The College Fair

Welcome to From Carpool to College, a show for parents who are trying to get ahead or just keep their sanity while navigating the college planning landscape. Welcome to From Carpool to College. I am Tracy Amadeo and I'm Tara Hart's. We're from Academic Mentoring LLC. And today we're going to talk about the college fair. Yes, Tara just recently brought her daughter to a college fair, and while it's still fresh, we thought this would make a great episode. Yep. Yeah, and we didn't talk about it too much. She started to talk about. It, I was like, oh, how is the college fair? Tarer that. I'm like, wait, no, let's save it. Let's save it for episode two of season two. Yes, that's right, and here we are. So today we're going to cover the college fair. We're going to talk about the kind of objectives of a college fair through the lens of a student and through the lens of the college, and we'll talk about some logistics and give you some takeaways in a nice concise way, so that when you go to a college fair, parents, you know what to expect and you can capitalize on the opportunities for your family. So tell us a little bit about this college Beiritar, okay. So it was on a Sunday and it was at a local community college. And when we got there we were a little overwhelmed. Not so much me because I've been to them before, but just walking through the whole big room with my daughter was you know, I could get a sense that she was feeling it. So describe the big room. It was in a gymnasium. Yes, and as you walked in, you had. To check in, check in, right, yeah, you tell us about that, okay. So before we even got into the building, she had to check in with her phone so that she would get a QR code, and then that QR code would then be scanned by each representative at each table that she visited if she wanted them to scan it exactly. So if we took a little time machine ten years ago or maybe fifteen years ago. The college fair it's set up like a like a trade show. So every college has a table with a setup with information. But back in the day, you used to have to fill out an interest card. So there'd be pins at the table with a postcard and kids would write their names down and their address and their email address. Now it's done by It's all done digitally through a program called Strive Scan, which I totally wish I invented. Really Okay, it's dumb, it's brilliant, and it's a great way to capture data, and it's just it's quick think so quick they just think scan. Which makes it for more time to have a conversation with the representative exactly Chris is sitting there trying to fill it out. So it makes them more efficient in that way. So we once we were signed in or scanned in, we made our way around the tables and. Kind of worked our way through. My daughter was looking for specific schools that she wanted to really visit and find out more information about, and then as we were making our way towards those schools, there were other ones that we had thought about but hadn't had a conversation about in a while, and so she visited those tables as well. Were they set up alphabetically? Do you remember or did you not even notice? I think they probably were set up alphabet to a point, But then I feel that there were some at the end that weren't done out for Yeah, that's because they later the reps the reps didn't get their. Time. So they were a little bit that that does happen. Because as we have this discussion, terror we're going to talk through the lens of the student and the family going through it, but also I'll play I'll be the college rep side. Yeah, And I think it's important for families to understand that the college Fair is just as important to the colleges right as it is for the families who attend them. Right. So as we were making our way through, and I was very each table looking and wanted to touch face with so many of the different reps, while my daughter had a very clear vision of those certain tables she wanted to get to. And if you've ever been to a store with your kid, even when they're younger, and you want to look at everything and they're saying, come on, mom, let's get over here or there, that really was what it was like. And so as we were visiting it, you could see that there were certain tables that really had a strong interest. You know, lots of students were lined up to speak to the representative and other tables didn't have that. So I was drawn to the tables that didn't have it and wanted to you know, just touch base with some of those reps. But I was, but your daughter didn't. Yeah. No, I also similarly through the lens of a school counselor. Yeah, I always want to go to the table where it's just a bowl of breath mints and a admissions counselor just kind of hanging out smiling like please come see me. Yes, right, because those schools have they do have so much to offer, but maybe their marketing departments are not as strong as the schools where it's like bank run. Right yeah, yeah, and it and it and some of those are the hidden gems, right, those are the ones that we so as I'm making my way through, of course, I'm I'm looking at it from a parent's perspective as well as a college admissions yeah, specialists, specialists. So so I was kind of trying to fill a bunch of