Rock Star Scholarship Winner: Maria Zilberman, from North Miami Beach, Fla., plans on attending college this fall to study pre-medicine.
	College Pro Scholarship Winner: Walter Chang, from Houston, Texas, will attend college in the fall to study engineering and musical performance.

Zilberman and Chang qualified for the scholarships by playing the “Cappex Cap Challenge,” where students collect virtual “cap” badges for completing key activities in their college searches. After earning at least 10 badges in the Cap Challenge, students become eligible to apply for special Cappex-sponsored scholarships. Examples of virtual badges include:

• Leader (Abe Lincoln hat) : For sharing leadership examples
• Artsy (beret): For providing accomplishments in the arts
• Volunteer (halo): For detailing how you’ve helped your community
• Yeeehaw!!! (cowboy hat): For representing a western state
• Road Warrior (roadster): For using the “Cappex Campus Visit Planner” to plan a college road trip
• College Reviewer (fedora with press pass): For providing a college review

Zilberman, of North Miami Beach, Fla., qualified for the $5,000 Rock Star Scholarship by collecting 25 badges, but it was her outstanding leadership in founding her high school’s international humanitarian club that won her the scholarship.

“The Cap Challenge guided me to explore colleges, which allowed me to learn more about them through student reviews, seeing my chances and organizing my application,” Zilberman said.

Chang qualified for the College Pro Scholarship by earning 10 virtual cap badges.

“Cappex.com improved my college search process tremendously, with all the key facts of each college compiled into one page and several student reviews to provide further perspective,” Chang said. He was awarded the $2,500 scholarship for his dedication as the school orchestra president who helped fundraise over $30,000 to help the school purchase a new grand piano.

“We started the Cappex Cap Challenge to give students a fun and new way to discover colleges and find matching scholarships,” said Chris Long, Cappex president.  “Maria and Walter took on the challenge and also clearly demonstrated their accomplishments improving their respective communities. We were thrilled to award our Cap Challenge scholarships to these deserving students.”

Interested in the Cappex Cap Challenge? Make your own Cappex profile now.

Looking for scholarships? Find more here!

]]> http://cappex.com/blog/blog/college-search-calendar/cappex-com-announces-rock-star-and-college-pro-scholarship-winners/feed/ 1 http://cappex.com/blog/blog/scholarships/recent-cappex-scholarship-winners/ http://cappex.com/blog/blog/scholarships/recent-cappex-scholarship-winners/#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:11:38 +0000 dkatz http://cappex.com/blog/?p=2784 Cappex.com is very excited to announce our most recent scholarship winners from Spring 2011.  These students have proven that with their leadership and volunteer activities, they can make a difference in the world. Congratulations!

You can be a scholarship winner too by making a Cappex profile! Your profile will then be used as your “application” for the Cappex scholarships, like, say, these two coming up:

A GPA Isn’t Everything and I Don’t Want to Pay for College.

That’s exactly what these two superstars did to win their scholarships:

“A GPA Isn’t Everything” Scholarship – Winter II Scholarship Winner: Rebecca D. from Mt. Prospect, Ill., will be attending college next fall.  During her high school career, she served as a member of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and eventually its President for two school years.  The program was recognized as one of the best programs in the state and won grants from the Operation Teen Safe Driver for its success. Rebecca was also a peer tutor and a member of her school’s service organization which works to better the community and help with special needs schools as well as the elderly.

“I Don’t Want to Pay for College” – Spring Scholarship Winner: Matthew J., from Murfreesboro, Tenn., is currently a college student with a broad background in volunteer and service with his church and Boy Scouts including canned food drives, making care packages for the 101st Airborne and community clean up.  Matthew’s a talented student who channeled his passion for music and science into an awesome project where he designed, produced and then performed with two homemade instruments.

Want to see past scholarship winners? Check them out on our Facebook page!

The new white paper provides insights into 2011 and 2012 high school grads’ college search preferences and where colleges are actually focusing their resources.

Findings show that mobile and video are on the rise, though traditional channels such as mail and e-mail remain the cornerstone of admissions communications. Above all, getting it right in the mobile space will be of utmost importance in 2011.

