[00:00:00] Wonderful. Alright, well welcome everyone to college Admissions and MEFA Pathway as part of the MEFA Institute series, uh, for school counselors and educators. Um, my name is Andrea Keenan. I’m manager of K 12 Services here at MEFA. I’m also a former, um, high school counselor, so I definitely, uh, come from this world and know of this world.

So, uh, feel free to, uh, as always, um. Use the q and a feature. Um, the chat feature is disabled today for this webinar, so if you wanna communicate with me and ask questions, like I mentioned, I have experience in this field and, um, happy to answer from that perspective or also of course from my MEFA perspective.

Um, so if you have a question during the webinar, please type it in the q and a section, even just a comment. Um, that is how we can communicate with one another. Today, if you wanna use the live transcript feature, you can, if you wanna see [00:01:00] the closed captions, and of course as, um, many Zoom webinars, if you wanna control volume levels.

Um, you have your audio settings on the left. And then of course, if you wanna leave the webinar. You can click the, the red button. Um, so please, I welcome questions throughout, um, and I may not, um, answer them right away, but I’ll, I’ll be monitoring the chat throughout, so if there’s a natural stopping point for me to answer the question, I will, I won’t hold them till the end.

So thanks in advance for, for, uh, asking questions. Um, many of you know MEFA by now. Um, but in case you don’t, we are a state authority. We were created by Massachusetts the Commonwealth, kind of in its official capacity in 1982. So mi a’s been around for quite a while. The mission’s always been the same to help families play and save and pay for college.

We’re so glad you’re here. All of our resources for school counselors and educators are free. Um, so we we’re always, um, so excited to see such a [00:02:00] good turnout for our webinars and our content. Um, so a little bit about MEFA Pathway. Um, MEFA Pathway is part of the MEFA umbrella. Um, we, MEFA Pathway was created, gosh, about a decade ago, um, at the request of, um, the state of Massachusetts.

Um, MEFA Pathway is a free college and career planning tool. Um, you might hear me refer to it as a CCR platform, college and Career Readiness platform. There’s so many out there right now. They’re all really great for different reasons. Um, this is, um, our entry into the field and we are completely free and we will always remain completely free for high schools, um, across the Commonwealth to become affiliates.

So the resources in MEFA Pathway are very comprehensive. Um, it includes. Skills, values and interest assessments, career, a whole suite of career [00:03:00] exploration, including a very robust, uh, career database powered by O net. Um, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh, data constantly being updated there. Um, that’s personally my favorite feature of the platform is just how robust the career exploration pieces are.

We are here to talk about college admissions, but I wanted to highlight that, um, me A Pathway does a great job of connecting, uh, college admissions, the career search as well. Uh, students can create a secure personal portfolio also on me, a pathway as well as, um, be able to upload artifacts into a, um, secure, uh, document library.

So that’s nice as well for schools that are doing my cap, um, initiatives in Massachusetts. Then for why we’re here today is our college search feature and our financial aid and scholarship information. So we have a full suite of college search, the, um, college search feature, college compare. We’ll talk about those today.

And I really wanna highlight, [00:04:00] um, part of the benefit of being under the MEFA umbrella is the very robust financial aid and scholarship information. Um, we even have a mass transfer page on there. Um, we have an SAI calculator that’s really an industry standard calculator embedded into the financial aid tab.

We have, um, a loan cost estimator, um, a financial aid comparison sheet. And so it really is kind of a, um, a one-stop shop for, for all your, um, your needs there. Um, so feel free to visit MEFA pathway.org. Get started. You can always request a demo and someone from our team will reach out. So today we’re gonna co cover just the general, um, admissions, um, college search, uh, topics that, um, we, we always cover in these webinars, but we’re gonna overlay MEFA pathway on top of it.

So we’re gonna talk about current trends, um, best practices for helping students create their college lists, campus visits, the application [00:05:00] process. Um, we’re gonna touch briefly upon financial aid and some free resources. Again, kind of overlaying mefa pathway throughout. Um, just to kind of set a baseline for us, um, there are some very salient trends happening right now in college admissions.

Um, so based on the, you know, your community and your school, um, you might see some of these trends pop up more than others. Um, but the first trend that we’ve noticed here at MEFA is that students are indeed applying to a greater number of schools. Um, and this has been happening for a little while. You know, if, if you remember to your own days or my own days of applying to college, this was maybe about 20 years ago, um, the best practice was to apply to a handful of colleges.

And now we’re seeing students apply to 10, 15, even 20 institutions. That’s a trend, um, that is probably here to stay [00:06:00] because of the, um, increase also in different admissions plans. We’re seeing a lot of colleges add, um, not only early action, but early action. Two, um, regular decision one, regular decision, decision two.

So there’s more opportunities and entry points for students, and that we believe is contributing to the elevated number of schools that students are applying to. Uh, as you know from your work, students start to think about college admissions now much earlier than senior year. Um, not even as early as junior year, but starting in ninth and 10th grade and thinking about those courses and thinking about how they can plan out their high school years in service of their post-secondary plan.

Not all, but many families are involved in that and I think using a CCR platform such as Mefa Pathway or whatever CCR platform you might be using really allows younger. Grades and younger students to start getting, um, involved and really planting the seeds of [00:07:00] what their path might be down the line. So we’re not waiting until junior year to expose students to career searches and post-secondary programs related to those careers, but really the CCR platforms are enabling you educators to be able to do this work much, much earlier.

Um, if I hadn’t said this already, NEFA Pathway as a CCR platform begins its programming in, um, sixth grade. So it is a middle school CCR platform that builds into high school. Um, and that’s really important too because even though you might not be talking to middle schoolers in your districts about. Um, you know, college applications, you are still planting the seeds of career exploration, post-secondary awareness and matching their interest to those plans.

