By Lindsey Barclay, Director of Virtual Advising & Infrastructure at CollegeTracks
This article originally appeared in the CollegeTracks Winter 2021 Newsletter. It is reprinted here with permission.
Each year from January to May, high school seniors and college students receive financial aid award letters. Award letters vary from one college to the next as each letter can be structured differently, with confusing terms, and expense estimates that
are not customized for each student. Consequently, high school seniors and their families are left to make major financial and academic decisions with incomplete or incoherent information. It's a higher education dilemma that has plagued students
for decades.
The CollegeTracks staff meets with high school seniors, college students, and their families to decode award letters and share insights on what the numbers mean for each student. Before the pandemic, meetings would occur in-person, providing the opportunity
for rich discussion and rapport-building. Meetings would usually be an hour in length in a room near though separate from the bustling CollegeTracks office or on-campus meeting location. Students, families, and staff would convene around a table,
with award letters and comparison worksheets, a calculator, and pencils. The conversation would center on standardizing the award letter information to make an informed college decision in advance of National College Decision Day on May 1, the day
when most colleges require students to submit an enrollment deposit. Meetings could be quite emotional as students realized their top college was financially out of reach or that they'd be attending college without spending a dime. Given the potential
for a variety of reactions, a tissue box was often nearby.
Now that CollegeTracks' programming is virtual, meetings have been revamped. No more hard-copy documents, calculators, or pencils. Instead, the teams have maximized the opportunity to use technology. Students send copies of their award letters through
Google Classroom or attachments to emails and text messages. Before meeting with students and families, staff compiles the award letter information onto a comparison worksheet which uses formulas to add numbers without the use of a calculator. This
change has created more time for staff to focus on clarifying what the numbers mean, instead of making calculations to arrive at amounts personalized for each student. Students and families continue to meet with staff via videoconferencing platforms.
And while there isn't a chance to engage in-person this year, rich discussions and rapport-building are prioritized in the virtual space as the staff has created an advising guide to reference throughout the conversation.
Financial aid award letters can be indecipherable. Considering the sometimes expensive and often long-lasting impacts of a student's postsecondary decision, the stakes are high. CollegeTracks' high school seniors and college students participate in an
engaging and personalized conversation that makes award letters understandable, thus empowering students to make informed choices.
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