A Student’s Perspective: Challenges and Opportunities Surrounding the College Admissions Process

Thank you so much, Sarah, and thank you for having us. We're really excited to be here as Sarah said, my name is Ashley. I'm the director of digital marketing at score and joining me is Julie who was a huge huge participant in the research that we conducted that will be sharing with you today. So we'll both be chatting with you throughout this process and just kind of highlighting some of the key insights that we have been seeing, and to tee it up, we will definitely will give you an overview of the research methodology.

Go a little bit deeper, show you the tools that students are using most in the college search process sentiment surrounding that research. We've also identified six biggest challenges that the students have told us about. And then finally, what we're going to do is show you some opportunities and give you a little bit of a preview in terms of how score is also going to plan on addressing some of these things. I will be going over this in a little bit more detail at the end, but score.

Is obviously were asleep partner, but we also have an integration with them, so we'll go over that in a little bit more detail, but without further ado, I would love to kick it off to Julianne. Give you a little bit of an overview in terms of the research methodology methodology that we that we conducted.

Yeah thanks Ashley. Hi everybody, thanks for having us were absolutely just so excited to have done this research and that anybody has any interest in hearing all about it. So what we did was talk directly to our student base. The users of score an I'll just kind of start in the top right under surveys. So we surveyed hundreds of students really trying to focus on the challenges that they were facing. An we did this survey just a couple months ago so it was right in time.

Or, you know, are covid sort of analysis an understanding? The students had space, so that was the main objective was just understanding the challenges right now that students were facing. We got tons of great stuff from the survey, so we'll go over sort of snippets of that throughout this presentation and then user interviews. We actually spoke with our students directly an analyzed our footage and just really tried to draw out really the themes that the students were having.

Which there were a ton of their tons of overlap. There was a lot of different sentiment that they had shared with us that you would really just never get with surveys. So it was wonderful to talk to them. And we have lots of sort of anecdotal pieces to share with you on that today throughout our presentation as well. And the last piece that we sort of put together in this puzzle piece was the Analytics. So our score platform usage told us a lot of the story that we sort of needed to know to figure out how students were using our tools. And then we also wanted to assess how they were using.

Other tools in the market as well.

Yes, so we're going to dive right in and just give you an overview of the top tools that students were using in the college certain admissions process.

And here are the six key resources, and I would assume that a lot of this may not surprise you. I mean we have everything from search engines to social media, alot of video content here, but the one thing that I really wanted to point out too is that obviously you know college fairs are not able to happen right now. How to dress traditional format so those virtual reference and events are going to be increasingly important. As you probably know already. But the other thing that I really wanted to point out here too, is that.

Students as much as they possibly can, we're going to other family members or friends to also talk about this process and they would start with some. You know, some digital resources, but very often what we heard was that they would follow up and have conversations about what they were saying and what they were hearing with other people that are close to them or that they trusted. So it's a really important thing to take into consideration, and you know one of the things that we want to keep in mind at all times is that even though you know the.

The student is the one who is navigating this process. Those family members are in friends are definitely major influencers in this process, so we thought it was really interesting to see the blend of personal relationships and then information that they were searching for for themselves.

Yeah, and I just want to add for the family member component. The students that we spoke with even our first Gen students were relying on, you know, an older sibling or anybody who had gone through college applications process that could sort of help them. That was just such a trusted resource for them so they couldn't emphasize enough how lost they would have felt without those family members guiding them or without those shared experiences. You know, a lot of like sitting down with parents at the dinner table was referenced a lot of.

You know my parents went to ex college, so you know I'm really likely to go there as well because they have so much to share in such a good experience. So they're really getting that first hand account from family members.

Absolutely.