And so it’s really, um, nice to see so many CCR platforms on the market now, really enabling educators to, um, to hop onto this trend. Um, we are, according to nacac, [00:08:00] um, most counselors now recommend applying to between six and eight schools, but way more if the list is comprised of highly selective or competitive schools, especially if, um, the student is interested in selective major.

Um, so that’s interesting, but as a result, schools are having a more difficult time making admissions decisions. And so it does make, um, uh. It makes, um, interest that the student is, um, uh, sharing and indicating that they have in the school much more important. Um, so many schools make note of every communication that a student has with the school, whether it be an email, a school visit, college fair, even a phone call.

Um, and this is why colleges, especially after the acute sort of phase of COVID, um, have made. Strides in offering way more ways that students can connect with the colleges virtually. [00:09:00] And so now demonstrated interest is not solely based on a campus visit or a campus tour, but really every single virtual interaction that the student has.

And not every college takes demonstrated interest into consideration, but many do, or many consider it at least a factor. Um, I’ve heard from some admissions colleagues, um, on the other side of the desk that sometimes demonstrate interest isn’t a factor in the main, uh, application review, but might be, uh, deciding factor.

If they take those applications to committee and they’re trying to decide between two or three applicants, they might then pop in to see, well, which of these two, three applicants that we’re really trying to decide between showed the most interest in our school? Because that might mean that they might yield that student.

Ultimately these colleges wanna yield students, um, not only for their bottom line, but because they truly want the students to arrive on their campus if they selected them as, um, an admitted student. So [00:10:00] that’s all kind of, um, a tangled web of, of the ecosystem that we’re seeing as a trend. Social media plays a role here, um, and that’s, that’s, you know, we’ve all noticed that, um, in the last 5, 10, 15 years, um, colleges enrollment systems are becoming a little bit more sophisticated.

They can see, um, they can see much more into, um, the students than than ever before. Um, so colleges are looking for students to be informed when showing their.

We do, um, know that data from NACAC shows that 16.9% of four year colleges say they view demonstrated interest as having considerable importance in admissions. Another 33.3% see it as having moderate importance. Um, that is just wanna echo, this is far below the emphasis placed on grades and, and the actual application, [00:11:00] but well above factors such as an interview or even work experience.

Um, so just wanted to kind of plant those seeds, um, in, in your head. Um, we also wanna mention a little bit about, um. You know, setting up or encouraging students to set up maybe a joint family email or an email just for the college process. Um, especially if you have families that are a little bit more hands-on, this is a nice way for them to be involved.

Um, but still put the onus a lot on students. Um. I touched upon social media a tiny bit, but we do know that 97% of schools using social media in their online recruitment efforts, um, are, you know, very invested in that strategy. This is, again, according to some NACAC data. Um, and so many schools use social media to remind students of deadlines and information sessions.

And though schools may not check Facebook, Twitter, or, you know, for every, or not [00:12:00] Twitter, sorry, the, the new one, uh, for every applicant, the students’ social media presence who are finding, um, as well as how the students represent themselves over the phone, email can be considered a Kaplan poll. This is interesting reported that 29% of admissions officers do check social media posts of applicants, um, but a tiny.

Percentage, check them regularly. So 2% for about public, for public colleges, and 13% for private schools. This is coming from inside higher ed, so a tiny amount of colleges do check social media more frequently. It’s still a good idea to, um, be connecting with students and, and kind of sharing this as you’re kicking off your process.

Great. Um, so let’s just talk a little bit about organization. So before we, uh, pop into MEFA Pathway and, and start talking a little bit about MEFA Pathway as a um, CR platform, we do also have a lighter touch, [00:13:00] uh, college application manager on MEFA.org. Um, this is for students that might need something printed out, might need something just a little bit more basic, even just as a conversation starter between you and your students.

So be, you know, not necessarily needing to stay on that platform, online platform the whole time. But some, some students maybe during a family meeting or something might need just something really simple to try to get everything down on one, uh, one spot. So, um, certainly I know you’re encouraging your students to keep us.

Uh. To keep track of applications, and many of you are doing that with your platforms or with MEFA Pathway. Again, just wanted to share this additional resource, uh, on MEFA.org. Um, this is free to, you know, free open access, um, slash college application manager. And again, like a light touch graphic that you might use in certain scenarios.

Um, if you need to. Uh, let’s get into researching colleges. And again, you all are, um, [00:14:00] professionals in this field. You use different methods, of course. Um, we, we wanna highlight, um, some of our favorites. Um, we really are enjoying when we do our own counseling here at MEFA with families. We always bring in the financial literacy side of things to make sure that their lists are balanced, not only for admissions criteria, but also for financial aid criteria.

And so really wanna call out the college scorecard, um, on college scorecard.ed.gov. If this is not a resource you’ve already been using, I highly suggest that you bookmark this. Um, and just, again, it might not be something that you use every single student, every single time, um, but for certain students, especially if, if they’re, um, more financial.

Financially minded, a little worried about finances. This is a great way also to do some tie breaking with, with a college list. So say you’ve, um, suggested colleges to a junior or senior and they’re coming back with, I don’t think about, I don’t think I [00:15:00] want this one, I don’t think I want this one. Maybe guiding them through a search together and saying, well, let’s really dive in here and see what, um, the alumni salary averages are for the institutions that you really like.

Um, you know, what’s the average net price? What’s the average student debt and the graduation rate? I personally really, uh, used to love highlighting when I was a counselor, the alumni salary, um, from the, you know, the data that colleges report is pretty accurate with this. And College Scorecard does a nice job of showing that, um.

