Interviews & Observations
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Parents
For our first deliverable we decided to focus on parental involvement because planning college trips is primarily driven by parent planning. We interviewed three parents, all of who have at least one child currently in college and have either gone through or are going through the college application process with a second or third child.
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Interview 3
Mother of three children, two children already in or completed college (Providence and MIT), one child still in high school (junior).
Main Take Away DifficultiesCommon Problems
- Finding schools of interest subject to criteria
- When the geographic area is unfamiliar, it is more difficult to find schools of the right caliber and right fit
- School websites and college books (e.g., Barron’s, Fiske’s are helpful for identifying the programs that are popular and/or renowned), but then for things like online sources some parents (e.g. Parent 3) lacked trust of existing online information sources (saying: “I wouldn’t trust the College Board”).
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