And one of the other parts that we were looking at are the key benefits of these resources, and I think it's really important to point out before we kind of dive deeper into what the specifics were, that as a company score really looks at a couple key factors in terms of the students mindset and the three big questions that we keep in mind often are can I get in. Can I afford it and, well, I fit into a particular school and it was interesting to see the results coming back in from the research, because if you look at the benefits of the resources that they noted

They were talking about getting deeper information, finding certain courses and looking at student reviews. You know that kind of pays that goes to the point of understanding if they're going to fit in. Scholarship information was incredibly important to them, and it also dovetails nicely with the understanding cost part. The tuition. I think there's a lot of uncertainties surrounding that part, but they also noted the college rankings, and they also wanted to.

Get a better understanding of like what's the best way to create lists and those resources that they were using. They were finding that information through those different methods, so it was really interesting to see you know what they were actually looking for when they were coming to those sites. Because I think that we make certain assumptions may be based on page views or the digital activity, but this is also kind of went a little bit deeper to show what exactly it is they were looking for. An as you'll see in later parts of the presentation where there may have been some gaps.

So we're going to dive into the sentiment surrounding college search. We kind of showed you the benefits the top resources, but we wanted to get a better understanding of how they felt about that process. So that being said, one of the first things that we wanted to capture our water students looking for in the search process, and we found some. You know, some things that we expected to see, like a way to create college lists tracking over your application status, being able to collaborate with others.

Definitely discovering new schools based on their fit, and I think that's really important to note a way to compare themselves to others and will also talk about how comparisons are going to be increasingly complex in the space that we're in right now because of, you know, the inability to, you know, take the SAT or AC team and cost evaluation so one of the things that this really highlighted for us is that the students have a strong desire to stay organized throughout this process.

And we believe that one of the reasons why this takes place is because it is a very anxiety ridden process. And you know, putting the different pieces of information together as we were talking to students, we saw, it helped provide comfort, and they as they were moving through the process.

Yeah, and then for the items that the students really reflected were most important to them were keeping attractive their activities and resume. So at Square we kind of allow them to put a bunch of information in and they similar to what actually had just said. Really felt like this concept of all in one place and being organized was sort of perpetuated by that being able to stick all their activities in sort of as they're doing them and keep track of them. And then they can reference them later. So there really actively trying to build.

Up their achievements and keep track of them actively with colleges in mind throughout that process. So that is something to know and then demonstrating my strengths beyond test scores and grades was also kind of an interesting component because we are in an environment where a lot of these students were not able to take their essay Tees or AC T test. So it was kind of a question of how do I demonstrate my strings, but they knew that it was very important to them.

To stand out as a candidate so they were, you know, high interest and high importance, but they weren't always sure what that was going to look like, and it seemed to reflect where colleges are now as well, where they're sort of trying to figure out what do we do in place of just not having these test scores. Their financial aid was also a key item and then finding recommendations based on their interests was something that was was something that they really wanted to use. They wanted to input interests and figure out what colleges were going to have those programs.

It really similar to the activities that they had already been participating in an then developing a course plan. So a plan of action a next step, again with the organization theme. I think that falls right in place.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then what do the students want more of? So assessment for potential career pads. So what is that best match? I think a lot of the will I fit in question comes in here and also just trying to discover themselves a little bit. So understanding where their strengths map to careers, building a list of colleges is really something that they want more of. They want more organization, more tools. They want to really search and dig deep and find the right fit for them, and then also having the ability to control their information that is.

Used by colleges and we saw a lot of that reflected in personal email so when they were getting personal email, we did pick up on a trending at theme being that they were inundated with messages. So they pretty much told us that even though they had signed up for some email lists that they wanted information from, they were getting a lot of unsolicited messages that were just piling in and burying the important information. So they wanted a little more control on on how they were getting contacted. What kinds of information were coming through?

And they really also had some more information about the content that they wanted to receive, and we'll kind of touch on that in a couple slides.

Yes, and as Julie mentioned, one of the things that we wanted to learn more about is what they're tired of. And the first note that I want to kind of point out here, as you'll see on the right is signing up for information sessions. Now I think it's important to call out that the medium that information sessions themselves are a really good thing and students appreciate them. However, the struggle is that they're not getting the information that they're looking for within these information sessions.

