November 5, 2009

Mission Outreach: College Fairs and Campus Events

What do you get when you cross 13,671 high school students with a chance to miss class? An excellent opportunity to provide college planning information and resources, of course!

This fall, OGSLP participated in 64 college fairs and 6 high school counselor-only fairs. Our materials explaining the process of applying for aid and the types of aid available-- like grants, scholarships and loans-- were of particular interest to students. High school counselors are excited about the free college access publications and educational resources available through OGSLP’s new outreach program, UCanGo2.

As you've read in previous editions of the Online News, we’ve been hard at work developing UCanGo2. We're happy to introduce our newest product to make your job easier. We've completed development of planning guide for campus events, which was designed just for you!

We know that finding the right college can be intimidating and challenging for many students. As a campus professional, you know the value of helping high school students and their parents become familiar with the academics, atmosphere and experiences available at your institution. We developed this comprehensive set of planning tools to help you maximize your effort and minimize the time spent planning an exciting campus event.

No matter what type of event you hold on campus, you’ll find great resources to help you educate families about planning for college and financial aid, including:

• Ideas for planning and executing innovative, effective College Preview Day events for high school students and their parents.
• Tips and action steps for managing event logistics and collaborating with campus and community partners.
• Proven techniques and tools you can use to promote your campus events, such as creative advertising options and sample press releases.

OGSLP's UCanGo2 program can help you plan, promote and deliver campus events that encourage participation, increase enrollment and eliminate barriers that keep students from going to college. Copies of the full planning guide are available upon request, and both the full guide and the individual tools are available for download on our new outreach Web site, UCanGo2.org.

If you have questions or need additional help planning an event, contact us at 405.234.4484, 800.247.0420 (toll-free) or UCanGo2@ogslp.org. Stay tuned for updates about more UCanGo2 products that will be ready for distribution in the near future, including college access toolkits for school counselors and parents.