View the white paper to find out about the 6 trends.

A picture’s worth a thousand words!
View these trends in our new infographic.

A new study by Cappex.com shows that students are researching information on college websites from their mobile devices, though traditional channels such as email are still relied upon most to keep students on track during their college searches.

The Cappex study of more than 2,000 class of 2011 and 2012 high school students, as well as 82 college admission officers, also shows that videos are more popular for college searching than blogs on college sites.

Specific findings from the study include:

• 86 percent of 2011 high school grads prefer e-mail for initial contact from colleges
• Just 19 percent of 2011 high school grads want initial direct contact from colleges by cell phone, though 32 percent prefer to continue a dialogue with college admissions reps by cell phone
• 77 percent of 2011 high school grads prefer using a mobile-friendly version of a college’s website, while 23 percent would prefer to download an app from a college
• Class of 2012 high school students are somewhat more receptive to apps: 35 percent would prefer to download an app
• 34 percent of colleges surveyed said that they have created a mobile-friendly version of their website. Of those that have not yet created one, two thirds plan to create one this year
• More than 85 percent of 2011 high school seniors prefer to learn about colleges through video tours and student videos, while just 6 percent are interested in reading college blogs during their college searches

“When it comes to communicating with colleges, students are more open than ever to using their mobile devices and cell phones, though colleges need to understand their preferences,” said Chris Long, president of Cappex. “For instance, students may not want to download an app from every college they are looking at, but they will visit a college’s website using their mobile devices.”

“Colleges need to be sure to set up mobile versions of their sites to cater to growing mobile use among students,” Long added. “Additionally, colleges should continue using tried and true methods such as e-mail to make it easy for students to keep track of their interactions with colleges.”

The white paper summarizing the study can be found at http://bit.ly/irOAhX.

On that note, we present to you our new series of student-to-student advice, Cappex Real Talk. The subject today? Campus visits.

See what your peers are saying about them:

Do you have any advice you’d like to share? Leave a comment!

And now, planning your college road trip is tremendously easy (and free) with the Cappex Campus Visit Planner™.

Instead of getting lost on the Web visiting multiple college websites and then spending time stringing all the pieces together, the Visit Planner lets you take care of all your college visits plans in one place.

Simplify the process with our college trip planning tool:

• Choose the campuses to visit and find the best route.
• See recommendations of other campuses nearby.
• Let colleges know you’re interested in visiting their campus.
• Get turn-by-turn driving directions.

You can see what the Campus Visit Planner is all about, or even start planning your college road trip, by visiting www.Cappex.com/campusvisits.

And check out the Visit Planner video!

Q1. What are the latest social media or mobile tools Wooster admissions is using and why?

We wanted to be very deliberate with our social media presence and avoid jumping haphazardly into everything available.  So, we laid down the groundwork and devised a plan that would limit which tools we would use to reach out to students.  Ultimately, we wanted to use fewer social media platforms, but use them precisely and to their full potential instead of diluting our efforts across the Web.

This discussion led to us narrowing down our major efforts to Facebook and Twitter, which are pretty much the hubs of the social media scene. With our concentrated efforts we can really do it right and aim for consistency, making sure that even if a prospective student finds us through Facebook, or Twitter, or the official school website, we’re giving the same message.  So, our main focus at this time is Facebook and Twitter.

Q2.  How can “Facebook-ing” be done more deliberately to engage prospective students?

Before we even started posting from our Wooster Facebook page, we had to decide if we should make a separate Wooster admissions page apart from the community institution page. Eventually we chose to drive all traffic to one location, so our page’s audience is everyone from prospective and enrolled students, to alumni, family and parents.

As for posting to our page, we outlined the percentages of the different types of posts we thought would be the most powerful. The majority of our Facebook posts are questions that inspire conversation.  We like to give a bit of information while asking questions, but also allow room for the community to respond. This shows prospective students what alumni have to say and also gives prospective students the opportunity to ask questions and interact.

