of years ago Um, LaSalle University, um decided to cut their tuition by thirty three percent as it says down here.

Um right here from 39, 000 and this made headlines because they were making such a big cut. Well, when you looked at their data, they actually gave the students a [00:36:00] 35 percent discount on average anyway. So it was just, um, shifting the money instead of, uh, instead of accepting them and saying, we’re going to give you lots of money.

They just said, we’re not going to charge you as much to begin with, which I think is a more transparent way of operating. And I wish more colleges did it this way, but it’s currently not the way the game is being played. Um, so being informed about how the process works makes you a little bit more of a savvy consumer so you can make better decisions and, and be aware of this.

All right. So now what I’ll show you, this is supposed to be, it’s a pretty bad screenshot of a tool that we have, um, called the College Data Organizer. This is freely available, um, just like the, um, just like the card sort is freely available on our website. Um, this is the College Data Organizer that allows you to compare information for up to 12 colleges, um, on the six keys of CollegeFit.

And what this does is this pulls in all of the publicly available information, um, from, um, federal government resources mostly. Um, and the way that it [00:37:00] works, this is the Google Sheets version. You can also get it as a, as an Excel file. You can download it from our website on collegeadmins. com slash downloads, which, uh, Amanda just put in the chat.

Um, and I like the Google Sheets version better mostly because you can just start typing in the college’s name and it shows up. So, um, it shows up there and then it populates all the information. Um, Let’s just put in a couple here. Um, and then it pre populates all the information, pulling in all that data, organized along the six keys of college fit.

So, um, and this is linked again to the card sort, if you did the card sort. Um, and I’m not going to do this for more colleges, but we’ve color coded it. As white, yellow, or green. Green meaning favorable to the student, yellow meaning caution. Again, as I said earlier, I would never say, I’m not going to put red on here saying like, danger, don’t apply to this college, but I say [00:38:00] yellow, we color code colleges as yellow when the statistics are not as favorable for the student.

So Boston College has higher test scores required than the University of Massachusetts Amherst, so that’s just caution. So that you know it, the color coding flags that we’ve got the information there about related to academic match. We’ve got the information related to student outcomes. We’ve got the retention in four year, four year and six year graduation rates.

Um, we’ve got the median earnings for completers on there, which we get from the college scorecard. Um, we’ve got the financial match information. We’ve got all that net price information in addition to. Uh, down here, that number I showed you earlier, the percent of students receiving institutional aid and the amount of that institutional aid.

So all that stuff that we’ve been talking about is, is automatically pulled in here. And this is a tool that, I know a lot of counselors like this tool, students and parents like this tool because it gives you a relatively easy way to, uh, to see all the information side by side. Do you have anything else to add to this, Amanda?

Amanda Sterk: Yeah, I would just [00:39:00] say that on this document, it is sort of one of those documents that will grow with you through the process because there is some of the information that you’re going to have to make an assessment yourself. So, um, as Tim mentioned, if your student needs to use adaptive services because maybe they have an IEP or 504, and that’s really important to you, um, there’s no way except for kind of knowing how many, you know, Federally, they say how many students are registered through the department, but we don’t know what their services are.

So one of the things in that explore phase that we talk to families and tell them they should do is to talk to adaptive services to find out what resources they have and so making your own. ranking, um, happens quite a few times throughout this, this process, because so it does take some work on your part to really make sure that you understand each and if it’s important to you, that you are, um, doing on a one to five scale.

So a lot of it can be put in there. And so we clearly in the College of Mays workbook, [00:40:00] we walk families through each of these key data points and why they’re important, but also understand that some of those data points are Self assessments that you make along the way.

Timothy Poynton: Exactly. Yeah. And like, same for career match.

There’s no publicly available data that we can, we can use to provide any insight about how, how well the, the career supports at the college might might work for your student. There’s just no number that counts. It captures that, so between your tour of the college, if they talk about the Career Center, and your review of the website, and maybe talking with somebody who works in career services at the university, um, you can rate each one in a relative sense to each other, um, using here.

So you have to do some of that self assessment, so the College Data Organizer, while great, doesn’t do everything for you, but it does a lot for you. It does a lot for you. And I’ll say, um, this is kind of my baby. Um, we’re working on updating the data now. Actually, we’re going to update it in the next two weeks or so.

