These days, you accept the digital era or you are left out.
Is there a more antiquated way of applying to college than paper and pencil? Online applications are easier for colleges to view and some institutions are even offering a discount in fees for online applications. Take the Common App, for example; more than 500 schools in the US, Canada, and abroad are accepting this method and many have done away with paper apps (Common App just moved to online-only). It stands to reason that paper applications are soon to become a thing of the past; the online method is proving more secure and reliable. As software and people are becoming more savvy at altering information, receiving info from the source is all the more valuable when it comes to transcripts, letters, and other information. Students: Your counselors and teachers are already completing letters of recommendation online and your test scores and transcripts are uploaded with the click of a button. But it doesn’t stop there. Not only are schools seeking information from applicants electronically, schools are publishing information in this way as well. Remember, not so long ago when counselors had all of these brochures and pamphlets in their office for students to flip through? Done. Colleges have learned that the web is mostly free and are producing massive amounts of material available quicker and easier (and reaching exponentially more people) with the click of a button. They save money and the environment instantly. Check out YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other sites and universities and see how they have exploited free social media to their advantage, showing more pictures and faces than can probably be seen in an in-person visit campus. THis is where prospective students lie, hungry and waiting for potential schools to feed them with the insight they seek. Which leaves us, the counselors, in a state of change. Do we still strive to hold those meetings during study hall? A printed newsletter? Handouts? While this counselor is not yet ready to dismiss the value of the face-to-face connections, we all must realize the obvious advantages of sharing informations so easily and readily with our students. Long ago, we used to learn something, write it down, and wait to talk about it or share. Is it possible to become more efficient? With 10 seconds and little effort, the same mind-boggling revelations about applications and schools are being shared with two clicks of a smartphone. The time has come to stop thinking of technology as a new and alternative way of delivering information and to start to embrace it as the primary vehicle of which data, updates, and news are shared with our stakeholders. We must embrace this movement and master the facilitation of information lest we be the ones learning from our students about the very process we are charged to help them with.
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AuthorOlder blog posts were for the UCLA Ext course "Using the Internet for College Counseling" Archives
February 2023
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