Showing the median earnings, uh, for alums, and they do so in a nice sort of interface. So, um, don’t wanna berate that point, but it is a great, uh, resource. You might al already be using your own CCR platform, college Navigator. Of course. College board is a classic. We also wanna highlight mefa pathway.org.

We do have a college search, um, that is powered by the Peterson’s College database. Um, which as you, if you know, [00:16:00] Peterson’s does a nice job with their selectivity ratings especially. That’s definitely a strong suit of Peterson’s database. And so that’s what MEFA Pathway uses, um, to, to populate our college search database.

And we do have a matching tool based on preferences. As students are going through the matching tool or the college college search, they can start to add, um, favorite colleges to their college list. And so you can see that screenshot on the right. Here. Um, great. And so of course as counselors you are considering college factors such as institution size, location, academic fit.

It’s obviously important to suggest schools that are more safety, um, sort of that middle ground reaches, um, that, that is unique to the student’s profile intended major or lack thereof. We we’re seeing another trend where a lot of students are wanting to go into, um, [00:17:00] a two or four year college experience as undecided.

Um, and another way that a CCR platform can help you kind of, uh, is a nice anecdote to that. If you think, well, the student, some students are truly undecided and can’t wait to get to campus to explore. Other students might be undecided because they haven’t done, uh, interest inventory or they haven’t quite had that.

Counseling yet, or those experiences to truly guide them and point them to different directions. And so that’s where CCR platform can be also a great tool at your disposal. Um, and we’ll talk about this, but MEFA Pathway has three interest assessments, um, or three career assessments, I I should say. Um, interests, values, and skills, and students can take those assessments.

Get results that will, um, feed them into different career opportunities and then therefore different college opportunities. And it’s nice, especially if you’re having a student that’s really undecided. Um, it’s nice [00:18:00] to, um, lean on those online platforms. Um, especially, you know, MEFA Pathway because our interest inventories are so clear cut and lead directly into, into those career and college searches.

Um, but certainly, um, the student’s learning style, the campus culture activities, um, some students really care about study abroad programs. I found that my students, um, when I was a counselor just wanted to know that those were available but weren’t actually pinpointing, you know, specific countries or anything that they wanted to, to travel to.

Though you might have students that are in that boat. Um, the career and internship services, I think often gets, um. I don’t wanna say ignored, but it’s not a factor that I think a lot of high school students put at the forefront of their college lists. Um, and that’s why I think of resources like the college, um, Navi, the Federal College Scorecard and navigator are really important because you’re seeing how many of your alums are getting [00:19:00] jobs after graduation?

What are their median earnings? Do do these high, um, sorry, do these colleges have, uh, co-ops or internships, especially if you’re in a high school that has work-based learning opportunities. Um, it might be a nice conversation to have with students about continuing that, you know, seeing the value of those, um, real world experiences and saying, well, not all colleges have super robust career programs or co-op programs.

So e encouraging students to also factor that in, especially as they’re doing college visits, I think is an underutilized tool that we really wanna advocate for counselors. Um. Really talking about, and then of course, affordability, which, um, you know, is often not a factor that students take into consideration, consideration initially, but certainly our job as counselors to, to plant those seeds early and often.

Another thing that I wanna, um, highlight, [00:20:00] um, is CCR platforms can be great at encouraging students to wanna visit a campus. Um. I know we are working to add this on in MEFA pathway, but, but really, and, and I know a lot of CCR platforms have that already, but the virtual tours, um, connected to the college database is really, are really important to plant those seeds for students and saying, oh, that, that campus looks kind of interesting.

Let me sign up for that visit. Um, so many of the CCR platforms, ours included link to a college admissions, um, website. And so students can very easily book visits, um, through sort of this college’s website, but via their platform. I really wanna, I mean, hopefully I’m not. Too much preaching to the choir here since you all are in this field, but really wanna encourage you all to, um, have students see the value of informal visits, especially for your first gen, uh, students.

[00:21:00] Um, some first gen students, especially, you know, if you’re in, in Massachusetts, we have a wealth of, of colleges in the state as you know, especially if you’re in the Boston area, maybe an urban district. Some students don’t realize they’re already doing informal visits. Um, maybe they’re just not, uh.

Connecting the dots for themselves. You know, if they’re taking the train to Harvard Square, if they’re taking the green line, they, they’ve already traversed at least three college campuses. And so really encouraging your, especially first gen students to activate prior knowledge and say, well, you’re already hanging out at this part of the city, or you’re already going, or maybe you’ve been to a sporting event.

Um, and helping them connect those dots and helping them see the value of those informal times and perhaps encouraging them, um, to continue to do that. So, um, I always say too, that informal visits is a really great way to get a sense of the culture, the setting, the size, just taking in the [00:22:00] vibes As a high schooler might say, just what is happening on campus?

Do I see myself here? Is this really busy? Do you not even see the campus? ’cause you’re in the middle of a city, you know, really helping them. Reflect on what they saw and what they experienced. I find that, um, as a former, as a first gen, uh, student and myself, um, sometimes parents don’t know, of course, that they can visit with students or parents don’t realize they can also be part of these informal visits and especially don’t realize that they can be part of formal visits.

So, as you know, the formal visits are something where a student would pre-register either for a tour, an info session, an open house, an orientation, um. So all of those, or, um, all of those visits of course count toward demonstrated interests and encouraging families to also do these with students. Um, again, using and leaning on your CCR platform as the entry point to booking these [00:23:00] visits, I find that sometimes through the platform is much easier than saying to a family, just Google the, the college name and go to the admission site.