Um, but it, it really, [00:41:00] um, works well for, for organizing the information. And it does grow with you as your list changes. If you decide you’re not going to apply to Boston College anymore, just delete it and you’re going to add another college in its place. So

Amanda Sterk: there’s some other tabs with some charts and you can put your, that common data set information.

So there’s a lot that you can do with it. So as a free download, it really is pretty amazing. So, um, and Siri had asked, um, what is the download that you’re talking about? This is it. We call it the college data organizer or CDO, uh, for short, and it’s just a free download, um, on our website.

Timothy Poynton: You want to talk about this part?

Amanda Sterk: Sure, I’ll talk about apply. Um, so one of the things that as we sort of mentioned, as we go through the six keys of college fit to always be doing an assessment of your priorities and matching that up with each institution. So as we started, we said, you know, you’re kind of start with maybe 12 to [00:42:00] 15 schools, 12 to 15 to apply to all of those is quite a bit.

So we do narrow that down and say about, um, anywhere from Five to eight or eight to 10 again, depending on the location and the selectivity of the school, um, you should. Stop and assess each institution. So in the beginning, you’re just assessing what are my priorities. Now you’re taking that sort of priorities onto each university or college and saying, based on the six keys, does this college have what I’m looking for?

And We need to answer yes or no, basically. And so we have the same rating system and the same sort of type type of, um, you know, rating and scaling that you did it last time. Now we’re doing it by institution. And when you have more points, the idea is that it’s a better, higher fit for you based on all of the six keys versus maybe something that’s a little [00:43:00] bit lower.

Go ahead. So as we narrow down that list, one of the things that we also want to bring into, and we’ve discussed a little bit, is also that chance of admission. So, you know, if, you know, Harvard and Yale and Penn are all your, your best fit and they’re amazing, But we know that those are really hard schools to get into.

Not because you’re not a great student, but because their selectivity is so low. And so they, um, you know, when you’re talking a four or five person acceptance rate, so what we want to do is really bring in what is best for the student based on the six keys of college fit. And then start merging that into what really is your chance of admissions.

And one of the terms that I know if we mentioned it around time, he just cringes every time, but is that safety target reach? Um, sometimes they call it match. Um, we really don’t like that, those three terms. And the reason we don’t like it is. because it [00:44:00] really disempowers students to think that schools that are quote unquote safety schools might not be a good fit for the student.

I’m a big believer in two plus two pathways like community college into universities or looking at maybe a less selective school might be a really great option because they have all, they have the program your students looking for. Maybe they’re going to get. some scholarships because they are exceeding maybe the average student that there.

So we really tried to remove that from the conversation and focus on fit meeting chance of admissions. And so what we do is something called the three by three. And we put those three things together and find out, um, to develop really a plan of who should we apply to? What are the best kind of chances of admissions?

And we really want to make sure that we do have a nice range. We can’t have every school be a low chance of admission. So if [00:45:00] all of them are in that 4 percent range. That’s going to be really difficult. So we do want to spread it out and we want some schools that have a moderate chance of admissions that we’re pretty likely to, to get in.

And then we want schools that has a high chance of admissions. Um, but then again, focusing also on aligning that with our fit is really important. Go ahead.

Timothy Poynton: And yeah, I just say that, um, if you have a low fit schools on the list, you should consider applying to them to begin with. If you have other schools that you at least have a moderate chance of admission to, like, um, you know, if, if you have a low fit for the school, like, um, just, just consider whether or not it’s actually worth applying to.

Amanda Sterk: And then lastly, or not last night, we have two more, but, um, decide is another time, you know, I know this was a hard moment for our family, even though we’ve been doing all this research and information is now coming back with, now we should know the price. We should know the [00:46:00] scholarships. We should know where we got in, where we didn’t get in, where we got deferred.

You know, we have a lot more information when we start to make a decision. So once again, we want the students, once that information comes in. Is for a family to sit down and really look at what all of their options are. So once again, we want them to go through the six keys of college fit and really assess everything based on the information that we now have, like.

