There's a well established pipeline through which colleges get information about juniors (and sometimes sophomores) who they want to target with marketing efforts. College Board's Student Search Service provides colleges with names of students who took the PSAT or SAT and filled out the demographic information on their registration sheet. At the end of the survey, there's a question about receiving information from colleges. Those who check "yes" should have a deluge of mail within 6-8 weeks. Those who check "no" have to visit the websites for the schools in which they're interested to put themselves on the mailing lists.
There's a new company, started by brothers from BYU, that is attempting to break into the pipeline. It's called Zinch and somehow, they're getting the word out to students, though only 451 have created profiles on the site. The problem, though, is that they haven't marketed this "service" to college admission officers in any way. A mention in The Chronicle this morning is the first I've seen outside of a student post on a message board.
Maybe they're waiting until they have the 20,000 students they want to have by the end of May, but I imagine that if students creating profiles report no response from the colleges, they won't get to that target.
I'm waiting for the pitch. What I've seen on their website isn't particularly enticing. None of the information on the site seems verified and they seem to require interaction to take place in their environment. The idea is interesting, but requires colleges to abandon their traditional marketing plans that Student Search syncs with.
Monday, March 26, 2007
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6 comments:
Love this blog! It’s opened my eyes to a world to which I was apparently naïve when I applied to college.
I’m suspicious of Zinch too. One of my roommates is moving out, and we’re currently in the process of finding a replacement. When our roommate gives us the name of an interested party, the first thing we do is look at her Facebook profile. It’s become less a study of the materiel that’s there and more a judgment of what material isn’t there. What does a Facebook that you have to scroll through for seconds just to reach the wall indicate? The same thing that a seizure-inducing MySpace indicates: this person has way too much time on her hands. It looks like Zinch might push high school students that should be studying for tests and doing their homework to be making new videos to post online in hopes of getting the attention of their dream schools. Everyone will become poets, artists, and, of course, photographers. It looks like less of an attempt to enter the pipeline and more of an effort to capitalize on students’ needs for instant gratification and a growing obsession with college admissions.
Dean J, do colleges also use ACT scores for selecting students for marketing? Or just the SAT?
Zinch is an interesting concept because it's trying to rethink ways that students and schools can find each other. It seems that the college search / admissions process is a two-way street and Zinch's goal seems to be to create a highway for this interaction. Based on this blog, however, Zinch does not seem to have the formula quite right.
Beyond the College Board's Student Search Service, what other techniques are schools using to uncover good candidates. If Zinch's approach doesn't seem to be a great fit, what other approaches would you recommend?
I'm leery of Zinch, and was looking here for more info. Their privacy section says in one place that only college admissions personnel are allowed to see your entry; but in another place, it says "including, but not limited to" college admissions personnel. In other words, you're putting highly personal info out on the web for anyone to see, solicit, etc., are you not?
By far, the biggest pulling attraction to Zinch is their Scholarship program. Create a profile and poof, your automaticly enterd to win scholarships, some up to $20,000. Based on the information you supplied, you are enterd in diffrent scholarships.
The school connection feature, however does need work. Test scores and GPAs are not validated. It is completely on a honors system. Schools are going to be leary to trust the information in that case.
The idea of creating a new basis by which colleges look at students is nice, but the core desire for students to have good grades will not change. Untill this issue is revaluated by the people at Zinch, I do not see the sight going very far.
I too was attracted to Zinch by their scholarship options. They seem to have a lot of exciting ones for high school students entering college.
Has anyone been able to validate them yet, or are they scam-free? Should I go ahead and sign up for their scholarship services?
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