As we approach the end of 2018, reflection comes naturally as we think about all that the past year has brought. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to a break from the hectic life of college admissions and all the accompanying stress it brings to our families. While our students race towards the finish line, we can take a breather as we reflect on how we supported our students in their goals, how we can make it even better, or in many cases, how we can avoid the subject entirely!
At Corsava, we are planning for a great year ahead with lots of fresh new ideas and tools to further improve your work with students. But I want to sideline any discussion of features, tools, and plans for now. I know I would much rather read a story this time of year, something that inspires and gives meaning and purpose to what I love to do.
Over the last week, I decided to reach out to some counselors around the US and hear their stories about how Corsava fit into their workflow and subsequently impacted their college process. Adding new tools to our tool kits takes research and trust before we feel ready to share them with our students, but these innovative counselors took the leap and reaped the benefits. It was an inspiring and gratifying way for me to wrap up the year, and I want to share just a few of their stories with you now. Talking to these wonderful counselors was so much fun that I have decided that this will be the first in a series of counselor stories.
Emily Colman-Irvington High School
Emily Colman, the guidance chairperson at Irvington High School, a public high school in Westchester County, NY, was an early adopter of Corsava Cloud with her group of over 130 students. January is a busy time in New York schools with Regents Exams as well as college-planning kicking into high gear for juniors. It was fun to hear about the “Junior Jeopardy” game that Emily and her team create to help students build a college vocabulary around topics like Early Action and Early Decision. The game includes many of the things students need to know with regard to planning throughout the college process, presented in a fun way. It was encouraging to hear that after using Corsava last year, she decided to include some of the cards that brought up more conversations and questions to her game-things like Co-op programs.
Corsava allows her to start the conversation, as it triggers discussions of things students may never have considered. Last year, she had her students do the card sort on their phones or laptops in the gym, a very collegial process that ended in everyone getting a printed report, which Emily finds very helpful because of the color-coded categories. Emily has decided to give her students more context this time around, as she has seen the positive impact of having them select their preferences and will stress how helpful it will be for them. As her students all gather to get ready for their upcoming individual post-secondary meetings, she holds a “Junior Jump-Off” where all of her students do the card sort together.
It's fun to learn how different counselors choose specific cards and design their decks. Emily doesn't use the majors much. This is in response to what we all know-the rate at which students change majors from their original intent is over 80%. While the majors give me a good feel for what the student prefers (are they a STEM kid, or do they prefer the humanities), I see just what Emily means. Cards like Collaborative Environment and the Campus Culture cards tell us a lot more about our students and open deeper discussions about things they may never have thought about, but things that are central to their success and happiness in their post-secondary lives.
What I found very encouraging was that even students who were not into the card sort during the process came to her meetings a lot more prepared and less intimidated. The reports facilitated great conversations with her students and their parents who often said things like, ”I am surprised, I didn't know this mattered to you.” I find the same thing almost every day when I work with my students one on one, so I am really glad to hear that the impact can be the same on a much larger scale. Emily's comment that “Corsava really allows us to have a better conversation” made my day.
Susan Chiarolanzio-Flint Hill School
Susan Chiarolanzio is Director of College Counseling at Flint Hill School, a K-12 independent school in Oakton, Virginia. She was looking for different ways to engage her students and came across Corsava on a listserv discussion. Their team of four counselors originally thought they would be using the hard-copy cards, as they enrich their curriculum with the Apple Distinguished 1:1 technology program and wanted to use a tool that didn't include screen time. It actually turned out that it was more efficient to use Corava Cloud, which they did last year with their juniors. This seems to be a common theme in my calls. Trying to input results manually with back-to-back student meetings is just not possible, so having a report created automatically after an online card sort is the preferred option.
Susan printed each of her student's reports from her account and went over them with families during their college meetings. That process was very interesting. Parents often mentioned how surprised they were that their child wanted certain things in a college. It was the perfect conversation launching-off point-a common theme.
It was interesting to hear Susan say that Corsava includes so many things that students would never think of during her conversations with them and that it used to take four hours to get clarity on what students wanted. Now she gets this valuable information right after a card sort and can direct her conversation so that the whole process is not quite so overwhelming and students are engaged right from the start.
Like Emily, Susan used Corsava again with her students in October and, based on her previous experience, prefaced the process with more details on how it would be used. Susan uses Google Classroom to send out the link to all of her students to get them on-boarded. Students are given dedicated time at school to complete their preference selections using Corsava so that everyone will get it done and not have to use their free time-helping make sure it happens for everyone. The good news is that students understand how to set it up and complete it without extra input on her part-the process is intuitive, and the definitions help students understand what each college characteristic is all about. This made my day again!
Debbie Cogan-Bishop Kelley High School
Debbie Cogan is a counselor at Bishop Kelley High School, a Catholic school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Debbie first used Corsava hard-copy cards after hearing about them at a conference. As she pulled the two decks out of her desk, families were often surprised to see how many there were, reminding everyone that there are a lot of things beyond the standard characteristics like size and location to consider when building a college list.
She particularly likes having the campus culture come into her discussions, as this can be a great way to help students find places that they might never have considered, while also giving context to colleges they should think about taking off their lists. Having the cards ordered by categories allows her students to dig deeper and focus on things that will have an impact on their college experience like student resources, educational and campus culture, and residential life, adding depth to that same discussion.
Debbie soon realized that it would be a lot more efficient to have her students move to the cloud version of Corsava, so she asked one of her students to test out the process and see what she thought-how long would it take, what did the emailed invitation look like, and how did the automatically generated report figure into her meetings with students? It was the process of going through the report with the student that convinced her to move to Corsava Cloud for all of her students.
Debbie sends out a series of bulletins to her students to help break the college process into clear steps. The first of her bulletins includes her custom link to Corsava but, more importantly, a blurb about how the game will help her students start thinking about what's important to them as they begin selecting colleges. The link automatically sends her students to a page to create their account and start the game to select their preferences for college. Each student's account is tied directly to Debbie's so that she can view their reports in future meetings. After using it for the past year, Debbie designed custom instructions on how to go about using Corsava and why it was important. For those who would like to see a sample letter for counselors sending out the link to their students, we created one here.
Thank you all for providing such great feedback! Look for more stories soon. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to chat about how you use Corsava and have your school highlighted.
Wrapping up 2018
Around the corner, juniors are beginning to build their lists and think about their life after high school. I hope these stories have inspired you to think about new ways to engage your students. I know they mean a great deal to me. Having a positive impact on my students and helping others do the same is what my vision for Corsava has always been, and seeing it become a reality is even better.
Enjoy your holidays! Anne