Is this an option? And if this is an option, what would that cost and be to us? And then would that be a good fit for us? If you go to the next slide, and one of the things that is really hard, and Tim and I can both attest to this with our own students and going through the process, is it’s really hard, um, is when do we bring in that emotion piece?

As Tim kind of mentioned earlier, we try to remove it early. You know, we move it from the [00:47:00] process early on, because if it’s your dream school and it’s the only school that I’ll be successful at and you don’t get in, then what happens, right? So we really don’t like bringing a lot of desirability and sort of that dream school option until we know if we are accepted and if we can afford the school and that’s a school that could be a potential school that we go to.

So. Once we have all the information of where we’ve been accepted to and those award letters, we want them to go through a process of really considering all the information that they’ve learned throughout. So we do a nice scaffolded sort of, um, critical thinking informed decision approach is thinking and remembering everything they learned, understanding everything, applying that to the schools they’ve, um, done, analyzing, evaluating, and then really creating that plan.

So, We have them look at fit again, but now we’re bringing in that desirability. Do you see yourself there? Is that where you’re going to [00:48:00] be most successful? And then at the end, really coming up with the best decision for the student. And I think that that’s a really critical thing that a lot of families don’t do.

I think, Tim, you really, um, in your own family, you kind of struggle with that desirability and, you know, does it look pretty or does it have this fun activity versus another? But when we’re talking, some schools are difference between 10, 20, 30, 000. Is that one fun thing? Does that really counter everything else?

So that’s where this information comes into. Tim, you want to add anything? Amanda

Julie Shields-Rutyna: and Tim, can I just share, there’s a question just asking about timing on that. When on average, would you say this is taking place? February, March, senior year, later?

Amanda Sterk: Yeah, probably, yeah, about right now. So I know, um, depending if you applied early, um, a lot of students got their decision back in December, January, regular decision is still being released at this point.

So typically, um, February, [00:49:00] March, technically, um, students and families have until May 1st is kind of the big decision day is you need to tell the universities, um, if you’re coming or not by May 1st. Um, so we typically see this in the spring. So seniors are kind of in the thick of this right now. And that’s why I’m down in Florida.

I’m seeing a lot of earlier decisions are being released, because some of the schools like University of Florida and some others that waited really late, it was harder to get students so we want that desirability for them to really see you there. And I’ve been getting those acceptance letters and. FSU sent one.

I had like the you opened it up and it had the music was playing from this card. And I mean, they work really hard to increase that desirability and make sure that you see yourself at that college. Um, but you want, I would suggest waiting to all informations in front of you and then making that decision.

Timothy Poynton: Thank you.

Amanda Sterk: [00:50:00] Great question. Thanks, Julie.

Timothy Poynton: And just on the timing, like for for me, this lasted from February 1st. I think it was last year until the middle of May, because we were struggling with it essentially. So what that translated into was it was really between two schools, and it just meant going out and learning as much as we could, given the opportunities, attending the open house events, um, attending even the, um, Um, you know, the open houses and then some, some private colleges will do and public colleges will do regional events where they have alumni come and speak, um, that aren’t on campus, but they’re in, in the area.

So, I would just suggest trying to learn as much as you can, both in person, remotely, etc. Um, because, but it can take, it can take a while, you can be in this, in this phase for months.

Amanda Sterk: And it’s a hard space to be in, it really is. And then lastly, we have the succeed chapter, which I think is a really critical part that a lot of families [00:51:00] don’t do is sort of the what next and really making sure that again, communication and conversations are being had about how a student can be successful just because they’re successful in high school, while it does sort of predict, you know, that they’re going to have success in college.

Not always because transitions and being overwhelmed or mental health issues or just health issues in general. One of my friends, her daughter’s a freshman and got influenza a and now she’s been out of class for a week or two and she’s struggling to get back in and she’s away from her parents. And what does that look like?

So we really want families to be very mindful of coming up with. three distinct plans. So the first one is financial integration. So that’s really talking about, okay, here’s our award letter. This is how much are either in grants and scholarships. This is how much in loans. This is how much we have to self pay.

If you have to do work [00:52:00] study, who’s paying what, what do we have to do to make sure that’s covered? If you have a scholarship, what does that entail? Um, to keep that scholarship. Sometimes a GPA is required. Sometimes service hours are required. So really talking about what happens with the financials and what’s on the student responsibility, parent responsibility, and so forth.