The other thing that they you know want to be able to do a little bit better as create a longer list of colleges in a consistent way so that they compare apples. They can compare apples to apples, and sometimes you know they could find information on one site and not the other for one school and not the other. And they found it incredibly difficult to be able to organize that in a way where they were truly doing a comparison and then the last part is, you know, as Julie mentioned, a little bit before they are tired of not getting the information.

That they are looking for from colleges they're interested in. Again, they're being inundated with messages from places that they that they simply just don't want to receive communications from an it's making it incredibly hard for them to pull out the pieces of information or communications that they want to receive.

So that being said, You know those were some of the key questions that we ask that translated into the six biggest student challenges that we have identified, and I will kick it over to Julie to speak to the first one.

Yeah, so we got a lot of where and how do I start like really unfamiliar, super unfamiliar with the college application process? I think they kind of know that they need. It's going to take a couple of years. It's going to take your junior and senior year of high school to figure out where is a good fit. What financially can you fit into so they know it's a process they know that they should be invested and they really have high interest. And everyone that we spoke to and surveyed once a next step. But I think that.

We just saw this reflected over and over again. I really don't know what the process looks like. I'm the first one in my family to go to college, so I'm not sure what I should be doing. These are all direct quotes from our students, really just totally unsure of where to start. Where is it and what does it look like? An we saw that disparity even more apparent in the difference between a private school student, Anna public school students. So we did differentiate our findings based on that divide and so the public school students. We just.

We owe them so much in explaining what this college application process looks like. What is acceptance look like? What are the timelines? What should they be doing to prep all the way through? So really, the where do I start with? Like a heavy heavy question for those students?

And I think the other thing, if I can just echo is that I think a lot of confusion based on some of the conversations that we've had. Two is when when they start to an how?

Yes Yep.

Alright, the second one that we want to highlight, which is going to be increasingly important in the Covid World. Two is related to scholarships in college costs, so you know there having the students are having a really hard time finding scholarships, determining their eligibility and evaluating a true cost of a college. You know there's a lot of different resources out there that can help in this process, but I think that you know it's still a very daunting thing that students are just.

Unsure of and there is, there's a lot of complexity that goes into obviously determining what the true cost is going to be, so some of the things that we were really hearing in terms of challenges were being able to find those substantial scholarships, especially for the selective schools. Finding financial aid again was a major major concern, and also just being able to quite frankly find the scholarships that they should and can apply for. And then the last quote that we wanted to pull out here too, is that there was.

In their opinion, there's a major lack of information on college websites as it relates to tuition. They want to go deeper. They want to understand the cost, and you know when students are looking at some of these things, they don't always and will talk about this a little bit later too. They're not always looking at it in an extremely linear fashion the way that we may be thinking the way that marketing may be thinking in terms of you know that they're going to evaluate this first, second, 3rd. It's all over the place in terms of how they're doing it. So in order for them to feel more comfortable, they would really prefer to see more information as it relates to that.

True cost of it.

Yeah, and that very much segues into digging deeper so the students were doing deep, deep research into the college. Is the cost the will I fit in the can I afford it? Can I get in? So depending on kind of where they fell and we did see again like another really big break in the road with the public and private school students, it's pretty predictable as the public school students were very, very heavily focused on can I get in and cost?

We saw that theme over and over again and the digging deeper was really where we wanted to kind of know where do you go for this information? Like what are what kinds of activities are you doing that are going to help you feel like you're digging deeper? What information do you trust so as they were flying along in their journey they are comparing college website with Google search with other forms of information that they're finding mostly on line, and they're just seeing very inconsistent information.

So it's really hard to find exactly what they need and to give you guys some examples of what they were looking for when they were digging deeper. Was I an example of a Google search that the students were doing was out another top engineering program in the US. They would just type that into Google and we would watch some kind of search through the results and they really were just assessing. You know what's the best? What's the best program? And then they would go look up that program and try to see can I get in? Will I fit in? They would go on the College website, they would poke around, they would try and find.

