Celebrating 500!

Note:  Mycca.net has been made the premier online tool through the support of individual independent educational consultants.  This week we are highlighting the 500th organization to join mycca.net: Shelly Levine and Jodi Seigel of College Bound Maryland.

College Bound is an educational consulting practice in Potomac, MD that offers a broad range of personalized services.  Shelley Levine and Jodi Siegel work closely with students and their parents to help address the needs and interests of high school sophomores, juniors and seniors.  Throughout the year, College Bound helps students, including athletes, artists, actors, engineers, and students with learning differences to achieve educational and career success through specialized counseling.

 As independent educational consultants, we strive to identify colleges and universities that will provide the best fit for our clients.  We have successfully guided hundreds of high school students and their parents through the college admissions process.

 We began using mycca in 2011, and are impressed with how great it is at improving our communication with clients, developing college lists, managing appointments, accounting, and tracking client contacts.  Our students are excited to log on to their student portals to explore colleges and track their progress.

 As we look further into 2012, we plan to implement more of the mycca.net capabilities into our practice, and are excited to see how it enables us to provide even better service to our clients.

Stating Goals for 2012

Now it is time to state my New Year’s Resolutions for my consulting firm, McDonald & Associates.   By sharing them with you I am implementing #4 tip from last weeks blog. This week I am sharing the goals we have for the operations side of the practice.  Next week I will write about goals focusing on marketing.

Operations goals:

1. Empower Students more.
2. Move our office toward being paperless.
3. Incorporate college affordability into our practice more.

All of these goals can be accomplished easily using mycca.net.

1. We can empower students by using assignments better.  A IEC recently told me she uses the assignments feature in mycca.net to make action lists with her students as they are meeting.  I tried it recently with great success. I entered the action plan into the counselor Assignment section for the student record as we met. At the end of our session, together we set a due date for the assignment.  Click, click, click, and the assignment was saved, reminder emails were set for both student and parent, and I receive an email with the assignment to add to my calendar.  So much time saved and the student was a part of the process!
2. By uploading all of our company documents into mycca.net we can move toward being paperless.  We have a large number of documents to provide to parents and students in the college planning process.  The new document sharing feature on mycca.net, allows you to upload then assign documents to students as needed.  Our goal is to upload our student binder, making it an electronic binder. 
3. Using the Academic Scholarship Reports in the college planning process early on will help incorporate college affordability early.  Academic Scholarship reports gives you an idea of how many merit scholarships are available at colleges that are being considered, and the maximum level of scholarship for that school.  This can assist me as a consultant as I shape a list of colleges for students and parents to consider, and ultimately as they select the colleges for “My Colleges” list to apply to.  This will maximize the options a student or parent has as they enter this process.