8 Top Tips for High School Counselors to Help Reduce Summer Melt from University of South Florida
“Summer melt,” the annual loss of high school students who said they would attend a particular college and then don’t enroll for the fall semester, is a challenge for most college and universities.
University of South Florida makes a special effort to enlist the support of high school counselors working with students planning to attend college with a detailed list of 8 “Top Tips for College Counselors on Beating Summer Melt.” Effectiveness. of course. may well depend on the ratio of counselors to college bound students at particular schools, especially those with higher numbers of first-generation and low income students who are most at risk of melting away.
What are the “key elements of a summer melt strategy” noted by USF?
- Identify students at high risk
- Engage with college admissions staff
- Connect with students wired for the digital age
- “Use every tool you have to stay connected”
- “Create a peer mentoring program”
- “Partner” with groups and people who can help
- “Schedule summer events” with parents and students
USF also has created links to 3 content tools:
- A “Counselor Toolkit”
- A “recruiter information page” to get the identity of USF admissions staff responsive for territories throughout the U.S.
- A “College Counselors’ Corner” blog
An important missing element… financial aid verification
While the tips note the general importance of financial aid, we’d recommend being up front with a key step known to increase melt for first-generation and low income students: selection for financial aid verification.
As part of that first strategy point, ask high school counselors to have their college bound students tell them if they are selected for verification. Be prepared to help them complete the process. Or to connect them to admissions staff at their preferred colleges who can help them. Successfully completing what can be a torturous process for those not familiar with it is a critical stop reducing summer melt.
Speed on mobile…
Google PageSpeed Insights measures the College Counselors page time to first view on a mobile phone at 4.9 seconds, just below the recommended 5 seconds. Complete interactivity also is “better than most” higher education pages at 11.1 seconds.
This week the main change to obtain a faster download speed is identified as “Eliminate render blocking resources.” The usual admonition to reduce java script is in 2nd place.
Website Carbon Calculator… a new “Hurrah!” result: better than 62% of tested websites
Carbon calculator index reports continue. Thanks again to Gerry McGovern and his efforts to reduce “world wide waste” for the referral.
The USF results gets a rare (the 3rd in our testing so far) accolade: “Hurrah! This web page is cleaner than 62% of web pages tested.”
See the carbon use details for University of South Florida and test your own website pages at “Website Carbon Calculator.”
Follow the Link of the Week…
See how USF seeks to enlist high school counselors in reducing summer melt when you visit “Top Tips for College Counselors on Beating Summer Melt.”
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