I didn’t link to the original washington post article, but here’s a summation. How do you think our behavior should be modified if at all?
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here’s the original reporting:
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I suspect this kind of tracking is used for looking at demonstrated interest, same as tracking opened links in emails, etc. I think this has now changed but years ago some schools practicing yield-protection were using their listed position on a students’ FAFSA as an indicator of interest (so more likely to reject if a student listed them 10th on their FAFSA and not 1st, as they’d be unlikely to attend if accepted). But filling out an NPC on a school’s website is a pretty good indicator a student is interested in a school, I would think.
Colleges can no longer see any other colleges to which you send your FAFSA. They get the info themselves, but don’t see any other colleges listed. This change happened a handful or more years ago.
The exception is some state scholarship awards do require that the student list the college first…but I still don’t think they see the other colleges.
@kelsmom ?
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That was my understanding as well re the handful of state scholarships requiring the student to list the school first. I don’t think the other info is visible. I think same goes now for ACT score reporting - schools could previously see order listed but not anymore?
Other schools or organizations listed on the FAFSA are NOT visible to anyone reviewing the ISIR (the report that listed schools/organizations get when a student puts their code on the FAFSA).
Colleges absolutely track visits to their website, pages visited, time spent in each page, etc. This is data analytics … you know, one of the hot jobs people want their kids to get into. It’s the way things are now. Schools will use collected data to pinpoint outreach in an effort to get them to enroll, and they use data to determine effectiveness of the information on their websites. I know that the school where I worked was using data to get people to apply, since that is critical to a school remaining in business. While I suppose some schools may go farther in data collection than others, I doubt it’s for nefarious reasons. I would guess that some data is reviewed in aggregate, rather than on the personal level, to try to better target admissions efforts. It costs money to recruit, so spending strategically is important.
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Absolutely! This is not news. If you don’t want ANY website to track you (including college websites) you need to not allow cookies and use a browser that thwarts attempts at tracking. You will still probably be tracked anyway. Same as when you look at shoes on Zappos and then shoe ads follow you all over the internet. This is standard technology. There are ways around it, but it may not be to your or your student’s benefit.
Have location services turned on for app on your phone. I freak people out at work all the time when I tell them what room they are in when they are at home.