Academic integration is really thinking about how are you going to get engaged with your classes? How are you going to go see your college advisor and make sure that you’re staying on top of that? How are you making sure that you understand the material and if you’re struggling in a class, where are you going to go to?

And really kind of thinking through that whole academic side of the house and then also social because college is a time that students are exploring and Looking for clubs and different activities and making sure that they have a plan That they um are not Being overwhelmed by the social opportunities.

And that’s one that we talk with, I [00:53:00] think my daughter wants to be in every single club at the university she wants to go to. And I’m like, you know, you get to pick like three, you can’t do like a hundred of them. Um, so really thinking about where are you going to get involved? What’s best for, um, them both in the short term and in the long term.

So developing that success plan is really critical to make sure that you’ve looked at everything and you’re setting your student up for success. Tim, do you want to add anything to that?

Timothy Poynton: Sorry, I was typing while I was.

Amanda Sterk: Oh, yeah.

Timothy Poynton: I’m not good at multitasking, but the one thing I’ll say about the financial integration that that is important is sometimes, um, I don’t think colleges are trying to be, um, you know, misleading or anything, but with the financial aid award letters, one critical question to ask is if they got scholarships, like, what do you have to do to maintain those scholarships?

Um, and, and. Oftentimes, it’s, as long as you maintain good academic standing, you get a, you know, basically a C average or higher, you can maintain those, but sometimes there’s more specific requirements. They might have a community service [00:54:00] requirement, for example. So, um, it’s worth asking and really scrutinizing the award letter, which can be, like, for, my daughter’s award letter was, Like 12 pages long in like 10 point font, really small.

So I had to ask some questions of, of the financial aid office just to make sure I was understanding it correctly. And they were, they were good about answering it. Um, but do with the financial plans, just be sure that you understand if scholarships are a big part of how, how you’re affording to, to pay for college.

Um, Finding out how to maintain eligibility for those scholarships is critically important.

Amanda Sterk: So we’ll open it up for questions. Um, and if you are interested, um, if you just go to collegeunmaids. com, I know we’ve sent some links to all of you, um, throughout this, um, this webinar. So just go to collegeunmaids. com. The one great thing, um, about College Unmazed, it [00:55:00] really is a comprehensive program and we do have other resources such as things on dual enrollment, we have things on homeschool, we have a companion parent guide that a student can do their College Unmazed student guide and then the parent can walk alongside them and it has their own tips and tricks about what the parent should be doing and how to help.

each of the phases. Um, we really suggest it being sort of a 9 through 12 program, but definitely if you are a sophomore junior and you’re starting to think of this process, fantastic time to get the materials, look it over because it really provides you as to looking at this information and this data and really becoming informed every step of the way, because sometimes I feel like colleges talk kind of at us and they’re, you know, they, they need that student and so it’s a kind of a marketing ploy so you have to sort of tease back all the information.[00:56:00]

And really find out what is best for the student. And that’s really what we believe in throughout. Um, so let’s answer a few other questions. Do we have, um, so if you have any questions about the process or anything in particular, um, we are happy to answer. Um, let’s see, MEFA.

Timothy Poynton: I think we’re caught up with the questions.

It looks like we are

Amanda Sterk: good. Yeah, you’ve been answering them, haven’t you?

Timothy Poynton: Mostly Julie, but yeah,

Amanda Sterk: that’s okay. Well, thank you, Julie. We appreciate that.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: No, that’s good. And I’ve been sending them your way too. And you are covering some of it. Um, yeah. So if any other questions, we’ll wait a moment. This is so wonderful.

So such, such a, um, organized flow of how to do this stuff. Definitely.

Amanda Sterk: And I think it’s really important, you know, through this process, um, communicating, we’ve mentioned it several times, communicating with each [00:57:00] other is essential. It does not have to be overwhelming because there are so many resources out there and everybody thinks that they’re an expert in the field.

Um, it can get really overwhelming and to really take a breath. Be mindful of where you’re at in the process and really be thinking about, okay, you don’t have to do it all. You just have to go step by step. And when you chunk it like that, it makes the process a lot more fun. Um, and a lot more enjoyable with your family for sure.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Well, the comments that we’re receiving are that this has been super helpful. Awesome. People are saying thank you. So that’s so nice. Um, yes.

