Forgot your password? Who hasn’t?
If you’ve forgotten your password, and you are a well-adjusted, educated and functioning adult, can you imagine what your teenagers are going through? LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
New for this fall, high school teacher designs and develops iPhone app to steer ‘Class of 2015’ students through the college selection and application processes.
College Push supports and guides high school students (and their parents) through the college planning, selection, and application process. Selecting a college is one of the most stressful decisions a high school student will make. A haphazard decision can strap students with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt or result in transferring schools or changing majors multiple times.
College Push allows users to have personal college planning data in the palm of their hands, offering daily notifications which include instructional exercises, tasks, and opportunities to explore colleges and the U.S. higher education system. The app also includes a feature which stores usernames and password hints for popular college-related web portals.
The efficiently designed app, the first of its kind, provides a centralized place to store information, allowing students to conveniently view data anywhere their mobile devices go, saving time and effort! With the added benefit of the Export feature, users can share results with their support team (guidance counselors, parents, and teachers) via email.
College Application Statistics
According to The Common Application website, for 2012-2013 school year, each college applicant submitted an average of 4.4 online applications to their website, with 723,576 unique applicants submitting a total of 3.05 million college applications. Over nine million school forms were received from over 20,500 high schools by 53,082 school officials through the Common App portal.https://www.commonapp.org/PDF/CommonApplicationFactSheet.pdf
School counselors need additional support to meet expectations and serve students well in the process of applying to and paying for college. Schools and families expect school counselors to provide assistance with financial aid for post-secondary education.
http://www.nacacnet.org/media-center/PressRoom/2014/Pages/TCWilliams.aspx
The vast majority of high school counselors are concerned about the level of debt students are taking on to pay for college. Nearly all high school counselors say that students and families need a lot of help making decisions about student loans.
http://www.nacacnet.org/media-center/PressRoom/2007PressReleases/Pages/debt.aspx
About College Push
College Push was designed and developed to help students stay organized thereby reducing senior-year stress; all while having access to the steps and requirements needed to apply to college.My Vitals
Store your important academic information at your fingertips, including your advisor’s phone number and email address, SAT and ACT scores, and more.
My Perfect Fit
View a snapshot of the most important data related to college admission and selection, including SAT/ACT scores, tuition, and retention and graduation rates. Custom fields allow you to record your personal insights for each of your “Favorite” schools to decide which is best for you!
Daily Push
Receive daily instructions, tasks and reminders to assist you through the college selection and application process.
Helpful Links
View a list of most popular college planning websites and utilize convenient links to pages, including College Board, ACT, FastWeb and more.
Notes & Reminders
Record your ideas and set reminders for important tasks and due dates,
My Colleges
Search a listing of 3,000+ U.S. and Canadian colleges with links to official websites. Add schools to “My Favorites” by selecting “Will Apply” or “May Apply”.
My Passwords
Store usernames and password hints to popular college planning portals, including College Board, Common App, FAFSA and more. Add additional URLs and hints through the customize option.
Export
Share your personal College Push research and plans with parents and guidance counselors through the unique PDF email export feature.
Inspiration
“I’ve been teaching Business Education coursework at West Islip High School since 1997” says Trish Portnoy, CPA, MS Ed. “In 2007, I was assigned to teach our in-house college-planning course, College Freshman Seminar, a semester-long, senior-year elective offered to those students applying to four-year colleges...which over half of the graduating class takes each year. The course is phenomenal! The Guidance Department sets the goals, objectives and deadlines and we run with it. The class meets each day in a computer lab with high speed Internet access and covers the gamut of college-related topics, including SAT/ACT tests, Common App, Naviance, time management, binge drinking/alcohol use, learning styles, Greek life, personal finance, student loan debt, and so on.”“Based on my experience in the classroom, two years ago, I authored the textbook for the course, College Apps: Selecting, Applying to, and Paying for the Right College For You, which is available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and through the publisher, Cengage Learning.”
“What I observed in the classroom is that today's students appreciate direction and instruction in small doses. They rely heavily on their smartphones but need practice using it as a tool for research, time management and organization (instead of just socializing and communicating).”
Student Contributions and Feedback
Trish Portnoy relied heavily on her students’ contributions to College Push, “It was inspirational! First, the students suggested features that I never even considered, such as the ability to customize the color scheme to match "school pride" colors (located in My Profile).”“Then, they ‘schooled’ me on which icons would easily convey (to their demographic) the functions displayed on the Home Screen...evidently most of them look at the icons first, and then read the descriptive text. Who knew?” Trish made sure that the process was a learning experience for them, as well. The students used multi-sensory analysis while applying previously-learned marketing concepts to then articulate their feedback in a way that I was able to share with my app development company, Mess Apps, Inc. www.messapps.com located in NYC.
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Pricing and Availability
As a public school teacher, it’s in Trish Portnoy’s DNA to want to help students (and their families). Education category app, College Push’s introductory price for the in-app purchase is set at 99¢, so it’s not cost-prohibitive for most students. The in-app purchase unlocks premier features, including My Perfect Fit, Export and additional Daily Pushes.Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to receive a reviewer’s promotional code to download College Push from iTunes App Store.