different you know hat. It's hard, it's hard as parent educators to take our educator hat off in these moments and be with the kid and present. But it's impossible, right it really? Yeah, So go on. So, So this has not This is not the first college fair that my daughter has been to. She's been to school based ones or they have right because I have a large number of schools that participate in those school ones as well. Correct. Correct, Because the college, the college admissions counselor has to market their school, they have to fulfill their yeah, their their outreach. They have to learn about the high schools in their territory. So being efficient instead of going, you know, one day, I'm going to go to three different high schools in one area. Say you know, they're all like twenty minutes apart from each other. But how much more efficient is it to say, hey, I'm going to go to North Jersey High School on such and such a day and there's going to be other schools there. Like It's it's more efficient for this for the families, and it's more efficient for the high schools to have to just set up the whole thing because it takes energy, takes a lot of energy. So it is very efficient to have these to have the high schools do like they call them a mini fair or a college fair. Some are bigger, some are smaller. But the one that you went to was actually a KNAKAC, which was a National Association for College Admissions Counselors. I think like the New jer chapter and every every state is going to have their own chapter doing that. And that was in person because they have virtual too. I'm not a big fan of the virtual. I'm a little virtualed out, virtually virtualed out with with the with that kind of venue, it's it's powerful in other in other veins, but for college parents, a lot, it is a lot. It is a lot. And I don't know how much take away there is from the virtual versus the in person. Yeah, but sometimes we can't always get schedules. Okay, So we made our way around, collected a bunch of wonderful flyers and cutouts and. Any swag, any bags, any pins, No, do you know there were We got a plastic bag that's the original one that's like that's sponsored by some college use Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's okay for a bottle. No. Nothing. We didn't go at the very start, so that could be we didn't spend you know, the full because I believe it was the three hour event and our schedule didn't allow us to go right at the beginning, So it could have been that they were all taken at that point, because that's what I wanted to I know, at one table there was one business card left and I had to take a picture of the card, which was fine. Yeah, that's wonderful but no problem. But yeah, so that would probably be my first piece of advice would be if you are planning on going to the college fair, you know, and your schedule allows for it, you might want to go more tost the beginning because they also have more stamina at that point. The people that are presenting for the college they have you know, they're freshly caffeinated and ready to talk. Yeah, because the college. The objective for the college representative there is they're generating those qualified leads, so they're keeping track through Strive Scan. They're also tasked with learning, you know, having their brand presence right and also the perception talking to families about well what do you know? What do you know about us? And it's that is all about marketing, all marketing. Yes, I'm sure you you know. As as you're tracking, they're they're tracking their demonstrated interest and they're also kind of keeping an eye out their their networking with their buddies. They're really cool people. The college admissions counselors. They're extroverts, they're high energy, they're smart, they love their job, they travel and they see the same people from other schools, so it's like a whole If I were to do an off, wacky spinoff of a reality show, I think a great reality show would be the culture, a subculture of the college admissions counselors and how they all get along, because I've seen a lot of things. Yeah, yeah, they're great people and there was so much fun. But boy, they're they're just they're just a really good time. Every single table that we stopped at, you know, they gave us their time, they talked to us. They were just genuine people, it seemed like. And when we were making our way around, it was getting later and later, and we were there towards the end of the fair. There was something to be said about being there at that moment because they almost had that they could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and they were almost more. Giving away more secrets if you will. And you know, okay, you go at the beginning where there's a bunch of students and parents, but at the end, maybe we maybe there was a benefit of being yeah closer the last yeah, right, the last impression of before they packed up their tables and took all of their flyers back. So anyway, so we. Made our way around and we did speak with certain, you know, certain different tables that we felt would be either on her list or at one point we had a conversation about and my daughter was able to ask some really good questions to kind of just get a better sense