Prepping for College

It's that time of year...
High school seniors are starting to figure out what in the world they're going to take with them to college. Why figure it out so early? Why graduation gifts, of course!

But from what I have seen happen from my own experiences and from working with freshmen I see a few major things to remember when trying to figure out what to bring for college:

#1- Anything and everything, except the essentials. While I didn't do this myself I did see quite a few students who packed the proper clothing, their electronics, decorations and mementos from home... but no toothbrush. The big chain stores like Target, Walmart and Costco have to do amazing business in college towns selling things like toothbrushes and shampoo that weekend for students who forgot them.

#2 - No Climate Consideration. Beyond knowing what the climate is if you're moving a long way from home, it's important to really understand what hot or cold means in that climate. If you asked me, I would tell you Minnesota gets a little chilly in the winter. If you asked someone from Arizona I don't think you would get the same answer about a Minnesota winter from them, as you wouldn't hear me say the same thing about heat as that person would. This goes both ways. I saw students come to Minnesota sadly under-prepared for our winters, trying to use the winter jacket that got them by in Indiana or wherever they were from. But, when I moved to Texas I had no idea what the heat would be like. The first week I was down there I went out with some friends (in August...) and brought along a sweatshirt. Apparently I didn't realize that the temperature there does not drop 30+ degrees at night like it does in Minnesota.

#3- Too many reminders of high school. This may sound crass, but when you go to school after you've been there a month you're not really going to want all kinds of things that say your high school or hometown all over your dorm room.

And finally #4- Towels: Ten years later I still have towels I was given at my high school graduation party that I have barely ever used that I don't have the heart to retire into cleaning towels. I really got that many... I think EVERYONE decided that I really needed towels going to college so they ALL gave me one. Be aware of that, and maybe put out a few more suggestions for gifts so you're not furnishing your bathroom with towels received at high school graduation for the next ten years of your life.

So, start thinking about what you're bringing, and be aware that you probably don't need 15 full size bath towels when you go to school.

Have a great weekend!

Virtual College Fairs?

I am fascinated by this idea, but to be honest with you I don't know that much about them.

How many students attend? Do parents get involved? Or could this be coordinated through a school where the entire junior and/or senior class can participate? If you were at a high school would you be open to an event such as this?

Or would this be something that primarily took place in the evening or on a weekend to accommodate students and parents being at home to log in?

Then, how much can the computer handle? What's the level of user friendliness that needs to be there? Obviously it needs to be fairly intuitive but how complex can you go with it?

And... what's the level of personalization? Can students make an "avatar" (computer image) of themselves to "walk around" in? (Yay quotation marks!)

So, if you've participated in one of these (I believe College Week Live has the biggest one) will you let me know about your experience? Was it cool? Did you get everything out of it that you liked to?
Counselors... is this something your school would participate in? Colleges, are the students who visit your virtual booth responsive?

So much to learn...

New Years... Resolutions?

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break and is back feeling a little more relaxed after some lighter weeks.

We are getting to the time of year where colleges are beginning to make decisions, send out decision letters and help students moving along with the dreaded Financial Aid since it's the beginning of tax season.

Financial Aid... why do these words inspire absolute terror in so many parents of college students? It's not just the looming possibility in this economy of not getting enough, but merely the thought of filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) that sends folks into a tizzy. They're overwhelmed with the prospect of filling this out before they've even looked at the form because they've heard how difficult it is.

But where on earth is that perception coming from?

Every financial aid officer that I personally know will tell you the FAFSA is an extremely easy document to fill out. Most of them will walk you step by step through the process as well, unless you're at one of those massive schools that seem to have 3 financial aid officers for every 15,000 students. (Exaggeration, yes, but when you're waiting in line for three hours to talk to one that's how it feels.) But there are workshops and other community resources offered in many places to assist parents with walking through the forms. Heck, the FAFSA form itself shows you how to fill it out- all you need to do is be able to match the instructions on the FAFSA with the line number on your taxes since it tells you exactly where to find the information it's asking for.

It also frightens me that a simple Google search for "FAFSA" offers so many places that will fill yours out for a nominal fee of $79.99. First off, the very first F in "FAFSA" stands for "free"... so why pay? And, what scares me even more is that these rather disreputable (in my opinion) companies will have your tax information as well as your birthday, social security number... etc. Would I trust them with this? Personally, absolutely not.

So, if you're coming up on starting your Financial Aid for the first time take a deep breath. The FAFSA isn't that bad. If you fill it out online it will even be remembered for next year. I think the last time I filled it out about a year ago I did the whole thing in a little under 15 minutes, so if I can do it and receive aid (so it must have gone in correctly) I believe a trained monkey could figure it out.

Moving Along With Technology

We recently sent out a survey to about 4,800 high school counselors asking them about our website and their web usage when helping kids find colleges.

What truly, truly surprised me was the amount of responses I received (huge thank you to all of the counselors who took the two minutes to fill it out!) and how many of those responses said that they do not use the web to help students find a college. My gut instinct was to say "no way!" but after I thought about it I wondered how many of the counselors just aren't comfortable with it was an information medium. This article about a Freshman English prof also made me think more about this.

