As a graduating student from Cincinnati's Moeller High School, Justin Bayer remembers having little information to go on when deciding on a college. He credits a high school counselor with steering him toward the University of Dayton.
Now, Bayer is hoping to give parents and students better college information up with his new company, Welcometocollege.com.
The Dayton-based firm, formed early last year, centers on an iPhone app called College Visits. The free download allows students to tap into information about 4,000 schools in the data base, track their impressions during college visits and provide anonymous feedback to the school.
The tool is intended not only to give the college-bound a better way to compare and evaluate their visits to different colleges and universities, but to give those schools better information to improve their visitation programs.
Bayer served as a tour guide while an undergrad at UD and, after earning his masters degree in higher education administration at the University of Vermont, ran that university's student tour guide program.
"One of the struggles we had at Vermont was actually capturing genuine feedback," he says. "What did these visitors want to see when they came to campus? Were we giving them the best experience possible?"
To capture feedback, Vermont -- and Bayer says most universities -- asked students to fill out cards at the end of their visits, a method marred by the tendency to rush through answers and tell the university what it wanted to hear.
Because Welcometocollege.com offers students anonymity, the feedback provided to date "has been unbelievable in terms of the honesty and genuineness," he says.
Unlike many other services, Bayer says, Welcometocollege.com does not sell students' names. Instead, the company receives its revenue from institutions that sign on as partners. Packages range from $2,500 to $10,000. Eleven institutions have signed on, with another three in the immediate pipeline and some marquee schools on the horizon, Bayer says.
Meanwhile, Bayer is traveling to college campuses around the country in MARV -- his mobile automated research vehicle, touted as "the world's smartest RV."
"Marv is going to help high school students everywhere have fun with the college visit," Bayer says. "We're going out and securing research, taking video clips for our YouTube page and visiting with (students) about why they should become a Tar Heel, or why they should become a Buckeye. And the response has just been phenomenal."
To date, more than 1,000 users in 35 states have downloaded Welcometocollege.com's mobile app, and the number is growing every day, Bayer says. The company employs two full-time people and four independent contractors.
Source: Justin Bayer, Welcometocollege.com
Writer: Gene Monteith