These are just a few of the growing number of ways that technology is reshaping the landscape of college advising.
Whereas students seeking college advice in the days of old may have been forced to meet with their overburdened guidance counselors in cramped offices — and then only during school hours — students of today have a bourgeoning array of options to get college advisement at their fingertips in the virtual world via laptops and phones.
Those at the vanguard of the movement to use technology to help students through the college search and application process say it will ultimately enable large numbers of students — particularly those from families of lesser economic means — to achieve their college dreams like never before.
“Clearly, the research demonstrates that aspirations for kids from low-income households are just as high as that of other kids,” said Don Fraser Jr., founder and president of CollegeSnapps, a company that created an app for students to get information, updates and alerts relative to their college quests.
“However, they don’t know what that means or the steps to make it happen,” Fraser said. “So to help them with the whole notion of ‘You don’t know what you don’t know,’ we need to close the information gap.
“We need to make sure that they receive high-quality, timely information, and oftentimes they’re not getting that due to all the reasons we know: High caseloads. No counselor. No parent who knows how to guide them through the nuances of the process. It’s not their fault.”