Um, it’s nice to have everything kind of under one house in, in your platform. I’m just gonna take a quick, uh, view through the q and a. I don’t think we have anything yet. Um, okay. So I’ll just, I’ll keep going here. Um, just wanna give, um, you all, some tips to continue to share with your families around, uh, college fairs.

Um, there’s so many, uh, virtual college fairs now. There’s also, um. I should say there are also, um, so many opportunities for national and regional college fairs. Um, and, and I think that with the advent of more virtual tours and more online resources, um, it might seem that colleges are investing [00:24:00] and putting more, um, importance into those sort of one-on-one touchpoints with students via a one-on-one chat, a virtual visit, uh, on campus, visit, an interview, emails, calls, and that’s.

True. And we, we also keep hearing from many different college admissions offices that MEFA knows and partners with. Um, well partner in, you know, um, non-official capacity. But in just in, in our travels, we hear from so many college admissions professionals that their offices are still heavily investing in, in-person sort of quick touch events like RET visits at your high schools, but also college fairs.

Um, there are some schools that skilled back their college fair presence sort of, um, in obviously, you know, in between the years of like 20, 20, 20, 23, 24. But we are seeing so many colleges come [00:25:00] back to those quick high touch events. Um, the reason being is they can get the word out to students. They can, um, make their brand, their presence known.

Um. And students can, again, demonstrate on your side interest quite quickly and also hear about colleges that they may not have heard about otherwise. You know, if you’re doing a college search on a CCR platform, most students are entering variables and filtering, right? And then the platform is delivering to them a, a results page.

A college fair is a, is an open sort of search, right? And students are just kind of meandering and discovering new things. And so it, though it might seem like a thing of the past, it really is not. And so if your school doesn’t host fairs, um, I’ll often find that schools banning together and sending, say, a busload of students to other fairs, to a, um, another school’s fair, uh, to regional fairs is just [00:26:00] also a nice way to, um, build comradery, um, among your college applicants as well.

Um, also though, do want to encourage you all to do a little soothing and fact finding before sending students to college fairs and making sure that you can get your hands on that college list of attendees who’s gonna be there. Um, if you can even, um, map of, of the space and disseminate that out to your student attendees, um, to make sure that they know, um, who’s gonna be there and can have a sort of a plan of attack.

Um, many colleges that attend college fairs also, you know, send their reps but have the ability to schedule follow up one-on-one meetings with students. So though the college fair interaction might be very quick, many times those reps are available for follow ups, or as you counselors are also perusing the college fair, you can make new contacts [00:27:00] and encourage those new contacts to come visit your school, um, after the fact as a rep visit.

Um, or as a college visit, um, and certainly check out nak act fairs.org and the yak act.org for upcoming events. They do a great job of, um, having a listing of upcoming events.

Awesome. Um, no, no q and a yet. Okay. Um, I wanna really highlight, um, MEFA Pathways College Compare feature, um, MEFA Pathways College Compare feature. You can view up to five colleges for a side-by-side comparison. And what I really love about Mi A Pathways College compare feature is that we include a really robust financial aid info section.

Um, this financial aid info section is, um, up to date data that we’re putting into the database that’s really powered also, again, by me a’s larger, that larger paired umbrella [00:28:00] of MEFA. Um, and I find that some, some other CCR platforms don’t always do this, but some do also do it very well. It’s just really important for students to see those key admissions factors, but, and the academic info and test scores and all of that alongside the financial info.

Um, we do bring in the annual, uh, annual estimated total cost and the estimated total cost, um, for four years. It’s just a nice visual again, um, as you’re creating those lists for, for students with the likely possible and reaches for admission that we’re also considering those same categories for financial aid.

Um, so you can see what that, a screenshot of what that looks like, um, on MEFA pathway.org. Um, in this case, we also overlay the students’ preferences in terms of key factors. Um, so you can see what that looks like, um, for students. Um. It’s nice too because it [00:29:00] visually, um, shows the students the, the elements that might not be in alignment with their preferences.

So you can see the red boxes there. Um, for exam example, one of the students’ preferences in this example is a small town and you could see there’s uh, two schools that are red ’cause they’re urban. And then two schools that are also red ’cause it’s suburban. Again, some of you might coach students to not really hone in on, on these factors, but, um, it is a nice visual for students.

So wanna definitely highlight that feature in, in MEFA pathway. Um, for college application types, um, we do offer a common app parchment integration with MEFA pathway. And so not only do we offer the whole suite of college surge and financial aid tools, but uh, schools can also additionally, um, hop into our common app and parchment integration with that parchment.

Common app and parchment integration. We do also feed into, [00:30:00] in all these, uh, regular decision types as students are starting to actually apply prior to that, if your school doesn’t, um, sign on to our common app parchment integration. We also still obviously publicize all of the application deadlines for each school in our regular college search database powered by Peterson’s.

Um, and so of course don’t have to belabor this point with this audience. Um, you know, the, the college application types, again, we are seeing many more colleges really tap into the multiple early actions. Uh, early action one, early action two. Again, it can make for a little bit of a confusing landscape for students and that’s obviously where you come in as, um, those students trusted adults to try to, uh, sort.

Untangle what all this means for, for different, uh, schools and especially the strategy. We are also seeing a lot more students apply in the early rounds, and the data shows that there is for many colleges, a [00:31:00] very slight uptick in admissions, uh, acceptance rates, um, with the earlier rounds. This is something that I personally, as a practitioner used to be very passionate about, or am still very passionate about, for first gen low income students to try to get as many of them as possible as sending at least one or two early action, um, applications just to not only get them, um, on, in that college application sooner, um, but also, you know, to, to get them to reap those benefits of those slightly higher acceptance rates.