of the different majors and some of the things she's interested in, and also think about things that maybe she didn't think about. So, yeah, you want those, you're going if you're headed there, you should. It's not just window shopping. Right exactly, So and being able to well just the skill of as a you know, high schooler introducing yourself, walking up to the table, asking the questions, having a conversation and thinking thoroughly as best you can in those situations, you know, trying to get a better perspective on what they offer. For sure. Did you. Did you notice other families where the parents were doing most of the. Time y right, Yes, yes, I did notice that. And you know, these are the opportunities where I take a step back and really wanted her to take the first step. Right, And we're listening, of course, and you could always chime in. For sure, yes, of course, and you know, sometimes the reps would definitely look towards me and ask if I had any questions, or you know, would speak to me as well. But really she led the process, which was good. She was able to also see just some of the more detailed, like some of the details that weren't maybe brought up if she went to one of the college fairs at her school where it's like a peer pop and it was just a different environment. So she was asking questions about in specific nursing and where some of those hospitals are located for clinicals, and you know, pass rates of certain tests, and so I thought those were really good things to kind of gather that information. Yeah, the specific nuances like if your kid knows what they want to study, then ask away ask about you know, if your kid wants to study nursing, ask about, well, is this, you know, is the nursing school even on this campus and in some cases it's not, you know, or or in the larger schools, you know, is there a hospital on campus or how many hospitals are on campus? Right, I'm thinking about my goddaughter went to Quinnipiac and that has a great nursing program, but it was and I'm not getting any kickbacks from Quinnipiac. I'm just saying it because it's my family. But it was a different campus not too far and comparing that to there was a local hospital, but when I visited University of South Florida, there's like multiple hospitals on campus. So like, there's a lot of. Great questions that you could ask specific to what you want to study and even asking like hey, should I be you know, do you recommend I interview? And yeah, you could find an information on the website, but these are just you know, or you may not, I mean, you might not find it readily. You know, would it help if I had an interview? Right? And so those are great getting those specific questions answered for sure. Yeah. So you know, on our way just to backtrack a little bit, on our way to the college fair, we were talking about, you know, how we would navigate our way through and some of the things that we would talk to the representatives about. And one of the things that comes up all the time, what you talk about, Tracy, is to have that introduction the elevator pitch oh yes, which is great for not just high school seniors but everyone. It's good for everybody. It is for sure. Well, my day job, I work at. A career in technical education school. So and it's very much compartmentalized in different pathways. And you know in any school you're you want your kid to be able to say, Hey, my name is Tracy Amadeo. I attend such and such school and I'm studying blah blah blah. I'll be applying to your school and what really appeals to me as X, Y and Z like that, just to articulate it. Sure, and it's important for I guess for all of us, right, think about us like our LinkedIn profiles? Right, what are we? We have a tagline? Like what's our tagline? Right? There are a lot of benefits to start having those conversations. Now, parents, you cannot have these conversations with your kid because of your mom and your dad. And they're like, shut up, mom. They don't say it like that, but they do it with their eyes. Yeah, they do with their eyes, but their body language are like, oh mom, stop talking again. They won't say that with words, but we see this. However, parents, we are tasked with planting those seeds and helping them understand that they should be able to say whether they're an. Introvert or extrovert. At least their name and what they're applying to and where they're going to high. School, right and not just oh hi, I'm a junior at so and so or senior year. It needs to be a. Little bit more than that. Yeah, yep, super right, Okay, so other pregame strategies. Before we made our way in, we talked about how we wanted to navigate through the different tables. So when we were talking about it, we eventually when we walked in, we were distracted and went through many of them. But realistically, and Tracy, I think you'll agree, stopping at about maybe eight of them or so is pretty good because you do hit that you get a little exhausted, right and overwhelmed with so many. But to have an open eye so as you're making your way through, to not be afraid to stop at a school that wasn't one that you had talked about beforehand, or that you know was mentioned by your child, to just you know, have an open mind and not just be with