Amanda Sterk: Thank you, Helen. Yeah.

Timothy Poynton: Thank you all so much for spending your evening with us. Appreciate

Julie Shields-Rutyna: it. Yeah. You know, we did get one question. I don’t know if you want to talk about it a little bit of, um, someone asked about restricted EA. [00:58:00]

Amanda Sterk: You know, colleges are getting, um, They’re using a lot of different ways to, um, sort of, as Tim mentioned, the demonstrated interest, right?

And so, early decision, early action, even priority. Some, some of those names, names can sometimes be interchangeable depending on public school, private school, selective, non selective. Um, but that’s one way that they’re really trying to tease out students that are committed to that school. So, basically, early action restrictive is.

Pretty much early decision, right? You’re basically saying you are my number one school and because you’re my number one school. Um, basically, I will guarantee that I can go there. The one thing is that that’s binding and they really don’t want you going elsewhere, you know, and especially an early decision.

Um, So some, some have different rules on, you know, how is it binding? Who else can you apply for? [00:59:00] My daughter did an ED school and we could still apply early action to other public schools or other schools that were not binding. But there are some like early action restrictive that they have rules around where you can apply and what you can do, but really what they’re looking for is that interest.

And in those pools, sometimes we can see a much more significant acceptance rate. I think like Harvard this year was around 13, 14 percent acceptance rate in that, in that round, where then when you look at regular decisions, you’re down to, you know, two, 3%. Um, and some schools now are taking up to 50, 60 percent of their students in those.

Early decision, early action round. So if that really is kind of the school you want to go, as Tim mentioned, you should know what their prices are, what their net price is. You should understand, can you afford it? You know, what does that look like for your family and really make an informed decision if [01:00:00] that’s the best option for you?

And I think Tim, you did not go early decision. Um, our family did, but again, that really is a personal decision based on. the schools, what you’re going to pay, and so forth. So be aware.

Timothy Poynton: Yeah, the restrictive early action is relatively new, right? It’s, it’s, um, relatively new, but it is just a way to, to try for the colleges to try and figure out how interested folks are without the binding nature.

So, you know, it’s still binding in some ways, though, but the, the unfortunate thing with restrictive early action, while it’s the same term, it’s. Colleges right now have very different rules about it, whereas early decision means the same thing at every college, right? Early action means pretty much the same thing at every college.

Restrictive early action means different things at just about every college now, which makes it a little bit more confusing, but thankfully there’s not that many colleges that are doing the restrictive early action.

For sure.

Amanda Sterk: So that’s one of the decision [01:01:00] making things that you’re going to have to do and, and, and make that decision because that could have a pretty, uh, large impact on your application.

Um, if you did choose to do that in your finances and how much you pay.

Timothy Poynton: And applying early decision is often a benefit, but it’s not always a benefit actually. So it’s worth asking the admissions counselor. Um, if, if they don’t participate in the common data set, that’s a question that admissions counselors are often happy to answer, uh, and they’ll know that off the top of their heads, too.

Um, for example, Boston College historically has not had a very big difference between those admitted, um, early decision versus, versus regular or, or early action. Whereas, um, somewhere like perhaps, uh, Northeastern, There is a much bigger difference in that. So, um, assessing the level of advantage that it might give you if you know it’s the place you want to go.

But, to the, coming back to the demonstrate interest, there’s no stronger way to demonstrate interest than to apply early decision. There really isn’t. That’s saying you’re my number [01:02:00] one, um, I’m willing to forget about everybody else if you’re willing to take me, so to speak. And there’s no stronger way to tell a college that you’re interested in them than applying early decision if they offer that.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Well, thank you both so much and thank you to all the participants and the good questions and the, um, back and forth. So please, uh, stay in touch with MEFA. I, I think I, I answered one of your questions. Just that MEFA has a lot of other webinars about the finances. And so come back. Come back to me for often and and check out the upcoming webinars and then recordings of some of the ones that we’ve done this year.

So thank you.

Thank you, Julie, for having us

Julie Shields-Rutyna: and have a great evening. I’ll

take care of everybody.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thanks.