Web site links students, college recruiters

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Guidance counselor Kenya Samuels used to urge D.C. high schoolers to write strong personal essays in the hope that they would get the chance to impress college recruiters with their compositions.

But this school year, she’s begun referring students to a new Web site modeled on MySpace and Facebook where students can more actively market themselves to prospective higher-learning institutions.

Zinch.com, created eight months ago, is increasingly becoming a tool for college applicants, according to the company, which reports that more than 200,000 high schoolers are using it nationwide, and an estimated several hundred D.C.-based high schoolers are on board.

Samuels, who is director of college and career services at D.C. public charter school Friendship Collegiate Academy, said she stumbled upon the site when she was surfing the Web.

The strength of the approach is that students who may not score the highest on standardized tests are able to make their own cases about their skills and interests to recruiters.

“Not everyone’s using it yet, but those who are [say] they enjoy it so far,” she said. “It’s a great tool to use to organize themselves, because they can access it anywhere. They don’t have to come in and pull up school files.”

Mick Hagen, one of the co-founders, said close to 400 colleges and universities have so far signed up to participate. When they do, they pay a fee ranging from $2,000 to $15,000 a year to access students’ profiles. Posting a profile is free for students.

The recruiters can then search by an unlimited number of factors, including high schoolers’ ethnicity, home state, extracurricular activities or grade-point averages.

“It’s our attempt to empower students to help themselves shine, to give them a leg up,” he said.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com