--- title: STUDY HALL - FAQ, feedback and immediate follow up :) description: "Study hall\ncommunity" --- [Skip to content](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/https/helpdesk.counselmore.com/study-hall-faq-feedback-and-immediate-follow-up-#main-content) English Show submenu for translations [![CounselMore College Planning Software Knowledge Base](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/hs-fs/hubfs/logos/CMLogo_CCS_wide_trans-w2000-1.gif?width=1116&height=125&name=CMLogo_CCS_wide_trans-w2000-1.gif)](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/?hsLang=en) Open main navigation Close main navigation - English Show submenu for translations Select below, or search by topic - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. 1. [Knowledge Base : CounselMore Support](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/?hsLang=en) 2. [MEMBER BENEFITS](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/member-benefits?hsLang=en) 3. [Community Resources](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/member-benefits?hsLang=en#community-resources) # STUDY HALL - FAQ, feedback and immediate follow up :) ## Study Hall Q&A - ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK: Stealth Essays, AI Data Fields, International Filters, Mobile Preview & Résumé Builder Answers to the questions raised in this week's Friday Study Hall, compiled for Tamra's group. ### **![october](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/hs-fs/hubfs/october.png?width=192&height=161&name=october.png)** ### **Study Hall: Friday, October 23, 2026** **Topic: Best tips of the season** This week, peer mentors Tamra and Anthony shared the CounselMore habits that have saved them the most time this application season. #### Topics covered **Q: Can I update my students’ application status from the Common App instead of typing it in?** A: Yes. If a student has invited you as an advisor in the Common App, you can export their information and let AI Assist update the App Tracker for you.   **1. Export from the Common App.** From your Common App advisor account, download your student list. **2. Rename the column headers to match CounselMore.** Open the file and change the Common App headers to the CounselMore column names below. AI Assist reads the file more accurately when the names match. \[IMAGE: Header mapping spreadsheet (second screenshot)\] ![Screenshot 2026-10-26 at 10.59.56 AM](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Knowledge%20Base%20Import/Screenshot%202026-10-26%20at%2010.59.56%20AM.png?width=670&height=96&name=Screenshot%202026-10-26%20at%2010.59.56%20AM.png) | Common App column | Change it to | | --- | --- | | **B/C**  Last Name, First Name | The student’s name exactly as it appears in your CounselMore account | | **D**    CAID | Delete this column. CounselMore doesn’t read it. | | **E**     College | College | | **F**     Decision Plan | Chosen Deadline | | **H**   Application Submission | App Submitted (y/n) |   --- ### **What is the Google Drive 2 option? Adding a counseloryou may want Google Drive 2.** The Admin hired a new Counselor, his name is Mike. Mike's login to CounselMore will be: [Mike@yourcompany.com](mailto:Mike@illumineducation.com) Mike's login to the shared Google Drive 2 will be via: [Mike@yourcompany.com](mailto:Mike@illumineducation.com) To choose this option - the admin has to make that change in the admin account - that's you. It's probably easier if you can just grab time with us and we can help you to make the change. Here is the link: [Book here](https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-meet-with-tech-mentor) If you, the account admin, wish to perform this on your own sign **all the way out** of **Google Drive** by clicking on the blue button. Find a red button that says **clear settings**. Clear the settings - this will take time your screen will be momentarily Frozen so that the operation can perform. Now log out - refresh your screen just as good housekeeping. Clear cookies and cache just as good housekeeping. Navigate back to the same settings Google Drive screen inside your CounselMore account and login as the admin to the Google Drive. **You will see a fresh option on the screen to change to Google Drive 2.** Follow the instructions on the screen - again patiently wait for the operation to complete before moving on. **Master folders - sharing with other counselors** The master folders are located on the primary Google Drive - they will be stored in a folder called templates. In your account setup meeting we help you to build that folder and be sure that the connection is made on the same settings Google Drive screen as discussed above. After that is done by the Admin account each counselor underneath the admin also has access to those folders. --- #### **Build college research once, reuse it every year (custom columns + tags)** When you research something for a student, such as which schools offer first-year engineering versus direct admission to a major, save it in a custom per-college column. Go to the College Data menu, then Per School Custom Columns. What you enter stays with that college, so it appears on every student list the college is added to. If it’s research you’ll want again next year, also give the college a tag in the Tags column. When you build a new list, search your college database by that tag to get a starting list right away. Now is a good time to do this, before you archive this year’s students. Tip: You don’t need a tag for every custom column. Tag only the research you’ll actually search on again. #### **Broadcast to students by college or by high school** From Broadcasting, you can message every student applying to a particular college. This