Um, so this is obviously a, a topic that we can probably have a whole other webinar on, um, but just wanted to highlight some of those, um, talking points there. All right, so college application forms. Um, many of you are familiar with the common application, common app.org. They’re sort of, um, if I dare say, the OG in this field.

Um, but we have [00:32:00] some great, great alternatives as well. The Universal College App, the coalition, and of course a lot of colleges still offering their, um, own college app, the college application on their website. The Common app was established in 1975. So when I say og, you know, that really is, um, it goes back a, a while.

Um, the common app now has about 900 member institutions, seven essay prompts with a word count of 650. Um. But we wanna note that schools that use the common app often do require, uh, the supplement. Um, so many colleges that are signing on to the Common app are also signing on to have, having their own, uh, slightly shorter, uh, supplemental, um, application within the common app for the Universal, uh, college app that was established in 2007 has nine member institutions currently so much [00:33:00] smaller, including Harvard and Wentworth.

So there are many colleges that have a, or allow their students to apply in different ways. And so there are some colleges that sign on to all of these online applications, um, with the thought that students might choose one right to, to actually do their college application on. Um, the coalition application, um, is great as well.

It pr the platform itself provides sort of a single centralized toolkit for, or, uh, students to organize, build, and refine their applications to different institutions. Uh, coalition currently has over 150 schools, um, that that sign on to it. Um, including in sort of the New England area. We have Bates, bu, Boden, Kolby, uh, holy Cross.

Harvard is one that comes up a lot in all, all of the Common app, universal and Coalition. Middlebury, um, new England University, Mount Holy Oak Smith, Tufts Yukon, [00:34:00] Yale, UNHU, um, u Vermont. And so certainly Coalition has a, a fair amount of New England representation. WI mentioned, um, many of you are using a CCR platform.

NEFA Pathway does have integrations with common application and Parchment. And so, um, for the other schools that use the different apps, if they’re also using Parchment as their post office, they, uh, students can do that through me a Pathway. So again, me A Pathway has that baseline, um, suite of services and then that add-on integration with Common App and Parchment.

Um, currently we have about, uh, not about, I’m sure we have 23. Um. Schools that have signed onto the ME I a Pathway Common app and parchment integration, that’s actually doubled from last year. So that’s a feature that’s, um, that this is now in its fourth year, um, as part of MEFA Pathways, um, suite of [00:35:00] offerings.

And every year that we’ve had this Common App Parchment integration, our number of schools have doubled. So we are hopefully gonna be doubling that for next year as well. So if you’re interested in learning more, again, please reach out, request a demo, and we’re happy to show you what that Pomade parchment integration looks like.

Um, for, for MEFA Pathway. Um, and so for. For college application components. Um, don’t wanna belabor this point either, but just wanna really, um, highlight that many of our counseling programs really do you all provide so much support for students when it comes to applications. And that includes the application form, making sure the transcript request forms are available to students that want those transcripts sent.

Um, in many cases you are also helping students or connecting them to standardized testing resources, or some of you even still offering [00:36:00] standardized test prep in your school though. We’ll talk about, um, standardized test testing. But, you know, with test optional, um, institutions, this might, for many schools be becoming less a of a priority.

But many of the Ivys are, all the Ivys, as you know, um, have gone back to requiring, uh, sized tests. So this, this is still, um. An area that I think a lot of your offices are still prioritizing. Um, making sure that you’re setting up your letter of recommendation, uh, request process with your, with your teachers and with your students.

This is a lot. Um, an activity list or resume, making sure students have been crafting that all throughout high school so that they’re ready to, you know, fill out, say the common app activities list. But then there are also students that need additional prep with a music audition or an art portfolio. And then some schools, especially the more selective ones, still [00:37:00] offer optional interviews.

So that might mean additional prep for, for you all. So it’s really important that you are establishing clear communication with your students around all of this. This is so much work that you all do. Um. And so some ways that a CCR platform can help with that is sending students pings messages through the platform.

Sometimes those message messages can be read sooner than say, an email to students. So figuring out the way that you can disseminate information about all these different pieces and and layers of the application process is super important. As well as making sure that you’re highlighting academic readiness.

Um, in MEFA pathway, we do have a course planner feature, so you can set, you know, import your courses and have, say your ninth graders plan out their four years of courses for high school and really highlighting the importance of rigor, good grades. But really, and I [00:38:00] really wanna, um, kind of underscore this.

It’s not just about good grades, but it’s about improvement over time. If you don’t already use this phrase with your students, highly encourage you to start doing that. Now, many of you already do. We hear from college admissions reps all the time. All the time that. It’s about improvement over time. And so if you’re not already doing this, checking your students’ yearly GPAs, what was their yearly GPA for ninth grade?

What was their yearly GPA for 10th grade? What is their yearly for 11th grade? And if you can see that upward trend, making sure that you’re highlighting that for your students, um, a student might feel down in the dumps because they’re still getting beads in senior year and, and maybe they might not think they can go to that, you know, um, selective college.

But when you’re pulling them. For one-on-ones, [00:39:00] making sure that you’re highlighting that yearly improvement over time. It really, um, is so, so important. And again, when Stu when colleges are taking students to committee, um, when they’re trying to get down to deciding those last few spots, and maybe they’re deciding between a few students, yes, some of them are going to demonstrate interest, but many of them are also going to the kind of the fine details in between sort of reading between the lines and saying, all right, well this student has all a’s senior year.

