Observations & Interviews
Parents
For our first deliverable we decided to focus on parental involvement because planning college trips is primarily driven by parent planning. We interviewed three parents, all of who have at least one child currently in college and have either gone through or are going through the college application process with a second or third child.
Interview 1
- Parent 1 was very hands off throughout the process because their child is an athlete so most of their college visits were planned by recruiters so Parent 1 could put much more faith into the college system
- Based on this information, we would like to conduct interviews with students who are planning their own trips or are going through the college process without as much parent intervention
Interview 2
- Long process, has planned college trips for her two children as well as nephews, and other family friends
- Steps through the process:
- Determine the type of school the student wants (big/small, urban/rural, public private, etc.)
- Find out a few schools that are a good fit with the criteria (and fits the student's GPA/SAT/academic expectations) (used Barron's Guide)
- Use word of mouth to often find other colleges
- Plan a trip to visit colleges, which requires finding other good fit colleges in the area, finding hotels and restaurants close by and then planning the itinerary based on what times those colleges have tours and information sessions
- Difficulties
- Finding those schools that fit the student academically and then having a recommendations such as "people who applied to this school applied here too" because that can widen the knowledge of schools you may have never heard of or considered
- Needs to use a lot of resources to plan these trips, starts with collegeboard.com, then needs to do individual research on hotels in the area, rental cars, restaurants, and possible tourist things to do if it is a long trip. Required multiple websites, books and talking to a lot of people who had already experienced the process.
Interview 3
User Classes
- Parents: parents of high school juniors and seniors who may be planning a trip to visit colleges. In addition to looking for schools in a certain area that fit criteria based on the student's needs (e.g. certain GPAs/SAT scores, sports teams, location, extra curricular activities) they will also need to find lodging and plan itineraries that allow them to go to tours and info sessions of various colleges so that multiple colleges can be visited in one trip.
- High School College Counselors: often help students select their colleges and may plan group trips to visit various schools in a certain area. Want a centralized place to be able to send students and parents to look at prospective colleges in a certain area.
- High School Students: want to find colleges within their academic range. Often not as concerned with the area, and don't usually plan their own college trips (although some do). Want to see comparisons between schools and see which ones have the programs and extra curricular activities that align with their interests.
- College Admissions Officers: want to ensure that visiting prospective students can go on tours and attend info sessions easily and get a positive impression of the school.
- Transfer Students: students who plan to transfer colleges often want to visit their perspective new schools. They also need to plan these trips, as well as find out who to talk to about transfer admissions versus regular admissions. Transfer students are also often interested in specific departments/labs on campus.