CollegePlannerPro's eBook: Creating an Impressive Sample Student Profile is an incredible training tool for new members but the robust sample student profile you create can also be a dynamic marketing tool. By building out a sample student profile, you can showcase CollegePlannerPro's features with prospective families, highlighting the organizational elements, communication tools, and college list-building resources. Using the platform as part of your marketing material is a powerful way to enhance your counseling practice and highlight the value you bring to students. Keep in mind that CollegePlannerPro's subscription plans (from 10-50 students) each include an additional Active Student account designed to use for your sample student profile.
Once you've built out your sample student, here are a few ways you can incorporate CustomCollegePlan (the student side of the platform) into your marketing conversations with families.
1. Focus on Organizational Elements
The college application process is known for being stressful, complicated, and messy. In early conversations with prospective families, you can dial down the stress and demonstrate the ways that you create structure through CollegePlannerPro's To-Dos, Calendar, Files & Folders, and College List features.
In the example below, you'll see a few student To-Dos in the sample student account. The To-Dos represent the way you'll work with your students and can be grouped by month to showcase the progression of tasks and activities that you'll cover with a student as they move through the school year.
With busy student schedules, many parents want to know about the ease of scheduling and tracking meetings with their student's counselor. CollegePlannerPro's Scheduling Tool helps streamline meeting coordination, while the Calendar tracks important meeting details. Within your sample student profile, you can create calendar entries for upcoming meetings, including an agenda, Zoom link, and automated meeting reminders that are sent to students (and parents, if you choose). This feature can illustrate the transparency of your scheduling process as well as the meeting cadence you maintain with students.
2. Communication is Key!
In early conversations with counselors, families are often curious about an IEC's communication policies and practices. Thankfully CollegePlannerPro makes it simple to stay in touch with students and keep parents up to date on progress.
CollegePlannerPro's Conversation Module serves as a text message platform for students to engage with their counselor right from their cell phone. For IECs, messages are seamlessly organized on the Student's Profile page and originate from a system-generated phone number (allowing you to keep your personal phone number private). Many counselors like to alert students of their typical response time or working hours if they are using the Conversation Module.
To keep parents updated on progress, a sample Note is an ideal feature to highlight. Notes can be emailed directly to students, parents, or any other parties (tutors, essay coaches, etc.) that might need to be looped into the conversation.
3. College List Building (their favorite part!)
Creating a Suggested Colleges list and a "My List" of Colleges for your sample student is a guaranteed way to impress families during your initial conversations. The Suggested List allows you to illustrate that you'll be taking time to make recommendations and suggestions for the student to consider as they research colleges during their process. Students can also build their own ‘My List’ of Colleges in CustomCollegePlan and explore full College Profiles along with a suite of research websites within the platform.
Below you'll notice that students can click on the green arrow to move a college from the Suggested Colleges to "My List" of Colleges. Additionally, the color-coding (orange, blue, green) represents the IEC-assigned admissions probability feature available in CollegePlannerPro. This is an optional tool that many IECs utilize to illustrate balance in a student's college list.
Have fun building out your sample student profile! Give your sample student a fun name and persona to add some personality to the initial call with prospective families. In addition to the features outlined above, we've created a CustomCollegePlan one-sheet for IECs to customize (below). In the Canva flyer, you can add a logo, alter the text, change the colors, or make any other desired modifications. Access the Canva template here (you will need to create a free Canva account in order to proceed).
Not a CollegePlannerPro member yet? Schedule a demo or start a free trial to see how a sample student profile can help you showcase your services and attract more clients!