I will admit it; I was amped up and nervous, all wrapped up together. It was one thing to ask students I knew to test out the Corsava Cards and Reports, but it was another thing entirely standing up in front of 25 new students in a high school setting as they logged in to Corsava Cards and took the inaugural group spin on our beta version. Counselors around the country had thoroughly road-tested Corsava—critiquing the actual cards, the artwork, the definitions, the categories, the Counselor Café, and the Corsava Reports. But this was the real deal, and I knew their feedback would be blunt.
Roosevelt High School Students
Several weeks earlier I had met with the counseling team at Roosevelt High School, a public school in Seattle, sharing the Corsava Cards and our plans to help counselors in their work with students. We later chatted about a next step—sharing the online beta version with students so that they could leave for the summer with some concrete ideas for their college search. We came up with a plan to make this happen after the sprint that is AP season.
On the day I arrived, I was assigned to an AP Literature class that was required of all juniors. Each student was given a laptop from the traveling charging cart. I launched into a discussion of my background and why I was determined to build Corsava and make an impact on counselors and students everywhere. The story seemed to resonate as it was off topic and honest, and I think they felt that my focus on making an imperfect process better had value.
I asked them what came to mind when they heard “college process” and, not surprisingly, their feedback was unanimously negative: “stressful, stressful, expensive, essay work, stressful, stressful...” Next I asked them what came to mind when they imagined themselves going to college, and there were resounding positive comments from everyone. What is it about this contradiction? I reminded them that this is supposed to be a great time in their lives, that there are lots of colleges, and that knowing they have thought about what is important to them in this process can be their guide, helping tune out the pull towards negativity.
I asked them what criteria they would use to select a college, and they fired back with the standard choices used on most college planning sites: size, location, and cost. We chatted briefly about the Net Price Calculator and ways to think beyond the sticker price, and as I did this, I walked around the classroom and gave them all the link and password for their Corsava accounts. I headed to the main computer, assuming I would walk them through the setup and discuss each card as it came up on the overhead screen, but not one student looked up. They all dove right into Corsava.
The English teacher, the head counselor, and I watched as they considered their choices. I decided to quit the chit-chat and marveled as they became engrossed and the room went silent. My goal of getting students to think deeply about what mattered most to them seemed to be working. After all, I had seen it work year after year in my office as I met with students, but this was new, this was online, and this was a big group.
My goal in building Corsava was to offer counselors and students something that was easy to use and required no learning curve, easing the burden on counselors and providing at least a semblance of fun. As I looked around the room, I could see that we achieved all of these things and more. Kudos to our amazing development team that worked closely with our Early Adopters to make the interface intuitive and engaging, and to our young counselor who wrote the definitions for each card. These factors all added up to making Corsava intuitively interactive and engaging.
The first girl to finish looked up, and I asked her what she thought. Was she already finished? She responded that, yes, she went through all the cards, and because she knew exactly what she wanted, the process was easy and fast. As others slowly came up for air, they began chatting amongst themselves about what they wanted in a college. They finalized their reports and began sharing them via email to view later. Many students mentioned having a discussion with their family, and I explained that the guide that comes with the link for their Corsava Reports will summarize what they did to come up with these choices and what the various categories of cards mean—from Campus Culture to Student Resources and more. The counselor agreed this would save office time when explaining what they did and make sharing the reports easy and impactful.
On to questions and feedback. They loved the interface and had never seen a college site that was interactive and so much fun. I asked them what stood out about the process, and as I hoped, someone said this was the first time they had been asked what they wanted, rather than having an experience where they were told what they “should have” based on personality tests or the same old boring college search criteria. Others nodded in agreement. We talked about how understanding their deeper preferences was going to help them find places where they would succeed and graduate, as study after study has substantiated, but it has never been successfully implemented. And who doesn’t love an emoji choice system to lighten up the process?
Students asked questions about various majors and what types of careers these might help achieve. One student was excited to learn what an internship was, as she was now going to make sure her college choices included this experience. These great questions demonstrated to me that even these 25 students, who normally would have been challenging to help individually in a one-hour group session, now had an understanding of new aspects of college that had been right in front of them but they had never considered. They knew what was a “Must Have” and “Would be Nice,” along with things that were total “No Way”s. What better way to start the discussion at home over the summer?
My goal in building Corsava was to put some of the fun back in the college process for both counselors and students. This hit home when a student told me that she was so relieved not to have to input her GPA and scores, as that normally caused her so much anxiety when using popular search tools. For once, she could focus on what she wanted and not feel she needed to stress out and check out of the process in a fit of discouragement. There was a lot of nodding and agreement around the room on this topic. We moved on to a discussion of not ruling out colleges just by GPA and scores, as there is a lot more that goes into admissions decisions at many colleges.
When the lead counselor asked if they were more stressed or less now, there was a resounding “less”...mission accomplished! As we wound the session down, they agreed that they had more to explore, yet knew now what THEY wanted, and at a much deeper level.
My hope is that as the students start their summer vacation, they will reflect on things they had never considered before as they build their college lists. I am glad I caught them when I did. Whether counselors are trying to reach multiple students at once in a group setting, or they simply want to bring families into the conversation by sharing each student’s deeper preferences early, Corsava is helping them move in a new, positive direction.