is useful for things like essay changes, housing news, or portal updates. You can also message every student at a particular high school, for example about a college fair or ordering transcripts. You can leave out individual students before you send. Note: College broadcasts are built from the App Tracker, so a student only receives the message if that college is in their App Tracker. #### **Use administrative tags to group students** In Student Info, under Administrator, you can tag students by school district, by program or package, or by application system (for example, UC, Cal State or UCAS). You can then send a broadcast to everyone with that tag. This is a simple way to reach a whole district at once, or to remind everyone on a shared application about its deadline. To clean up your tags, go to Settings, then Account Setup, then Counselor Preferences, then Student Tag List. #### **Use Counselor Assignments as your to-do list** On the Dashboard, select New Task to add a to-do with a due date. It doesn’t need to be tied to a student. You can also add an assignment to yourself in a student’s account during a meeting, so the student can see what you’ve committed to and by when. Sort by due date to see what’s coming up. If someone on your team uses CounselMore, assign tasks to them the same way, so they have everything in one list without a follow-up email. Tip: Groups are for routine assignments. One-off tasks don’t need a group. #### **Use the Links column to point students to the right pages** The Links column holds clickable links for each college, such as the page for a student’s intended major. Links are saved per school, so they’re ready for any future student who adds that college. For each student, turn on only the links you want them to see. Everything else stays hidden from their view. #### **Bulk assign an assignment** Go to Settings, then Routine Manager, and turn on Enable Bulk Assignment. Choose the assignment, then select students by class or by school and uncheck anyone who shouldn’t get it. This is a big time-saver when an assignment applies to many students at once, like a new application opening. #### **Fill in extracurriculars from the Common App, then build a resume** If a student’s Extracurricular Activities section is empty, copy the activities from their Common App (with advisor access) and paste them into AI Assist. It fills in the section for you, which also gives OutcomesIQ more to work with. From there, you can generate a resume draft for the student to polish. It works the other way, too: start from a student’s resume and use AI Assist to fill in their activities. Reminder: Only enter student information you’re authorized to use. #### **Send automatic assignment summaries** Turn on Auto Summary in a student’s assignments to send a regular recap of open assignments, for example weekly during application season and monthly in the summer. Including parents keeps everyone on the same page about what’s due. You can also choose to send a text when summaries go out. #### **Keep text alerts fresh** If you turn on a text alert for broadcast emails, change its wording from time to time. Students tend to tune out a message they see every week. #### **Add new students faster with AI Assist** When you add a new student, paste their details from your intake form or CRM into AI Assist, and it fills in the student record for you. #### **Use the mobile app for student chat** Some counselors now ask students to install the CounselMore app during onboarding and to use chat instead of texting. Students can easily attach screenshots, and you can reply from your phone. ### **Questions & answers** **Q: In the App Tracker, should I enter just the award amount, or the award name too?** A: Either works. The Award field is a text field, not a number field, so an entry like “$15,000 Presidential Scholarship” is fine. Add any other details in Application Notes. *\*\*\*\*\*\* That column will be updated to enforce a dollar amount - naming the amount as presidential scholarship should be in the notes field* **Q: Do I need to put a counselor task in a group?** A: No. Groups are meant for routine assignments, so one-off tasks can stay ungrouped. **Q: When I add a new link to a college, it shows up for all of my students. How do I keep links hidden by default?** A: For now, turn off the links you don’t want each student to see. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*The links column is fresh for each student. What was turned on/off previously in the links column, will be seen in the next student and is to be re-adjusted for each student. This is how the behavior was intended the current bug will be reverted back to its intended behavior. **Q: Where do I add an administrative tag when I create a new student?** A: After the student record is created, open Student Info, select the pencil icon, and add tags under Administrator. #### Follow-ups in progress - **Hiding new links by default:** with development. Once a counselor chooses to hide the link behind the eyeball it will remain this way. - **Broadcasting to several high schools at once with checkboxes:**  Use an administrative tag for the district. - **Reporting issues with Help:** Tamra’s demo of Help, then Record an Issue, was cut off. She’ll walk through it again at the next Study Hall. ---     ### **Friday Study Hall FAQ: Session Notes from October 16, 2026** Friday Study Hall is a weekly working session hosted by peer mentor Tamra, where counselors bring their CounselMore questions and share what’s working in their practice. This week we covered a few quick questions from attendees, then walked through the Settings area for everyone who missed the recent Settings session. Here’s what came up. ### Have a technical issue or a suggestion? Start with the **Help** button If something isn’t working the way you expect, the fastest way to get it resolved is to report it directly: 1. Click the **Help** button in the top right corner of your CounselMore screen. 