This student has two a minus senior year, but check out the student’s improvement over time. And sometimes that can be a little bit of a tiebreaker for colleges. Um, again, just um, kind of relaying what we hear. Of course, you know about exceeding minimum requirements, uh, courses that show relevance to college plans, um, and of course the citing scale for Massachusetts public colleges and universities.

So all of [00:40:00] this, um, pieces of this can be done through a CCR platform, but through your, um, your individual counseling as well. So, CCR platforms often don’t include their own college test prep embedded within the platforms, um, but they do record the student’s test score, so you have access to that at your fingertips.

If you’ve done that data, upload into your CCR platform. I do wanna encourage you to, if you’re not already monitoring fair test.org, it does provide, I think, the most comprehensive list of all test optional schools, um, colleges in the US and really also sharing, um, up to date information about the trends, advocacy, what that organization’s hearing might be coming down the pike.

Um, so definitely a really good resource to be monitoring, especially if you have students that, um, are having a difficult time prepping for these standardized [00:41:00] tests. Um, what you’ll hear often, and I’m sure you all know and repeat this to students, is that, um, for test optional schools, send it. Send your scores, um, if you’re within the range and they can only help you.

Um, and so really coaching your students to either send or don’t send, I know is an extra strand of work. Um, and it’s an important one too, because if you do have students that have done well and right there on the line, it, it really can only help them to submit their scores. Um, what we’re seeing a two in Massachusetts is also a slight shift into more a CT territory.

We’re finding that a lot of schools are prep, are prepping students for the a CT in addition to the SAT or in lieu of the SAT. So that’s just an interesting noticing. Um, generally speaking, the difference between SAT and a CT has been more of a nationally regional one. So certain regions opt more for the A CT, whereas New England has traditionally opted [00:42:00] more for the SAT.

But us from our MEFA vantage point are seeing that switch a little bit some for some students styles and, and learning aptitudes. The A CT, um. Might align a little bit better with that, uh, because the a CT covers more subject areas in the SAT. So if you have a student that’s very strong in science, for example, perhaps, uh, having them look into the a CT might, might be, um, a practical solution to maybe some of those, to quell some of those, uh, testing nerves.

I wanna really highlight the activity list and resume. I know that for you all, some of you, uh, take the extra step of, um. Of reviewing your students’ common app or college application activities list. And we do know from colleges that they, they do review this list very carefully. It is very important to get, um, the word count right, to, to maximize those, those [00:43:00] number of words allowed in those, in that common app activity list to make sure that they pack a punch to make sure that the students are really representing themselves well.

You know, and, and really using the, that rich vocab to explain in very few words what they do in art club or what they do in animate club. It’s very important, um, to maximize those opportunities in the college applications. One way that I’ve seen some schools do this is that they start, um, engaging students in resume building earlier than senior year and even earlier than 11th grade.

So what we’re seeing a lot of high schools do now isn’t starting even as early as middle school, but really in ninth grade is starting to get students to build out that resume so that by the time they get to senior year, they’re not trying to rack their brains and saying, what did I do 10th grade? Or what did I do that summer?

Um, that they’ve already had a place to kind of start building out and recording all of the [00:44:00] great work and, um, activities and jobs and family responsibilities and everything that they’re doing, um, in and outside of school. And so a resume list, or sorry, a activity list or resume builder is a. Really important part of a CCR platform.

MEFA Pathway does have a My resume tool. Um, so student can start to populate their profile as early as whenever you start using the tool. And then those profile sections feed into a resume builder. Um, the resume builder, um. Students can create multiple resumes, different versions of their resume, and they’ll be downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF.

So what you’re seeing here, sort of that standard download as a Word doc, and then students can then start to, I don’t know if they wanna, um, edit it in their Google Docs or whatever and kind of make it their own style. Um, but I do find that MEFA Pathways Resume Builder is quite strong in that you, they can make different versions of their [00:45:00] resume.

Again, they can use these resumes for other purposes. Employer, employer, um, applications, um, volunteer applications, national Honors Society applications, but it is also a really nice reference point for those college applications. Um, essays. I just wanna, um, just sort of highlight the fact that, um, common App has released their essay prompts for next year.

Um, not much has changed. The essay prompts we’re making very familiar, very similar to what you all have, uh, seen, um, in past years. Um, and so the, you know, the earlier that you can start this with students, the better, um, MEFA Pathway does not have an essay component to it, so students can’t work on their essays in MEFA Pathway.

But as you know, most CCR r platforms don’t have that. And students work on their essays outside of the platform in a Google Doc or Word doc, or, [00:46:00] um, what have you. Um, the prompts are available now, um, so you can see them here

very similar to last year. Um, and of course, always wanna highlight the last, um, prompt, which is to share an essay on a topic of your choice. I think a lot of students do well with the predefined prompts, but for students that are having a hard time deciding or are between ideas, always encourage them to just write on any topic, of course, after having it reviewed by you.

Um, finally, letters of recommendation. Um, so for letters of recommendation, um, you all have your own processes. At my old school, we used to have our students request junior year teachers first and then everyone else. Um, so you all have your best practices for that. Um. And it’s really [00:47:00] important to make sure to predefine for students who they can ask who’s available and when.

Um, I find that some schools that, um, do this very well start planting the seeds with their students in junior year. Um, they might even have a set season of requesting and are very explicit about that and are also very explicit about, um, which teachers are available for students. Um, we hear a lot of best practices from a lot of different high schools, so if you ever wanna thought partner on any of these pieces, happy to chat more and kind of share what what we’ve heard works really well for other schools.

I will say that MEFA Pathway has, as part of our common app Parchment integration, a letter of recommendation request, uh, section for students to request their teacher letters or recommendation as part of their, um, their applications. Um, interviews. I often get a lot of, uh, questions about this, um, [00:48:00] just because of, um, our positionality.

