It is rankings season, and in typical fashion, those using a mix of variables to build an algorithm to compile an ordered list of colleges offer a popular way for students and families to evaluate and narrow their overwhelming choices. Following closely on the heels of these listings are press releases from colleges extolling the virtues of categories they excel in or moved up in, followed closely by articles bashing the rankings. Enter the recently released report from researchers at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education-A "Fit" Over Rankings, Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity. Finally, a research project substantiating what we counselors have known for years is getting the press it deserves as NACAC, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and others summarized the key findings for us to pass along to families.
What really caught my eye was the first paragraph of the Executive Summary:
“Based on the Challenge Success survey data of more than 100,000 high school students across the country, we know that the college admissions process can often be a top source of stress and anxiety for students. While many schools, counselors, and parents encourage students to focus on finding the “right fit” college, this advice can be difficult to follow without a better understanding of what “fit” means and what matters most - both for learning and engagement in college - and for life outcomes beyond college.”
Rankings Are Flawed. What is the Alternative?
The missing link-the question discussed among our colleagues at conferences and in our meetings with students- is where do we start when trying to find the elusive “fit”? Our listservs are filled with requests from counselors who need ways to convince families to look beyond the rankings, and this may be it. Let's face it. With rising costs and competition, families are desperate to latch onto anything that helps them find a great fit for their child and will search for what's available like income upon graduation, media rankings, and sticker prices, none providing meaningful data for list-building when it comes to student success. When families come armed with rankings as a way to find a good fit, we finally have a substantive report providing counselors with something to point to, but what we really need is tools to make “fit” a reality.
“We know that students are often advised to find the ‘right fit' college, but in our experience, students don't necessarily know what that means or how to follow that advice.”
There are probably few words that are used more in the college admissions world than “fit.” But the point they bring up is a good one-what does that mean, and where do you start to find a fit? When I originally designed my laminated set of college attribute cards over 15 years ago, I was looking for a way to let students reveal their more emotional preferences and have them explore many more aspects of college that they had never considered, yet were key to their success.
I am thrilled that the Stanford paper substantiates what we see every day. We have all worked with students who come in with preconceived notions of which colleges will work for them-a parent attended, they won the NCAA championships, they are far from home, and on and on. It is always a puzzle-how do you start to understand where this student will thrive? We need more ways to find out what makes a student successful, and colleges need to do more to engage them once they arrive.
“A good ‘fit' is a college where a student will be engaged-in class and out-by what the college has to offer.”
I love this! We all see this with students who return to visit and tell us about their experiences and how they made the most of what the college had to offer. But in order to do that, they need to be in a place that “fits,” a place where their deeper preferences for things like a strong sense of community, access to professors, and doing better academically by being pushed by their peers, for example, will be a reality. Having the luxury to work one on one with students is fine, but we need to bring this way of thinking to students and counselors everywhere to help them quickly discover what matters most, so that they will find places where they will thrive and graduate.
It's interesting that at the annual NACAC conference there are always rankings-bashing presentations, yet after all of these years of attending these conferences, I don't notice that much has changed. We hear about engaging the whole student and reaching them at a more emotional level, as we know that's how they find success. We ask our students-what do you want as you move through the next few years and decide what your post-secondary world looks like?
Move Beyond Simple Search Criteria
As I was building Corsava into a platform for counselors and students, I did considerable research on ways to help students find success. And I see it firsthand year after year in my counseling-it's an exploration of these deeper, more emotional preferences that allows students to connect with places where they will be successful.
The Colleges That Change Lives consortium has done a wonderful job of providing families with valuable insight into its group of 45 colleges, all of which can point to success engaging students with strong faculty support and other attributes beyond the standard ranking criteria. But these are just a few, and more needs to be done to expand these types of evaluations of colleges. The National Survey of Student Engagementhas tried to do the same on a larger scale, but it requires that colleges report the information, and most families don't weed through this data.
This whole dilemma is what got me thinking about how to attain the collective knowledge of counselors everywhere to collaborate and share their own impressions of colleges using quantifiable tools that tie back to student preferences. Many counselors send the majority of their students to the same colleges, and subsequently year after year counselors get feedback and build their knowledge of these schools. But what about looking further? How can counselors begin to learn everything about colleges they are unfamiliar with but that might be a great fit for their students? And unless counselors have the luxury of time with individual students, trying to find that fit based on limited criteria can be out of reach. So where do we turn; how can we take this information to the next level? My goal in building Corsava has always been to reach as many students as possible, regardless of the level of counseling support they have, and help them think about what matters most to them and find a great fit.
Measuring What Matters
“We encourage students and families to look beyond rankings in the college search process, and instead to seek a school where students can participate fully in academic, civic, and social life in order to thrive both during the college years and beyond.”
We need to measure more than just binary attributes of colleges like size, availability of majors, distance from home, and score ranges.
Why not have counselors evaluate things that matter to student success, things they know well that could help students find schools they had never considered? Quantifying subjective measures is challenging, but without some sort of measurement of those attributes that students can connect with, that can help them succeed, we are back at square one. We need to measure and share those characteristics about colleges that will lead to success. More subjective, yes, but like a restaurant review, not everyone will agree. Yet the more who chime in, the more you will see patterns, and the leaders in individual characteristics will rise to the top.
By providing counselors with an easy way to give real-time feedback after a college visit or meeting, while also letting them share these resources with one another, impressions will accumulate and students will be able to build college lists based on these more subjective criteria. As students visit colleges and provide their impressions, more information is being compiled to help everyone get a clearer understanding of how colleges differ.
Colleges are often building their brands based on market research and enrollment tools to help them find students who are a better fit. Yet don't we often hear from our students that they visit colleges and everything just sounds the same-internships, study abroad opportunities, workout facilities, and more? My goal with Corsava is to give students a way to understand themselves first, by exploring things they had never considered in a college experience but are key to their success. And once they understand what they need, the next step is to provide recommendations on which colleges will meet these needs. Counselors doing research for their students will have these tools to explore things that they know will make their students more successful, not just the standard search tools built with repackaged IPEDS data.
I started Corsava because I knew students needed a way to measure what matters to them, no matter how much support they had. As we get ready to launch a dashboard for counselors, including tools for those with Café access to get recommendations based on card results, I cannot help but circle back to this compelling report. Counselors are the salesforce for colleges, and their knowledge can help students and counselors everywhere understand the finer points beyond the rankings. We need to think outside of the box when it comes to helping students find colleges that match their deeper preferences. And unless counselors can collaborate and share their knowledge, we will continue to fight the rankings battle year after year without coming up with a solution. That is what the Café is for, giving counselors the opportunity to evaluate things students care about, things they know mean success for students, like learning support, campus culture, and everything from a collaborative environment to a strong sense of community.
“Rather than choosing a school based primarily on a flawed scoring system, students should ask whether they will be engaged at the college in ways that will allow them to form strong relationships with professors and mentors, apply their learning via internships and long-term projects, and find a sense of community.
There are over 4,500 accredited degree-granting colleges in the United States, allowing students a wide variety of choices for their education. Attempting to disentangle the different variables, inputs, and outcomes is not easy, and though this paper summarizes several high-quality studies that attempt to account for a number of variables-including some difficult-to-measure characteristics of individual students-more research needs to be done to help students and families make wise college choices.”
It is these difficult-to-measure characteristics of students matched with individual colleges that Corsava is taking to the next level. As we continue to develop tools to provide recommendations to students after they explore their preferences, we stay laser-focused on helping students and counselors everywhere, regardless of their resources, to more quickly and effectively think about what's going to help them find a great fit.