2. Record your screen while you show what’s happening. 3. Submit your report. Most technical issues are specific to one account, so a screen recording lets our support team see exactly what you’re seeing and fix it for you. If needed, support will follow up with you personally. This is also why Study Hall isn’t the best place to troubleshoot individual issues: it keeps our session time focused on learning together. The same goes for feature ideas. Record your screen, show how you’re using CounselMore today, and tell us what you’d like and *why*. The “because” helps our development team the most. ### **Application Tracking** #### **How do I make sure each student sets up their campus portal for every college?** Use a routine assignment together with the App Tracker. Tamra keeps one generic routine assignment that explains how to find the portal email, set up the portal, save login details, and bookmark the link. She doesn’t write a separate one for each college. 1. In the App Tracker, after an application is submitted, go to the campus portal column for that college. 2. Click the clipboard icon to create an assignment. 3. Choose **Apply a Routine Assignment** and select your portal assignment. 4. CounselMore names the assignment with the college and column title (for example, “\[College\] Campus Portal”) and copies in your routine assignment text. Add a due date and click **Create**. Tip: If a particular college’s portal is especially tricky, you can create a college-specific routine assignment with the key steps and apply it whenever a student applies there. #### **How can I quickly see which applications still need to be submitted?** In the Dashboard, scroll to the App Tracker view and click **Smart Sort**. It lists unsubmitted applications by target submit date. Overdue items appear in red, upcoming items appear in white, and submitted applications are at the bottom. You can update a status or a date right from this view without opening each student’s App Tracker, and you can filter by a single college. This is especially handy as deadlines like November 1 approach. #### **How can I check that everything after submission is done, like test scores and transcripts?** Switch the Dashboard to **Grid view**. You’ll see each student’s checklist columns side by side, so you can spot anything missing without opening every student’s App Tracker. #### **What does the double check mark in Grid view do?** It checks off everything in that column for one student only, not for all of your students. Use it carefully, because many items are tracked per school. It works well for items that apply to every school at once, like a finished main essay or a completed FAFSA. #### **How do I add a column like “STAR status”?** Tamra uses two custom columns together: - A per-school custom college column called “STAR Required.” This is a data column that she fills in for the schools that use STAR. - A custom status column called “STAR Status” in the App Tracker. She places it next to “STAR Required” and marks it off once the student has connected each school. ### Settings Walkthrough #### **Training.** Settings → Training lists everything available to you. That includes self-paced videos, small-group trainings with peer mentors, the Mentorship Circle, and College Knowledge sessions. #### **Business Profile.** This is where you enter your business and contact information. #### **Counselor Preferences.** - Choose which email notifications you receive. - Choose which tabs appear and whether they show icons or words. - Rename your fit labels to use your own terms instead of reach/target/safety. - Set your default target mix (the percentage of high, moderate, and low chance-of-admission schools) and your minimum and maximum number of schools. Outcomes IQ uses these settings. - **New:** You can now save multiple target mix presets, for example one for each service package or one for students applying to the UCs. This feature came directly from a Study Hall conversation. Learn more: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-account-set](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-account-set?hsLang=en) \[CHECK: This URL looks like it may be cut off. Please confirm the full link.\] #### **Zapier.** This is where you connect CounselMore to Zapier. Learn more: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/zapier](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/zapier?hsLang=en) #### **Student Tag List.** If you’ve created misspelled or unwanted tags, you can find and delete them here. Merging student tags and merging college list tags are both with development. When that work is done, both tag lists will be expandable and located in the same place. **More Settings enhancements are with development.** These include a full Counselor Profile section, which will give you more control over your directory listing and more ways to promote it through the CounselMore resources included in your subscription, so you can reach more clients. #### **Client Portal Customizations.** - **Portal link and branding.** Copy your student login link, and add your logo and brand colors. - **Custom menu of resources.** Build a drop-down menu of links for your students, such as application sites or scheduling links. You can mark any link as advisor-only so only you see it. Newer accounts come with a default set of links, so it’s worth reviewing and curating them. Learn more: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/new-accounts-build-a-custom-menu-of-resources-for-yourself-and-your-clients](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/new-accounts-build-a-custom-menu-of-resources-for-yourself-and-your-clients?hsLang=en) - **Client Portal Assessments.