We get to talk to a lot of different colleges and admissions offices. And I will say that, um. What I’m hearing from college admissions offices is that, is to encourage students, um, who already really kinda want to interview. So to not force students to interview because they think, or you think that the school wants it.

The school really wants students to interview if they truly want to and feel ready and would be, um, well positioned too. So if you have students that are super nervous about it, you know, with but with a little coaching could certainly represent themselves how they wanna represent themselves. By all means, encourage them to.

Um, but what we’re hearing, especially from the Ivy League schools, is that, um, they really just want students to do it if they really want to. And, and if they think that they could really shine in, in those moments, and, and by no means will their application be frowned upon if there’s no interview [00:49:00] attached to it.

So I always think that that messaging, while you may have already heard it, it’s just really important to, to mention. Um, because sometimes students, you know, see a lot of things on social media, on TikTok, you know, encouraging them to do this, and sometimes what they hear on social media might not totally be correct, and so they might feel that pressure, um, to interview when they really don’t need to.

But of course it can only help them. Um, most of you use your CCR platform to organize how students, um, and their admissions decisions. I think something that’s, um, that’s similar with MEFA Pathway as many of the CCR platforms is that many of these decisions are self-reported. So students can report from within the platform whether they’ve been admitted, deferred, denied, or waitlisted.

And then on your end, you can also edit those students’, um, statuses, um, on your end. So if you know that some students are going [00:50:00] in and editing this, that’s fine, but if you know some students are not and you know the results, you also on your end can, can go in and edit. This is really obviously important data for you all to know, um, for your, um.

You know, for your own pro program, for your counseling for future years, and then for some of you, for your platforms, um, all of this data will be aggregated into scattergrams. Um, currently MEFA Pathway is, um, we do have it on the docket to add a Scattergrams feature down the line, but we don’t currently have that right now.

If you use that in your counseling, certainly talk to us about it because it, there are some nice workarounds within the platform to still get you that visual of, of what students have done and haven’t done. In terms of admissions decisions, um, most colleges are still sending, um, you know, it’s 2026, believe it or not.

I’m sure you see this, um, decisions over, um, [00:51:00] postal mail. Um. But also email. Um, and, uh, recently it’s become quite the, um, the trend to send it through their online portal. Um, so you might see a mix of all three email, postal mail and online portal. And I know a lot of your students might be really, um, excited to get their own opportunity to open up their admissions decision on their portal.

Um, some colleges are getting very fancy and sending confetti, virtual confetti, um, but reminding your students that that May 1st deadline unless they’re, they’ve done early decision, of course. Um, we do have a question here. So, um, someone asked, is this any different than Naviance a CCR platform that our high school uses?

Um, thank you so much for that question. So MEFA Pathway is a CCR platform. And so it’s different in the look and feel of it. Um, and so if you would like to learn more, please, [00:52:00] um, at the end we have, um, links to how to request a demo of the platform. Um, I think what sets, uh, MEFA Pathway apart from different CCR platforms that are out there is that we’re completely free for our users.

Um, we were built by and for Massachusetts educators, um, and we will always continue to be free. Um, and so that’s, that’s often something that we love to say, um, is that if you want to have access to the platform, please request a demo. Um, and certainly we can show you around and and share what’s different, what’s similar from the current platform that you might be using right now.

Um, there is another question about, um, any suggestions on how to use my CAP with MEFA pathway? Yes. Um, and we actually have a webinar coming up on that, um, very in April. Um, it’s all about my cap and MEFA pathway. Um, we have someone from DESI joining that webinar and we also have, um, [00:53:00] a high school counselor that’s currently implementing my CAP with MEFA pathway on.

So really encouraging you to, um, at the end of these slides, we have a MEFA Institute, more resources. Check out that, um, and register for that webinar because that’s, that promises to be a great one too. Thank you for, thank you for your questions. Great. All right. Um, so just wanna highlight very quickly in the last few minutes that we have, um, college affordability, um, and certainly speaking to your families a little bit earlier and more often if you’re not already about the cost of attendance, financial aid applications, differences between need-based aid and merit-based aid.

Um, and all of these resources, especially private scholarships, they can all do within the MEFA Pathway platform. Um, and some, oh, let me go back, sorry. And something that I should mention too is that, um, the, through the MEFA Pathway platform, they can also identify for you [00:54:00] if they’ve filled out their fafsa.

Um, and so something that I think a lot of families and students and counselors really like when switching to MEFA Pathway, if, if that’s even at all in, in your plans, is, is that we do have that very robust financial aid, um, component as part of the CCR platform. Um, and so something else that we like to talk to, uh, families about through all of our MEFA webinars, and we have some great, great family webinars in our resource and MEFA.org, uh, resource hub that you can point your families to that will walk them through how to do net price calculators, how to actually understand the cost of attendance net price.

Um, and just so you all know, it is a mandate, a requirement that all colleges have a net price calculator on their website. It’s not mandated where it should live on their website, but it is a mandate that it [00:55:00] has to be on the website somewhere. And so you, and that’s for equity and parity. And so every single college should have one of these on their website.

Um, and we are working on MEFA Pathway to eventually link to many of these. And we already do link to many of these Snap price calculators within our college search database. Um, in terms of fafsa, um, and CSS profile and college speci specific financial aid applications, when you’re part of the MEFA family, you’re part of our suite of webinars and resources that we offer.

For all of this, and not only Nefa Institute, which you’re attending right now for counselors, but our family facing webinars, um, we have them in Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Um, and we do also have the financial aid, um, webinars in, um, Haitian Creole as well. So if you’re talking, um, to families about this, um, and you can of course invite MEFA ambassadors to [00:56:00] your schools, but if you’re wanting to connect with that family.