You know, professors names, the requirements of the program out longer was how many credits poke around that tuition. So there are so many factors going into what these students are looking for when they are digging deeper, but they were all actually said. It's not linear, they'll come back in two weeks to keep researching a professor, they'll go look them up, will go grab other information from different sources and try to piece it altogether. Finding the right fit is also part of digging deeper, so we saw a lot of interest in.

Virtual tours I think that was the you know, will I fit in to white? Do I like the campus by we heard the word vibe used over and over again, which is funny, but it's accurate. It is the student's request for getting a feel for a college and they really wanted that from the in person experience. And obviously they can't get it right now. So they were very, very highly interested in those virtual tours and then finding out what the school's main strength is. Again, they want the best program, they they want the best program that they can get into.

So they want to find out what the strings are and get more information there.

Yes, and the the 4th challenge was really just managing that process as it relates to everything that we've talked about and will talk about and some of the things that really came out of this two or understanding the deadlines and requirements and they just flat out said that it was overwhelming from start to finish. You know we talked a little bit before about how they felt. There's a lack of essential information on many sites in terms of tuition majors qualifications.

They found all of that to be really hard to decipher. A lot of the students wear it just flat out. So like I don't know what I'm doing an I think that there are a lot of preconceived notions about what college is supposed to be or how they're supposed to go about finding their fit, and it was just really hard for them because of all of the different perspectives and they want to feel more confident in being able to manage this process and take ownership over it. And again, we've we've. We've talked about this over and over again, but in.

In terms of finding the information they need, there are just a lot of holes and those holes really translate into them feeling like they don't have a ton of control over this process. An filling in some of those gaps upfront or going to help them feel more confident as they navigate through this throughout their high school career.

And of course, covid challenges, so we've touched on this throughout all this, but we just no ones ever seen a year like this before. We've never experienced this. These students are a pivotal moment in our in our college search, and Covid has totally thrown everyone for a loop so no campustours, they really were. Depending on that. We even talked through a whole spectrum of students like a student did defer their college.

You know experience. They're not going next year. They're going to try and defer to the following academic year, so they said if I'm not going in person, which is not going at all, it's just not the right time I'll take a gap year retaking SAT&ACT test. That was out the window. I can't retake it. I'm stuck with the score that I have. Are schools optional test optional? Like where is this information? So all the schools that they were interested in? Because these students in.

March, where had their schools that they were basically ready to go to. They had their finalists. They were completely thrown into this environment where they just. They didn't know what their next step was an they couldn't really figure out what the schools next steps were. So really connecting, I think the college with the student on covid updates became for score or something that we just could not stop focusing on it. Just let something so obvious the student was screaming. I need this information. I need these updates to make.

Probably the most important decision I've ever made in my life so far, so we didn't take that lightly. You know the test scores was something that I think will continue to see as a trend coming up over and over again, like how am I going to be assessed? I really want to know what you guys are going to look at if you don't have a test for if you have my old Test Score and then finding a campus that matches what I want from the campus and being able to go there physically. Huge challenge. Definitely not going away anytime soon so.

Those were the obvious ones that we've already sort of known, but hearing it directly from the student, it just had so much more weight when they described it. Instead of making the assumption, you know it's very important to them when they were describing, like sort of the process that they were going through, it was just it was total chaos, as as this year has been for a lot of people. So very understandable.

Absolutely at N. One other thing that I just want to echo that came from a couple of conversations outside of this research is we've been hearing from a lot of different students in other avenues that one of the big questions they have because of Kovit is should they write their college essay about COVID-19 and they're starting to feel like some feel like they should. Some people feel or students feel like they should. And and it's also creating another sense of well.

What and how should I write about this? And it was really interesting to hear some of that feedback and the advice that we have been giving and the advice that one of our strategic partners whose content contributor for us also noted is, you know, if it's just a summary of what's going on. It's not going to be the best thing, but I think a lot of schools can anticipate to see, as says around that, and I think it's also creating again another layer of complexity about you. Know how they should position themselves like?

Even because of the current state and what they went through at the end of the last full year, so a lot of confusion, a lot of uncertainty, and I'm sure we'll continue to see that throughout this year as well.

