Bombshell College Board News
The New York Attorney General fined the College Board -- the good folks behind the SAT, PSAT, AP curriculum and the CSS Profile financial aid application -- 750 Gs for "violating students' privacy."
In case you were getting choked up, please don't cry for this "non profit" - it holds $1.66 Billion in assets. Its president makes $1.8 Million per year. They can write the check.
My surprise over this news is not that the College Board shares student information. I'm sure you're not shocked either, particularly if you have an 11th grader who's registered for one of the above College Board products, and, since that fateful day, opened your floodgates to a tsunami of emails, social media posts magically served up to you or your child, glossy brochures from colleges you've heard of and several that you haven't, featuring multi-racial, smiling, acne-free kids frolicking outside on the quad in shorts (even if that college is located in northern Minnesota).
What caught me off guard is that the College Board was fined at all. A big part of their business, for decades, is selling their data to colleges, who sift and sort their "selects" by test scores, zip code, income and other criteria. Northeastern University in Boston is a hard core, sophisticated direct marketing machine, using College Board data to send out hundreds of thousands of mailers, that yield more than 100,000 applications most years.
Ditto for High Point University, the gold standard in college direct marketing.
Years ago I read that the average student's data is sold 18 times over the course of their high school career. Icky, right? But effective, apparently.
To be certain, there will be changes in how the College Board and the ACT operates in terms of their marketing practices. But I don't see how a drop in the bucket fine from Ms. James will protect students.
There's a good argument that it will harm students, one that I'm sure the College Board attorneys proffered to their opposing counsel:
Thousands of kids first learn about different colleges because of their outreach, and expand their college searches. I know the marketing is annoying, but giving students information about choices they didn't know existed doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. And:
1. Kids barely open emails anyway
2. They can always opt out.
A takeaway from this news is that colleges are businesses. They must recruit paying customers to fill their seats and hallowed halls.
But here's the thing...
Your child -- whether or not they know it -- are in business for themselves.
The business of promoting, or marketing themselves, to get into the colleges they want to attend. And to win merit aid, in many cases.
I tell my students all the time, "Don't think of yourself as Joey Bagodonuts, college applicant. You are THE MARKETER OF Joey Bagodonuts, college applicant."
Tomorrow's Webinar - "Late Stage College Planning For 11th Graders
(If you have a 10th grader or younger child, not a terrible idea to attend either.)
I'm rolling out a new webinar to help overwhelmed and the very, very nervous parents (OK, moms) of high school juniors to help them get a handle on all that has to happen between now and Go Time for college application, which is a few short months away.
Topics on tap:
- The inconvenient truth about what admissions officers at competitive and elite colleges REALLY want to see beyond GPA and SAT/ACT scores (hint: it’s not on Naviance, nor is it membership in National Honor Society, 25 clubs or a five day service trip/teen tour to a Third World country)
- The closely-guarded truth about test-optional policies and how to decide To Submit or Not to Submit?
- How six figure-earning families can qualify for tuition discounts of 56.2% even If their child did not crush the SAT, photoshop themselves into a water polo match or cure a pandemic over the summer
- How to Write a College Essay that "Sells," Not Bores
- How ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence will affect college admissions and financial aid for our college-bound teens
- Negotiation Secrets: How a mild-mannered college advisor helped his client into a “windfall” of an ā€‹additional $30,022 from an elite college AFTER its “final,” stingy award
- Financial Aid Rules' "Tectonic" Changes for families with siblings in college, business owners, divorced families
- More, especially your questions. Pearl and I will be live in chat.
This is a one-time event, live. We are not planning on sharing a recording, so I hope you can make it!
Please forward this invitation to anyone you know who needs it! 'Cause they're not getting it anywhere else, not from their guidance counselors or other parents. Here's the page w/ all the info:
- Andy Lockwood
P.S. Here are some other ways we can help you: