The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success recently announced its development of a brand new online college application system, built by software developer CollegeNET. The Coalition, currently comprised of 91 highly selective American universities, including all the colleges in the Ivy League, will be launching its appli-cation in the summer of 2016.
So what does this mean for college applicants?
Most of the Coalition colleges will still give students the option to apply through the Common Application, but the new Coalition application offers one significant difference. It includes a digital portfolio, or ‘locker’, into which students will be able to upload examples of their work (in the form of documents, pictures, and videos) and record information about their extracurricular activities. This information can be input at any time during high school, and will thus create a body of work ready to submit during the application process. Colleges are beginning to take a more holistic approach to admissions, and online portfolios offer a good way to show, instead of tell, them more about prospective students.
As more universities move towards adding portfolios to their admission process, com-panies such as ZeeMee have gained pop-ularity. ZeeMee.com is a free online service that gives students the ability to showcase themselves, beginning in 8th grade (!!), to college admissions officers, scholarship councils, and even future employers. It creates a unique profile page (think Facebook), and includes images, videos, and documents, which can be cut and pasted as a live link into a college application.
Many institutions are already accepting ZeeMee profiles, such as Allegheny College, Drexel University, Texas Christian and Elon Universities.
The ZeeMee profile page is comprised of three sections. The first section is ‘meet me‘, a 30 – 45 second video introducing yourself and what you are looking for in a school. The second is ‘my story‘, a short written description about your background and interests. This section can include images, videos, and documents. The third section is ‘my activities‘, a written summary of your extracurricular activities, community service and work experiences. There is also space here to include pictures and videos.
The Coalition Application has a few advantages over the Common Application. First, it offers busy admissions teams a quick yet powerful way to get a feeling for a student‘s whole story. It also gives students a way to create and display a body of work that they have produced over four years of high school. Students will have the ability to share portions of their portfolios with both high school and college advi-sors, and even invite colleges to begin ad-vising them as early as 9th grade.
The Coalition‘s portfolio system goes live in April of 2016, but the Coalition Application will not be available until July of 2016 (the exact date has yet to be determined). In the meantime, answers to the many questions students and their parents may have are available on the Coalition‘s website: www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org. Before beginning, ask your college advisor if the Coalition Application would be appropriate for you. Then, get ready for a digital revolution in college admissions!