Many times, we drive our posts around Wooster’s Capstone Experience, our independent study program.  Alumni talk about their experience with the program and prospective students can get a well-rounded perspective of Wooster right from their computer.

Q3.  Are there other digital tools that you use, and how do you feel they complement what you’re doing on Facebook?

Again, it’s about using digital media not to spread your resources too thin, but to really target the audience you want to engage. College search sites make that part of my admissions job much easier to manage. With sites, like Cappex, we have the option to be very specific with the information we provide and target it to the specific students we want to reach. By far, though, the best aspect of college search tools is the follow up.  If a student is interested in a Wooster campaign, the follow up is crucial because that’s really where you can connect with them and drive them to our different sites.  To my initial surprise, a large number of enrolled students came from the online college search.

Q4. Do you think these tools help further the conversation, start the conversation, or help with yield?

All of the above! We focus in on a couple of tools, like Facebook, and really drive them home.  If schools put in the time, the tools will help them find the students, communicate with students, build relationships, and help with yield.  If you use these tools to their full potential they can help with the entire funnel: initial inquiry all the way through enrollment and keeping them engaged as alumni.

Q5. What do you think is the most important thing about digital media that admissions officers need to hear?

These platforms are great yield tools.  They encourage an organic conversation between prospective students, current students and alumni that never really could happen before.  It’s one thing for prospective students to hear good things about Wooster from admissions people, but it’s a completely different thing to hear from people who are simply expressing joy about their experience in college.  This happened a lot last year, and it paid off.  We enrolled one of the largest classes in Wooster history.

You can see how the College of Wooster has integrated social media into their site at: http://www.wooster.edu/

Congratulations to the winner of the Trick Out the Cap scholarship, Mary L. of Highland Park N.J.! Her tricked out cap won by receiving the most “Likes” with 321 likes in the finalist round.  Let’s give a standing ovation for Mary’s intricate design that will bring her one step closer to paying for college.

Mary and her scholarship-winning design:

In addition to Mary’s winning entry, we’d also like to acknowledge a few of our favorites here at Cappex. These are tricked out caps that show such great innovation in their designs that we had to share them with you:

Amber L. of Sanibel, Fla.	Rachel C. of Amherst, N.Y.
Grace H. of Wheat Ridge, Colo.	Deyaun V. of Port Isabel, Texas Click here to view the embedded video.

Thank you to all of our Trick Out the Cap participants. You can see all of the tricked out cap submissions here.

Or, you can get a head start on the next Cappex scholarship here!

	#1 Cappex Facebook Fan Scholarship Fall: Nicole T., of Broadlands, Va. is expected to enter her freshman year of college next fall.   She is an active member of her high school’s Key Club, climbing up its ranks from historian to president and lt. governor.  She has given over 300 hours her time to volunteer services with the Key Club, as well as additional hours volunteering  for the American Liver Foundation, Tour De Cure, Good Shepherd Alliance and the Lost Dog and Cat Foundation.
	“A GPA Isn’t Everything” Scholarship – Fall Scholarship Winner: Salome B., of Santa Fe, N.M will be attending college next fall.  Currently she’s in her senior year of high school where  she has been a member of the Key Club for three years, serving  as Junior Representative and President. Her experience in the Key Club have given her the opportunity to gain more than thirty service hours a month in projects helping the disabled community, children around New Mexico and worldwide charities.
	“My College Review” Scholarship Winner: Jennifer S. of Newtown, PA was awarded the $1,000 scholarship for her thoughtful and in-depth review of her school, Ursinus College. You can read her review here!
	I Don’t Want to Pay For College – Fall II Winner: Crystal Y., from Cupertino, Calif. is in her freshman year of college.  She is a trilingual student entrepreneur in the San Francisco Bay Area. She describes herself as a social entrepreneur with a focus on youth marketing and online social media strategy.  Crystal has collaborated with a socially responsible start-up to start an internship program for high school and college students.  She aspires to contribute to the fields of global business, foreign affairs, corporate philanthropy or international aid.

Want to see past scholarship winners? Check them out on our Facebook page!