Many high school counselors are successfully using group texting programs as a way to 1) deliver timely college planning information to their students, and 2) actually get their students to pay attention to it. That second item isn’t trivial. Teens often suffer from information overload, especially when it comes to college admissions. A six-page newsletter, an email they have to scroll through, a 90-minute workshop overviewing the entire process—you lose a lot of students to diminished attention spans. But a timely text that says, “Here’s one thing you need to do this week” stands a much better chance of breaking through the information clutter.
Patrick O’Connor offers up some good advice here on how to do this effectively, including how to incorporate the White House’s new initiative, What’s Up Next?, which sends regular texts to students to advise them on various parts of the college process.