The bit the last challenge and probably one of the biggest ones that we've been hearing over and over again, is the lack of personalized communication. So students are telling us that their inboxes are absolutely inundated from colleges. That they're just simply not interested in never have expressed interest, and they view these emails as spam, generic, or quote annoying. And it was really interesting to.

Look through and and hear how the students were speaking to this. You know, for example, the first one they point out. I appreciate that the emails are personalized beyond my name. They all say my name. If you know I'm interested in computer science, tell me about that. So they want to be able to go a level deeper in terms of what they're hearing about and what they're receiving from the different schools. They one of 'em also said they send you a million emails. I don't even look at them anymore, so there's just.

Marketing fatigue overall and I subscribe to emails from colleges I'm interested in, but I'm inundated with colleges I'm not interested in. So again, there's great concern that they are number one. You know, just again fatigue, but that they won't be able to find the information that they're looking for because it's like finding a needle in a haystack based on the level and the volume of communications that there currently receiving.

Yeah, I totally want to clarify too. It's not that they don't like email or don't want information through email, it's that they have gotten so many unsolicited emails that they can't even find the information they did one in the first place, so that.

Is a valuable channel that they wanted to interact with colleges with, but it was just flooded in their words flooded so they were laughing when they're describing this to us. Like their cracking up there like I can't wait to go to college and get a new email address so I don't have to look at these anymore. Like some colleges were emailing them 3 four times a day and it was sold out of their control. So just to paint the picture of the user experience that they're getting. It's not just one college that they're getting messages from.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and just to add on to number 5 for the social channels, we did hear some interesting stories. So for example, one of the students that we spoke with there was some sort of like a graffiti happening. Like I don't want to use the word scandal, but he used the word scandal so I'll say it and so he was actively looking for the colleges response to that sort of news item he had heard and read about it in other places and.

He wanted to see how the college was responding, so he was watching in different channels to try and see what their updates were. And so that's just another way for you to sort of represent yourself and another sort of magnifying glass of the student has the colleges under as there as they are exploring. What is the right fit for me? Because he was very interested in hearing what the college was going to do about it, how they were handling it, how they responded he was watching with a careful eye and he was looking in social for those updates and he was not fighting them there.

So just food for thought, some sort of interesting to see where the students are going for different information.

Yeah, thank you both for all that amazing information. I think right now more than ever in these times. It's really good to be brought it back up to speed with where students are and what their thought processes are about the college search process. And so yeah, thank you guys for doing the research. Bring it to us sharing, sharing it with us and.

We have a few questions and we do have some time so just a couple quick ones. The first one is just to confirm that the students that you were conducting this research with where specifically looking for undergraduate programs, is that correct?

Yeah.

OK, OK.

The other question is.

What sources do you trust to learn more about colleges so you know if you're if there are items out there that students are using on your website and Whatnot, you know what? What is it that you're using? Are you able to speak to that at all?

Well, let's start with the student. I think it was probably geared more towards, but the student? Yeah, Yep.

Yeah, yeah, So what? We saw the student sort of preferring as far as trusted information goes, was really the college website that was the place to go explore do deep dives. That was the source of truth for tuition information. All of the above. I think the issue at hand was.

Sure.

They love the idea of like all in one place and there is no all in one place, so they'll have to go a lot of the Times to search engines and again in that first slide, two family members. Those are the trusted sources. Really. Those first hand accounts are what they are sort of looking for. An then other tools as well. Obviously we're score were college search platform. We have tons of college information in our platform, so we were a topic at hand in that conversation as well.

Sure, yeah, great. Well, those are the only two questions. I don't know if there are any other thoughts that you guys have or.

Anything else otherwise.

I think that concludes today's web and R again. Thank you both for joining us and for the fantastic information. And for those watching, we do have one more in our dive deep web and R series and that is going to be on September 3rd so stay tuned and lookout for the information for the registration for that.

And again, thank you Julie and Ashley and I hope everyone has a great afternoon.

Of course.

Ask Sarah.

You're welcome. Bye bye.