In my internet wanderings, I’ve come across Cappex. I’m curious but hesitant. It asks for a lot of personal data. Will we be inundated with mail afterwards? Will it send messages to universities without our permission (or without our knowing permission)? Is it otherwise safe / benign?
Assuming it’s benign, does it have any value? Since my daughter is at a small high school, Naviance is of limited value due to the small sample size. It might be interesting to look at the bigger picture. Should we check out Cappex or stay away?
You will be inundated with email contact…I recommend using a separate email account. Statistically it has been relatively accurate. I too have found Naviance useless with regard to our school specific stats but you can access national stats on Naviance too and those are relatively accurate.
From someone that uses it, I highly reccomend it. Every now and then I’ll get an email from them saying that some schools (usually 4 at a time) are “interested” in me. While this may seem like a way to butter me (the consumer) up, when I said I was also interested in several schools, I began to receive large packets in the mail and emails that verified Cappex’s claim. I could only assert that they actually make an effort to “shop” you around with just your GPA, possible major, and extracurriculars.
Oops, just logged in and see that I did enter our home address. We’ve got one piece of snail mail that might have come via Cappex, but then again, might have come from another source. But, we live in Canada, so maybe schools don’t want to pay for the extra postage? No spammy emails though. We haven’t got any messages that schools are interested in D16. Maybe it’s because the majority of schools listed on her account are Ivy and similar??
I’m a little weirded out by colleges saying that they are “interested.” Can you confirm that the colleges won’t know who you are unless you say you want to communicate with them? I’m not looking for anyone to “shop” my daughter around. In other words, I’d like one-way info flow – to me and my daughter – not from us to various colleges (at this point in time at least).
Yes, they don’t receive an “ok” until you say that you are also interested in them. You can also make a list of colleges that you are interested in, and they send mail that way without it having to be mutual (in your favor). I found this appealing because I received relevant mail from colleges I’m actually interested in.
