About the Symposia
Welcome to the Class of 2021 CollegePoint Midyear Symposia: Navigating the Higher Education Landscape, where advisors and staff from CollegePoint’s four advising partners come together to learn, discuss and share best practices in the evolving landscape of higher education and virtual college advising. The goal of the series is to provide advisors with resources and insights into the higher education landscape that can be applied in their work with students who will soon be making critical decisions regarding college enrollment.
We look forward to seeing you there!
CollegePoint advisors and staff convened at Georgia Institute of Technology in January 2020 to share best practices and strategies for increasing family engagement during the college decision-making process.
Registration
Registration for the Midyear Symposia has now closed.
Agenda
This four week series will aim to equip advisors with the tools and skills needed to support students and their families in completing college and financial aid applications to institutions that best meet their interests, qualifications and financial needs. Topics range from the impact of COVID-19 on college admissions and enrollment, to navigating challenging financial aid conversations, and the future of higher education and the higher education policy landscape, and educational equity while addressing the contemporary moment in higher education.
The symposia will take place on February 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th from 1:00 – 3:30pm ET, and will be preceded by an optional CollegePoint Café discussion open to advisors and staff from 12:30 – 1:00 PM ET each week.
Weekly Schedule
Impact of COVID-19 | Thursday, February 4, 2021 | 1:00-3:30PM ET
This week’s sessions will cover how to guide students on topics around navigating the college transition and decision-making process this spring in light of COVID-19.
Navigating Financial Aid Conversations | Thursday, February 11, 2021 | 1:00-3:30PM ET
This week’s sessions will provide concrete tools that advisors can use to navigate financial aid appeals and award letter analysis, while also discussing soft skills that can be used to navigate sensitive conversations around finances with students.
Higher Education Policy Landscape | Thursday, February 18, 2021 | 1:00-3:30PM ET
This week’s sessions will zoom out to consider the broader higher education landscape from a policy perspective—impacts of COVID-19, predictions for the future and more.
Educational Equity | Thursday, February 25, 2021 | 1:00-3:30PM ET
This week’s sessions will include conversations around educational equity that will serve as a synthesis of the previous week’s conversations. What are policymakers, leaders, and organizations doing to increase equity in the space? What takeaways can advisors implement in their work to enact change at a grassroots level? If attending the sessions on February 25th, please be sure to read the first article listed below entitled What College Admissions Offices Really Want.
Agenda last updated 2.9.21 at 20:20
Recommended Content
Below are a series of articles, videos, and podcasts that are relevant to the topics that will be covered during the upcoming Midyear Symposia. We encourage attendees to review the below content (some of which features guest speakers) to add context and further enrich the conversations that will take place.
Read
- NYT: What College Admissions Offices Really Want
- NYT: Hungry, Homeless and in College
- Inside Higher Ed: A College Dream Deferred?
- NYT: College Admissions in the Pandemic: An Expert’s View
- NYT: I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren’t the Hard Part
- Chicago Tribune: Work, classes, financial aid — and now COVID-19: Life as a poor college student has only gotten tougher during the pandemic
- The New Yorker: What Do Colleges Owe Their Most Vulnerable Students?
- Inside Higher Ed: Confronting Racism in Admissions
- The Press Enterprise: COVID-19, summer melt a one-two punch to colleges and students alike
- Inside Higher Ed: Biden’s Victory Could Be Transformative
- The Hechinger Report: Progress in getting underrepresented people into college and skilled jobs may be stalling because of the pandemic
Watch
- Yahoo Life: Hungry to Learn
- University of California Television (UCTV) Youtube: Rethinking the College Admissions Process
Listen
- WPR: Hunger and Homelessness in College
- NYT: Nice White Parents
- Washington Post: Confronting America’s Digital Divide,
- Get Schooled by Reeves and Ford: Get Schooled Episode 14: A Visit with Angel Perez
- Lead With Passion – Higher Education: Courtney McAnuff – Rutgers University
Speaker Bios
Recordings
FAQs
Q: What are the CollegePoint Café Discussions?
A: Think of these like coffee chats—informal, themed small group conversations among advisors from all of our advising partner organizations. These sessions will be great forums to discuss current events in the higher education landscape with fellow advisors, and will take place from 12:30 – 1:00 PM ET each week, before the main session for the day begins.
Q: Am I required to attend the CollegePoint Café Discussions?
A: CollegePoint Cafe Discussions are completely optional, but they are great ways to connect with advisors from other organizations.
Q: I’d love to take more of a leadership role as an advisor. How can I contribute to the Midyear Symposia?
A: We’d love to have you facilitate a CollegePoint Café discussion with your peers! Please indicate your interest on the registration form, and/or reach out to your leadership team to raise your hand. Have a topic that you’d like to discuss that isn’t listed? Let us know!
Q: I’m an invited guest, can I attend the CollegePoint Café discussions and breakout sessions each week?
A: We’re excited to welcome invited guests to the main sessions (taking place from 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time) each week of the symposia.
More Questions?
Advisors, please direct any questions to your organization’s leadership point of contact, listed below.
College Advising Corps: Warner Lambeth (wlambeth@advisingcorps.org)
College Possible: Emily Stacken (estacken@collegepossible.org)
Matriculate: Lakisha Gonsalves (lgonsalves@matriculate.org)
ScholarMatch: advising@scholarmatch.org
Invited guests, please reach out to Jhenielle Reynolds (jhenielle@bloomberg.org) and cc: Many Correa (gcorrea@bloomberg.org)
About CollegePoint
Each year, tens of thousands of hardworking, high-achieving students from low- and moderate-income families fail to apply to leading colleges and universities that they are qualified to attend.
To address this college undermatching challenge, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched the CollegePoint initiative, a coalition of nonprofit organizations and philanthropic institutions committed to increasing the number of high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students enrolling in top colleges from 1/3 of 70,000 to more than 1/2 of that same number by 2020.
Since 2014, the coalition has served nearly 75,000 students. CollegePoint partners with respected national organizations, including ACT, College Advising Corps, College Board, College Possible, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Matriculate, ScholarMatch and uAspire to provide students with personalized information on their college options and the associated costs, and, ultimately, to support them to apply to and enroll in top-performing colleges nationwide.