Keys to College Visit Success
January 28, 2024
College Counseling That Goes Beyond Admissions: Finding the Right Fit for Every Student
August 10, 2026You are Being Watched—How to improve your Standing with Colleges
During this time of the Covid-19 virus, it will be impossible to visit colleges in the normal fashion. Now is the time to do your visits virtually using Youvisit.com or YouTube.com. Since colleges are watching you using analytical engines attached to their websites it is important to take the right steps so that you are noticed. Let’s start our journey…
Imagine a collection of sharks in the ocean as they surround a school of fish. The sharks are hungry, and they want to eat as many fish as they can. They will do anything including fight each other for the opportunity to fill their bellies. When colleges are in the application season there is just a set number of students available to fill their roles. While you may be very concerned about being accepted the colleges or equally concerned about having enough students to fill their dorms and classrooms. Yet at the same time colleges have to keep their standings in the rankings very high as this attracts donations from alumni and research grants. The way that colleges do this is very simple they over market themselves to students and encourage potential applicants to apply even if they do not have the credentials needed to get in. Some colleges get as many as 60,000 applicants in a year, yet they may only have room for 4000 incoming freshmen. Those colleges with a multitude of applicants are actually making a profit on the application fee which now has become an additional revenue stream for them. The way they entice you is through emails, text messages, marketing materials sent to you, and the website that makes the college look like the ultimate dream.
But you are being watched for what you do. Colleges want to know if you or reading their emails and if you are looking at their website because with the massive number of applicants, they need to find a way to pre-certify who is a potential good applicant. This is a very important fact as you can use this to help elevate your position in that pre-certification process to a higher level. When you visit the college website, they are tracking you and they could see which pages you have visited.
So, what should you do? The way that colleges track you is through use of a cookie on their web page that attaches to your web browser the more information they could see about you on the device that you are using allows them to start data collecting on you. Let's reverse engineer the data analytics that colleges use to our advantage. Do not look at the college web page from your computer as that will not have as many open ports or the cookie that they put on your browser to find out information about you. The best way to look at the college is web pages on your cell phone as you probably had some social media applications on your cell phone already. If you have ever read the terms of use for a social media app you will be amazed at how much information they can collect and distribute about you. Colleges use high-end software packages to track you when you visit their web page and the information that exists already on your phone from your social media app may become visible to them. This does not mean that they are seeing your postings on your social media, but they are finding out more about you.
Let's do a sample college webpage visit. Start by going to the College of interest on your cell phone and go to the about section.U Make sure that you scroll down and see all parts of the about section. Take the time to read about the college because the analytical program is timing you and then later giving you an interest score. Your next stop should be the section that lists the majors of the college. Look carefully at a number of majors and focus on one that interests you. After that, you should look at housing and activities. Your entire web site visit should last at least 15 minutes.
Now it is time to follow up with the college that you visited online. Write an email to the admissions of the college and in your email tell them how much you liked the college campus on your virtual visit and that you also found many majors of interest. End your email with a question asking them if there is any additional information that they can send you. This will keep the conversation going and they will put you into your system. Congratulations!! You just moved your status up in their analytics!!