blinders on going to those five six exactly. So like for New Jersey, I'll say it, Terror's not saying it because she's being careful, but I'll be less careful. So regionally, where we live, families, our students, our kids are applying to the same schools. Right. So in North Jersey we're applying to We're replying to Rutgers, We're applying to Penn State, University of Maryland, you Dell, Syracuse, University of South Carolina. You know, we have our higher tier schools like Wake Forest, Boston College. Right, So all of these schools are going to be represented at the College fair. Some some may not because they don't need to. They don't need to be drawn up business because they are already going. For example, University of Texas at Austin, I doubt they were there. I don't think they were. They're on almost every list of my top performing clients and students, so they don't. I don't even think they have a Jersey Rep. I remember when I went down there. I have family down in Austin, so I've I've been down there a couple of times. And one time I went and I said, you know, if there're a regional rep for Jersey. They're like, oh no, we don't need a regional rep. I was like, oh yeah, because you're Austin and you're amazing. So but I'm saying all of this parents, because you're going to go to this college fair, just as tarented with with her kid, and you have those targeted schools and you want to hit your top schools first, but you're going to see a lot of other schools that you've never heard of. Just because you've never heard. Of them does not mean their throwaways. If they're at that college fair, they have had applicants from your region. Now, yes, they're going to try to bolster their admissions. They're going to try to you know, generate leads, they're going to try to promote and you know, get the brand awareness out there, but they're not necessarily out of left field. I want to really hammer that away because Tara and I were talking earlier off Mike about you know, going maybe it was on Mike, We're going by. You'll be at like one table will be a feeding friendly of all the kids wanting to get in and get information. But then like the school next door, it's just like crickets, you know, just their little bowl of breath mints and no one's there. But those schools have merit. So please please take a look at those schools and maybe parents, you could take a look at those schools while your kid is online for university of big school. Yeah, and at one point, at one point we did do that because there was a school I can't I can't remember which one it was. And we were headed towards the end of the room, you know, as we snaked our way through, and there were some people you could see that were really starting to pack up, and my daughter wanted to head over to one more table, but something caught my eye with the international schools, so I said, well, you go over there, and I'm going to stay here and just speak with this representative. But it was great because now I was really. Not even next to her, and she was able to navigate the whole conversation and introducing herself, getting herself her cell phone scanned, and asking those questions on our own, knowing that I was not too far away, but you know, not listening, and she had to kind of do it on her own, which was good. That was good, That was helpful. Yeah, So that was a good thing. Now, one of the things that comes up is they will you know, they'll hand you the materials, they'll talk to you a little bit and Tracy, we've talked about this a little as well, but they will scan you for some of them, do accept or do work on that demonstrated interest? Oh yeah, But to follow up after the fair? Right, So once we made our way through and we gathered a lot of materials that a lot of them just sat in our home office in a bag. Still, but that's okay, let's go through them. But then to go and follow up now. Interestingly enough, that fair really was almost implicated at my daughter's high school two days later. Wow, so her follow up was able to happen in person again, that's who I met you on Sunday. It was great to meet you and whatnot. But if you don't have that opportunity, and that was just kind of luck, then to follow up with an email? Yeah, and what terror? And I tell our clients also a great follow up is to have a resume. And we all of our clients we work with have resumes. And it's not a resume parents like we have for jobs. It's more of a CV and it's like what do I do? It's like what clubs am I in? What am I? You know, it's an academic resume, but also has a little personality to it, so it has the student has their their name, their email, contact information, not their home address b tw but their high school graduating class, GPA rank if you have it, test scores, if you want to go that way, don't. You don't necessarily have to, but your activities and then like hobbies and things you're interested in. And these are all transferable activities that each college also has because that college admissions rep has to, you know, sort out are you legit interested? If I say yes to you kid? Are you going to come to my school? Are you gonna jam me up with my numbers? Because I am tasked with creating the class of you know whatever, twenty twenty, twenty thirty. Now