More one-on-one, linking resources, sharing webinars in their own language. You know, when you’re part of the MEFA family, which you all are, you have all that at your disposal and at your fingertips. And so we have webinars, like I said, in different languages for all of this. Um, especially with the fafsa, there’s been a lot of confusion in the last year or so about, um, you know, is it still super hard?

We heard a lot about the new fafsa. I’m here to tell you that the FAFSA simplification is finally reaping its rewards. It’s, it remains very easy for the vast majority of families. Course there are always gonna be some families that have very difficult situations, in which case it’s still gonna be a little bit of a time intensive process.

But for the most part, the FAFSA simplification has been, um, you know, has been finally sort of, uh, seeing those, those [00:57:00] benefits that it promised. Um, also wanna, um, highlight that in the CCR platform and Viva pathway. We do also have links to all of these Massachusetts specific resources because we are a Massachusetts platform.

Um, but if you’re not already sharing information with your families and students of about all this great, very rich, um, Massachusetts financial aid offerings, um, please do so. And we have some great one pagers also on MEFA.org that you can share with families, especially around the tuition equity and mafa.

Um, we do also have, um, webinars that, that go into that, um, these details here.

Sorry about that. I clicked on, uh, the link for some reason. Um, and I wanna highlight too, uh, as we’re talking about financial aid, that MEFA Pathway does have a very, very nice scholarship search feature. Um, both for national scholarships, but also for local [00:58:00] scholarships. And so, um, we, uh, source all of our scholarships, the national ones from the Peterson database.

So students when they’re in MEFA Pathway can search for scholarships based on different criteria and then can add scholarships to their list. So you also, on the backend can see what private scholarships students are applying to. Um, so students can build that list, keep track of each scholarship status, award amount and deadlines.

So that’s been a really popular feature for schools. And then through MEFA Pathway also, um, schools can add hyper-local scholarships to their own school specific database. So you can be managing your own small, uh, or large, um, local scholarship database within MEFA Pathway in addition to the national database that your students would already have access to.

So certainly keep asking questions about this. Keep requesting demos. ’cause I love to show this feature off, especially because, um. So many of [00:59:00] you do work with your families on FAFSA and SFA and CSS profile. Um, and sometimes the private scholarships sort of get, you know, for good reason. You should do all those things first and then focus on private scholarships.

But sometimes students aren’t sure exactly how to manage that process. So a CCR platform can certainly make it easier and MEFA Pathway has a really good offering here. Um, on MEFA path or MEFA.org, you can also download our, um, year, sort of year plans. Um, students can also, um, see their specific high school year plan, um, if they select what year they’re in.

Um, MEFA.org does a nice, um, job of scoping out what they can be doing each year that they’re in high school. Um, so these are all resources that you can take advantage of on MEFA.org as well. So right now, um, some one of you asked earlier about the My Cap and different webinars. So if you wanna scan the QR code, you can [01:00:00] register for upcoming MEFA Institute webinars.

Um, again, if you can’t make it, you’ll still get the resources at the end, but then, um, I mentioned so many of these resources for families as well. So please share out the MEFA resources with your families as part of your counseling. Um, to be clear, you don’t have to be a MEFA Pathway affiliate school to still have access to all of MEFA dot org’s resources.

Um, so anything that’s online, any video, any link, please share with your families. Um, it really is what, why we do what we do is to make sure that you all have up to date very accurate information about all of these topics that you can be, um, sharing with your families. So I’ll leave this up here for a few seconds.

Um, and meanwhile, I, there is a question in the q and a, I know we’re three minutes over time, but if, um, you can stay on, that would be awesome. Um, so I have a question here. Our school district is looking to integrate in a adopt to me [01:01:00] a pathway and move away from our current CCR platform. We already did a demo, but we’d definitely be interested in seeing a more in-depth demo of how MEFA Pathway integrates with Common App and Parchment.

Is there someone I should reach out directly? Especially for this? Yes. So, um, you as part of our team. We are the K 12 services team. And so each, we’re a small team, um, and each of us has sort of a caseload of schools that we help, um, onboard and manage and thought partner with and help. And so whoever reached out to you for your demo is sort of like your account manager if, if you will.

And so whoever that was, um, please reach back out to them and say, Hey, I wanna see this in detail. Um. Please, let’s, let’s book some time and I’m sure they will reach out to you, um, immediately. And we also have a recent MEFA Institute webinar that we did on this, [01:02:00] on this topic. So if you go to our MEFA Institute resource for counselors, um, and you search Common App Parchment, um, you will see that we did that webinar last week actually.

So it’s a one hour webinar where we go into that integration in detail. It’s webinar style, so it’s slides. So if you wanna watch that first and then whatever questions you have, ask to your account manager in that live demo, I think that would probably be the best course of action. That’s a great question.

Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for staying on an extra five minutes. Um, I do wanna just highlight, please follow us, do all the things on social media. Um, we are always kind of here to support you and help you. And if you have any very specific questions about any of these topics, um, we have our call line that’s staffed by us, the MEFA, um, college planning team.

And we also have our college [01:03:00] [email protected]. Um, email that again is staffed by one of us, so you’ll get, you can get in touch with us very easily with any follow up questions that you might have. Um, thank you all so much for joining. I hope this was helpful. Hope this planted a lot of different seeds.

And again, we’re happy to have you, uh, book demos of the MEFA Pathway Platform anytime. And then please continue to register for all of our webinars for you counselors, and then utilize our MEFA resources with your families. Um, thank you again, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks for coming.

Bye. Have a great day.