As an IEC, I find myself battling an endless mental checklist of things I've asked my rising seniors to take care of from mid-summer to late fall each year. Did Samantha fill out her brag sheet for teacher letters of recommendation? When is Johnny's Michigan essay draft due to me, again? Has Molly finished up her arts supplement? I have been a CollegePlannerPro member for nine years and after joining the staff this year, I realized that the To-Do feature could lighten this mental load.
Here's how I've implemented To-Do Items to help me keep track of things this admissions season:
1. Create To-Do Items
During weekly meetings with seniors, we discuss the things I'd like them to work on in the upcoming week and we agree on a deadline. Once we've set the due date, I add the item as a To Do on their Student Profile (see below). Examples of things I've assigned as To-Do items for seniors include: essay drafts, transcript requests, letter of recommendation brag sheets, researching colleges and college majors they'd like to apply to, resume revisions.
2. Consider using Multi-Student To-Dos
CollegePlannerPro has a handy feature called Multi-Student To-Dos, which allows you to assign a To-Do to many students at once. If you have a task that you'd like all students to do, you can use this feature to remind multiple students at the same time. You can select which students you'd like to assign a Multi-Student To-Do item to, or you can simply apply a Multi-Student To-Do to all students in a given class year. Once you've created Multi-Student To-Dos, you can use them in the future with new students by adding additional students to the Multi-Student To-Do item.
3. Set up Email Reminders for Status Updates
Now for the best part...email reminders! You can set up daily email reminders to be sent to you with a list of all incomplete To-Do items for your students. Within the My Settings & Preferences Menu, you can indicate the time you'd like to receive the email each day. Enabling this option will produce a report of all Incomplete Student To-Dos as well as a list of any changes students have made to their CustomCollegePlan account.
With this email report, you can then follow up on overdue To-Do items, check in with students on progress, and adjust deadlines for To-Do items as needed. This has saved me hours of trying to recall when student tasks are due, checking documents for essay progress, and endless messages to students to remind them of things they need to work on each week. Keep in mind, you can send students and parents reminders for To-Do items, so everyone has visibility into deadlines and progress.
6. Mass Update Statuses for To-Dos
If you use To-Do items for your students, you'll find that the daily report can start to feel like a laundry list of incomplete tasks and outstanding assignments. Need to change a few To-Do items to completed? Want to review all pending or completed tasks across students? Check out the All Student To-Dos Report.
7. Student View
Beyond the time-saving, mental-checklist limiting benefits of To-Do items, the view from the student side is also clear and organized. On CustomCollegePlan, students can view all of their To-Dos in stages, along with due dates and details in one place.
Not a CollegePlannerPro member yet? Schedule a demo or try out the platform with a free trial to explore the ways that To-Dos and other features of the platform can help you streamline tasks and support your students throughout the application season.