However, glaring in the face of this is the amount of kids who don't know the world B.G. (before Google) and to whom the web is the first place to turn when learning about anything. Last week I made the mistake (I think) of asking the middle and high school kids I coach if anyone knew what the weather was supposed to be the next day. Before I could blink almost every kid had a cell phone in hand and was pulling up the weather channel on the web. Whoa! I was just curious if anyone had listened to the radio or seen it on the news the night before... silly outdated me. But the kids seemed to only accept the latest most up to date information which they would find on the web.

I think it works this way with colleges too. Beyond sites like we have at Anycollege, the actual college websites themselves provide a wealth of up to date information from the classes being offered the next semester, the latest scores from the football team or what the upcoming season is for the Theatre department. These are as important to know, I think, as what majors the college offers or simply what sports it is known for.

Adapting to new technologies and/or strategies to reach students isn't always the easiest but it can be effective. A large reason for my personal Facebook page was to be accessible on the social network to my students when working at the college. I didn't have a lot of faith in it, but sure enough I would get 2 AM questions on things I don't think they were OK sending me at my "official" email address. (Nothing inappropriate, in fact often they were pleas for help with personal issues such as housing, etc.) However it gave the students another way in which to connect to me that was more comfortable to them. I think it might be something like this with web searches too. If counselors can take advantage of all of the info that is out there on colleges it might help the student make a truly good decision by choosing the college with the best overall fit rather than one that just offers the major/sport he/she wants to play.

Students... Any thoughts? Parents? Counselors? Recruiters?? Anyone???

Weather and College Culture

There is a blizzard coming tomorrow and I am very excited. There is just something about the first major snowfall of the year.

This also reminds me of three vastly different experiences I had at three colleges in three different parts of the country that were directly related to weather.

First, I started my college career in Northern MN (where I again reside, though in a different city). I never really noticed the snow falling and falling and falling in the winter until I got my first car my junior year. Then I realized just how hardy this school was- 18" of snow (and it's still falling!) and we are expected to still be in class on time. This usually meant knowing if it was going to storm the day before, making sure your shovel and boots were in the car, and getting up an hour earlier to dig your car out before class.

Then I transferred to a college in the Dallas, TX area. What a change! The area had a completely different attitude towards snow. My first winter there it snowed about 2" one night. I got up the following morning, hopped in the car and drove to class... only to find the campus completely dead! I thought maybe a few people chose to stay home (OK maybe I wasn't that observant back then) but when I walked to the building my first class of the day was in and found it locked I was shocked! It hadn't occurred to me to check to see if classes were cancelled- after all it's only 2" of snow! They ended up being cancelled for two days if my memory serves me correctly. I couldn't believe it- two days for a measly two inches of snow?!

I transferred again (note for any future college students reading this: don't imitate me. Transferring that many times= not smart and not fun) to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This school turned into the weather service place for all of the other schools in the Twin Cities, from what I could tell. The way to determine if classes were going to be cancelled was if the U of M was going to cancel. (Of course, with as many students as they have it takes very little short of a complete disaster to actually cancel classes). I was also working at another college at this time and I recall a few days anxiously watching the University of Minnesota website to see if they were going to close.

I was amazed at how three colleges treated the weather so differently. Looking back I probably would not have made the choice to go to TX if I had realized how much I would miss the snow once I got down there, but it was certainly a live and learn experience! When you're searching for colleges remember to ask about the weather in the area- and prepare yourself to cope with it!

Happy snow day!!

Entering the world of the blog...

Welcome!

This is a new venture for Anycollege.com; we hope to use this as a way to get a little more info out there in the webisphere (how's that for a technical sounding word?? :)) for kids getting ready to start looking for colleges or actually go to college. That being said, if you want to ask anything to us please feel free!

I would like to share a recent story of something I experienced while doing some research for our website. While at a local high school conducting a focus group with some juniors and seniors I asked the kids how many had chosen a college already. About half raised their hands. When I asked them how they found their colleges the answer was mainly "I heard about them from other people" or "I just knew about them". Upon further prodding I learned that many of them were attending school either within the same city as the high school or within a state away.

There certainly is nothing wrong with this. However when I asked the group if any ever considered looking at a small school on the East Coast or checking out info for a music school in California they all looked at me with a baffled expression. Finally one asked me (with that tone of voice that only high school students can do that clearly shows what is being thought about my intelligence level) "WHY would we do that?"

"Well" I replied "To see what else is out there. You never know, maybe there is a really cool school in Vermont or Oregon that is everything you've ever wanted in a college. You'll never know until you look!"

But, with a shake of a head (again, which clearly said "This woman is crazy") that far-fetched idea was dismissed.

However, I'd like to bring it up again in this blog. Expand your horizons! Check out schools you've never heard of! See what is being offered. When I began working at Anycollege I was amazed at the schools that are out there. Some have some really innovative academic programs, some have some really neat layouts (tell me putting all the art majors together in one dorm with studios available in the building isn't brilliant!) , some have activities that even now I would love to get involved with. While I am proud of the schools I attended seeing some of these other options made me wish I had really looked around a little more before making my decision. Who knows, maybe I would have gone for that degree in Cross Country Ski Coaching from the University of Maine!

If you know what you'd like to do take a look at all the schools that offer that program, not just schools that your friends are going to attend, that your sister went to or that are within 200 miles. Many of these schools are also actively recruiting students from out of state, so is a good possibility of some scholarships to make up for the possibility of out of state tuition.

Even if you don't go to one you can at least say you looked for something out of the ordinary!