I guess right, it's in the class of twenty thirty. That's a good sci fi movie. I am from the class of twenty thirty. I've come back. But that's like real, yeah, God, So they're tasked with creating the class of twenty thirty. They need to know, uh, are you gonna say yes? Are you just applying here because your parents are making you right? And let's make their job easier for them and say yes, well, or just make them think yes. That you're gonna say yes to the dress. So by following up with hey an email, Hey Stacy, I met you at the college Fair at the County College of Morris on Sunday, blah blah blah, and love to learn about blah blah blah, and your school is like has quickly moved to the top of my list. Here's a little sneak preview of what you'll see on my application. My resume is attached. If you have time, awesome, If not, you'll you'll see it also attached to my application. Have a great day. That's it. That's it, bo. That's a great way that we encourage all of our clients to follow up right after the college fair because that has demonstrated interest with a cherry on top. Right right, So post fair, in addition to that would be to see if your college list right is still the way, you know, if there's any new colleges you were thinking about that you want to add onto the list, or if there's colleges after that that you think, you know, I think I'm ready to take this one off the list. It's not a good fit. Sometimes that could even happen. Oh yeah, and even the schools like we talked about the schools that didn't have a lot of foot trafs. That's a great safety school. So if you get a good read on it, a good feel for it, that could be a great safety school. And considering the state of applications now and how everything is saturated, and we have kids with four point oh GPAs and higher, yes, higher GPAs and four point zero because it's weighted. Remember, so they're not getting in for different reasons, demographics, where you're from, who you are, Maybe you don't have the right activities, or maybe you have the right activities but it's not a good match. Maybe they're they're the barometric pressure. On the day that your application was read, was was giving the reader of Migraine and they only said yes to five that day and your list was your your application was in that pile, Like, that's the arbitrary stuff that happens that we have no control over. And guess what then your kid doesn't get into University of Maryland. And you thought, according to all of the all of the the GPA, all the things that you've read and US News World were poor and you looked at the common data set and you looked at naveance and score and you were a slam dunk and what the heck? And now you're in a no. Now you're a n O, not in the know. You're in the n And you should have, could have, would have needed to add a couple more safeties. And in this college application climate, we highly recommend safeties. We highly recommend applying to that neighboring school that might have been right next door to the table that you just walked past. So pay attention to them. You know, I kind of think it's kind of like, not necessarily like the ugly duckling who you went to high school with. All of a sudden you go to the ten year or twenty year union and then just like this beautiful swan, it's like, oh, yeah, I should have paid attention. I was. I didn't even give you a second look, and you were this most amazing human being. And similarly, you have amazing schools that you've. Never heard of. So please pay attention to those schools, right and get them on your mind. Yes, and post post college fair it is a great time to think about those schools and go back at the list, go back at the at the online it'll have the the footprint of the the floor plan of the school and yeah. Yeah, and then the other post fair objective or you know, the activity to partaken would be the college visits, right and see when the open houses are. Because during the college Fair when we visited, we one of the questions that we asked were about open houses and college tours and they were happening. We had just missed a few or they were just happening, and so it's always kind of good to go back. Once you go back to that list if there is new interest in a school, see when they. Offer those totally great questions. And you know, here at academic mentoring and from carpool to college, we know you don't have a time machine and we never want you to say, oh my gosh, I wish I knew then what I know now. So when it comes to the college fair, think through the lens of the student, Think through the lens of the college. Think about your kid's elevator, pitch follow up, hit those top schools and just no go back and listen to this episode and maybe throw something into AI, get a list, but be prepared, don't miss out on that opportunity to capitalize on it. So we do want to thank you for listening to this episode. We are delighted to be writing Shotgun with you. I am Tracy Amadeo Tara Harritz. We are Academic MENTORINGLLC dot com. Check us out online, and we are from carpool to College. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, we'd love for you to be a part of our g community. Please share and follow our show. 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