Online College Matchmaking for who?
QUICK FIX (Wall Street Journal 1/29/08)
The Right College Match
By SUZANNE BARLYN
January 29, 2008; Page D1
Problem: Finding colleges compatible with your child’s interests and academic performance.
Solution: Create a profile on Cappex (www.cappex.com), a free Web-based “matchmaking” service that pairs students with colleges looking for specific types of candidates. Cappex also helps facilitate introductions between colleges and students by forwarding student profiles to admissions offices. Hone in on schools using factors such as cost and location at College MatchMaker, an online service from the College Board (http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/adv_typeofschool.jsp). Or generate a list of your child’s personal top schools using the ranking feature on Admish, an online college admissions community (www.admish.com/?q=the_best_college_for_me) with personal ranking criteria students choose from a master list.
Caveat: A Web site isn’t a substitute for a visit to a college, where prospective students can see for themselves whether the school is a good fit.
…………my thoughts.
It seems these online matchmaking services are multiplying at dizzying rates. College MatchMaker has been around many years, but CAPPEX ?? why did WSJ pick this one? I decided to check out who was behind it. I contacted WSJ freelance reporter who immediately forwarded me to a PR firm in Chicago (her contact) who forwarded me to the head of marketing for CAPPEX. As it turns out the CAPPEX founder was the founder of FastWeb (financial aid site now sold). My best guess is that the CAPPEX college match service is the bait to get student data (which CAPPEX students are free to release or not release) to financial institutions and colleges. Dont be confused, I dont think it necessarily bad that students are courted by financial institutions and colleges. It is however, important to be aware that the college match may very well be driven from the college’s and financial institution’s perspective, rather than the student’s. To avoid guilt by association, I do not believe College MatchMaker falls in this category.
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The CollegeBoard sells user information so it’s not like they are not evil.
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I wouldn’t say CAPPEX is evil. The question is whether their matchmaker system is designed to find the best match for financial institutions and/or colleges OR students. Perhaps naively, I believe College Matchmaker though it sells student information to colleges does not have that as its primary reason for existence.
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You are right. There are new “college matchmaking” sites popping up every single day. Most of them are junk. Me and my friends have tried them all. The only one that actually has colleges on it communicating and interacting with students is Zinch.com. That’s the preferred one among most high school students I know.
This is Mike Moyer, President for Cappex.com. Thank you all for your comments and perspective. Cappex has hundreds of colleges reaching out to thousands of students every day. Students control who sees their private data. Thousands of guidance counselors are signed up on our site who refer students on a regular basis. As many as 4,000 students per day register on our site. We will make well over 1 million matches this year. Our services are free to students and free to guidance counselors. Additionally, we work with traditional colleges regardless of their ability to pay for our services. We were founded to provide a new avenue for colleges and students to connect.
This is Meredith Reynolds and thank you Mr. Moyer, President of Cappex, for the additional information. Undisputed is the fact there are hundreds of online college matchmaking services available to students and counselors. Can you offer any insight into how students and counselors are to differentiate between them? Withot some sort of criteria for comparing how are students to rely on the “matches”. For example, your data base selects only certain critical information about both the colleges and the students. How do you decide what is considered and what is not?