MyCoalition: Pathway to Smart College Choices

Member Colleges and Universities 146 COURTNEY The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success has a long title, but you can just call it “The Coalition.” The Coalition is a group of 146 public and private colleges and universities across the country that joined together to help make college accessible to all students, particularly those from historically under-represented groups. All Coalition member schools support lower-income and under-resourced students, offer responsible financial aid, and provide significant academic support throughout college. That’s why they’re smart college choices. Member Colleges and Universities

Student Usage Student Applicants 16/17 17/18 Applicants 39,000 139,896 Applications 49,000 245,000 Using Fee Waiver 26% First Generation 20% COURTNEY APPLICATIONS 50% were applications filed to institutions that accept more than one application type and 50% were filed to schools that only offer the Coalition Application. Last year, 80% of all applications filed were to the University of Florida. On average, students applied to 1.8 colleges, compared to 1.1 last year. Five times more applications than in our inaugural year.

www.MyCoalition.org VIRTUAL LOCKER COLLABORATION SPACE COURTNEY The most important way in which we’re trying to make college a reality is MyCoalition (www.MyCoalition.org) which is a free suite of tools launched by the member colleges and universities that provides free college planning and search tools for all students. There are three key components: 1) the Locker 2) Collaboration Space and 3) Application Portal. MyCoalition is free to all students. The coalition application is just one part of the platform. What makes MyCoalition unique is that it truly puts the student at the center of the college exploration process and ultimately, the application process, too. Those of you who are getting started early, this is a great chance to explore. Those of you are looking at college deadlines around the corner, you can actually use the platform to apply to member schools and get good advice about college prep in general, regardless of which college you are applying to. WINDSOR, is going to share a little more detail about these tools and the benefits to students. VIRTUAL LOCKER COLLABORATION SPACE APPLICATION PORTAL

MyCoalition Benefits Start Early, Stress Less More advocates for students Free college planning and application tool for support students Coalition Fee Waiver Smart College Choices WINDSOR The benefits of the platform include the ability to start early and stress less. The way the platform is structured, you can start as early as 9th or 10th grade, plugging in your coursework, completing your family information and updating things like test scores and honors along the way. By the time you get to junior year, senior year, you’re 70% of the way done with your college application! MyCoalition also allows you to invite anyone, including parents, counselors, independent counselors, advisors and mentors, coaches, hey, even alumni, to collaborate with you and provide feedback on things like essays and your college lists. The Coalition has a universal fee waiver that is SELF-VERIFIED. More on that later. Finally, take a look at our member colleges. These are great college choices. And they’re affordable, and graduate students at high rates with low loan default rate.

Starting Early: The Locker Academic Documents Essays Written Work Extracurricular Activities Recommendations Multi-Media Projects Visual Arts / Music Scholarship Application Process STUDENT THE LOCKER WINDSOR The Locker offers a private space for students to collect and organize materials throughout high school. The Locker is private and only accessible to you as students. The Locker and its contents are never visible to the colleges and universities. The only way someone can see something in your Locker is if you share it with them, which is highly encouraged! There are lots of ways to use the Locker. One hint I have for you freshmen, sophomores and juniors is that you can start collecting recommendations and references from things like jobs and internships NOW. Let’s say you have a great summer job experience working with special needs students, and it really started making you think about disabilities and therapeutic camps. Maybe you met a counselor or mentor there and they saw how hard you worked and how passionate you became about this population of young people. You could ask them, while the information and experience is fresh in their minds, to write recommendation for you. You could store this in your Locker and ideally, you waive FERPA which means you actually don’t see what the letter says, but it’s tied to your account. When the time comes to submit an extra document or you need a supplementary req, you can use it! You can collect academic recommendations, especially junior year, too, like your AP English or Calculus I instructor.

Making Connections: Collaboration Space School Counselor Academic Other Parents Employers Guardians Religious Leaders Other Family Social Workers Coaches Mentors Librarians Other Teachers Music Teachers Advisors WINDSOR Using MyCoalition as a collaboration space, students connect with trusted adults and ask for their advice, recommendations, and feedback as they plan to apply to college. Students can choose to share items in their Locker with mentors and get opinions on their work. Students can also ask mentors for their input on colleges they are considering. The great thing about MyCoalition is that that this work feeds into the application, LAUREN is going to walk you through a quick demonstration of MyCoalition.

Starting Early: The Profile LAUREN The Profile forms the foundation of the application. It’s the meat of any college application. These are the must haves that many colleges will ask for. Personal info, where di you go to school, how many people are in your family, what activities are you doing, test scores if you’ve taken them, etc. Sure, some of this stuff might change while in high school, but for most students it’s largely going to stay the same. If you move, you can add schools, change counselor info, change family info, whatever you need. The great thing is that you pretty much have a glimpse of your four-year high school plan. 9th grade students can plug in their coursework, sophomores and juniors can add more and see that there are different class levels and types. And, the different test options that are available.

College Exploration LAUREN In MyCoalition, each member college has its own landing page, where you can get a glimpse of the school’s values, identity, admissions deadlines, and financial aid policy. Eventually, you’ll need to visit the admissions pages of each college you’re considering, in order to learn more details about applying.

LAUREN This is the Application List homepage. Here, students have a number of options: You can search for schools and add them to you list. [click] You can view the application plan or type and the deadline. [click] You can see your application progress. [click] And, you can start or continue your application from this screen. [click]

Profile to Application LAUREN When the time comes to apply, the Profile transfers to individual college application when you click START APPLICATION. MyCoalition makes it completely transparent to you as the student which parts of the Profile are going to be sent to UChicago, or UMN, or Colby College. It’s not a secret. You’ll notice some schools take just a few sections, and others take more.

LAUREN Students can click on “Generate Profile PDF” at any point and store a copy of progress in their Locker.

LAUREN You can choose to share your Profile PDF with a trusted adult, like a teacher or guidance counselor, and ask for their advice and feedback in the Collaboration Space. This PDF is exactly what the colleges receive when a student applies. Now, I am going to invite Stephanie to elaborate on some additional features of MyCoalition.

MyCoalition: Upload Your Story STEPHANIE This is an example of a successful applicant to Yale last year, who opted to submit a picture with a short explanation in lieu of a fully written 300 word response to the prompt, Reflect on your engagement with a community to which you belong. How do you feel you have contributed to this community? The Coalition Application encourages member schools (and counselors and students) to utilize the flexibility of uploads in lieu of text boxes and traditional application questions for students to express themselves and share their story. Some schools are experimenting with allowing graded assignments from previous years, a school research project, or a piece of work produced out-of-school time. Such word provides can more context about the student’s environment and their true abilities and passions over an essay prompt. Advanced multimedia skills are not necessary to share your story. Uploads can allow for personal voice, through typography, foreign language, pictures, PDFs, submitting audio file in lieu of written word. It’s not about the format, rather the impact.

MyCoalition Counselor More Advocates: MyCoalition Counselor STEPHANIE MyCoalition Counselor is not a real counselor. But it’s the next best thing! It’s actually a directory of resources and articles written by counselors, including some of our member colleges. It provide free, sound advice about college-going from test scores to college fairs, to recommendations, and scholarships, and financial aid basics. If you’re in MyCoalition and you get stuck, how do I enter 9th-11th grade coursework? You can search in help and find an article. All content is available, with or without an account.

Coalition Fee Waiver STEPHANIE The Coalition also offers a universal application fee waiver to students from lower income backgrounds that apply to any member colleges or universities. Students determine their eligibility for the waiver by answering a brief series of questions while creating their MyCoalition profile as early as ninth grade. Students who receive free or reduced lunch in school, participate in a TRIO program, and/or qualify for fee waivers from the ACT, College Board, and/or NACAC are eligible for the Coalition application fee waiver, which requires no additional documentation or verification.

Introducing – Coalition CBO ID (CCID) CBO Portal CBO Profile The Coalition CBO Registry allows non-profit community-based organizations to register for a numerical code called the Coalition CBO ID or CCID. STEPHANIE The Coalition CBO ID Registry is a vetted, national registry of community-based organizations (CBOs) that support and advise students in their college preparations. Through the CBO ID Registry, Coalition member schools can easily learn about, reach out to, and potentially recruit from CBOs that help prepare students for college—and those CBOs can share their profiles and programs with Coalition schools. Beyond connecting member colleges and CBOs, we believe that the CBO ID Registry will create many opportunities to build connections among all student supporters. Here’s how it works: - A community-based organization that is nonprofit, provides support services to students (preK-14), and/or directly advises students in their college search (like an after-school program or a local scholarship fund) registers for a permanent ID number, known as a Coalition CBO ID, or CCID. Then, students who have participated in a program or received support services from a CBO can input the organization’s CCID in their MyCoalition profile. - The CCID does not change, and, every year, important information about the organization, like number of students served and staff contact information, can be updated.

Conversation: College Access and the Coalition Do you have ideas about incorporating MyCoalition into your process? What can the Coalition provide to support your work with students? Other topics? COURTNEY

Official Documents [Note to counselors: If your school uses a separate way to send materials, suggest that students check this box.]

Official Documents [Note to counselors: If your school will use MyCoalition to send materials, show students what it will look like to request those from you.]

Official Documents: Counselor View This is what a counselor sees when a student requests a recommendation in MyCoalition.