** Choose which assessments students complete when they first log in. The first assessment is required. Classes, Interests, and College Shopping are optional. \[CHECK: Confirm the name of the required assessment.\] Counselors who work with younger students often turn most of these off and complete them together in a meeting instead. Remember that you can invite a student to the portal once they’re set to Active, not while they’re a Prospect. - **Client Portal Questions.** If you’d like your own questions to appear in the student portal, you can add custom questions here. Use the knowledge base link next to this setting to get started. Further integrations are with development. - **Client Portal Search Access.** Controls whether students can use the full college search or only “Add college by name.” You can set this per student, for all students, or as the default for new students. - **Invitation emails.** Customize the email that goes out with student and parent portal invitations. ### **Google Drive and Master Folders.** You can use one master folder for every new student, or several smaller master folders that you assign at each stage of the process (resume, recommendation letters, essays, college fit, and so on). Tamra uses the smaller folders so each student gets her latest materials when they reach that stage. If a student hasn’t started an older version, she deletes it from their folder and assigns the new one. A single master folder may suit you better if all your students start at the same time each year. #### **Broadcasting Station.** - Set a broadcast to repeat annually so you can build a year-round communication plan. Grade levels roll over on June 1. - Each broadcast is set to inactive after it goes out. Add a reminder to your calendar to review the next month’s broadcasts before they’re sent. - You can also send a one-off broadcast by tag, high school, or college, for example a housing reminder to seniors applying to one university. You can send it to students, parents, or both. - Tip: Sending parents a regular tip during the busy fall months keeps families engaged while students focus on school and testing. - The Broadcasting Station is growing. Development is building a complete package of 52 weekly messages for prospect students, designed to help shorten the time between a student joining as a Prospect and becoming Active. Have an idea for the Broadcasting Station? Click **Help**, record your screen, and tell us how you’re using it and why your idea would help. **Texting Setup.** You can send students a text whenever they receive a broadcast email. The text message is the same for every email, so some counselors find students start tuning it out if they get it too often. Decide what works best for your families. **Integrations.** Connect Calendly or Acuity so scheduled meetings show up in students’ assignment lists and in the Dashboard’s next-meeting information. Study Hall attendees have asked for support for other calendar and meeting tools, and that feedback is with development. **Toolbox.** The Toolbox has downloadable resources, and new ones are added regularly. Recent examples include a student responsibilities agreement, CSS Profile tips, and a “Welcome to Google Drive” guide for students. A reorganization of this menu is with development. It will be split into three areas: - **Resource Center:** the free resources included with your subscription. - **Marketplace:** affiliate offers and other purchase opportunities. - **Integrations:** connections to other applications. **Webmaster.** Includes guidance on keeping your emails out of recipients’ spam folders. \[CHECK: This was mentioned only briefly in the session. Confirm what this section covers, or delete this item.\] ### Reports **Which reports are most useful now that the Dashboard is out?** The **Admissions Outcomes** report is a great place to start. You can view your results overall, by student, or by school. Clicking a school shows a chart of results along with admitted-student averages, such as SAT scores and GPA. **Counselor Comparison** shows how your results compare with the CounselMore average. ### Tips from the Community - **Common App “Compare Application Requirements.”** In the student’s Common App, go to their college list, open the Overview, and choose **Compare Application Requirements**. You’ll see at a glance which schools require counselor or teacher recommendations. This is especially helpful for students who join late in the season. - **Common App filters.** If a student needs another school on their list, the Common App search can filter for schools with no essays, no recommendations, or no application fee. You can then add the school to the App Tracker in about a minute. - **Estimating likely admissions.** CounselMore support shared a spreadsheet that uses a statistical model (the Poisson binomial), together with Outcomes IQ chances, to estimate how many admissions a student can expect from their list. It can help you decide when a list is long enough. \[CHECK: Decide whether to link the spreadsheet publicly. If so, confirm it should stay on a personal Google Drive or move to a CounselMore-owned copy.\] - **Tag ideas.** Tags like “CSS Profile” and “UC App” make it easy to send targeted broadcasts. ### Helpful Links - CounselMore Facebook group: [https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1CNK6CJqYy/?mibextid=wwXIfr](https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1CNK6CJqYy/?mibextid=wwXIfr) - CounselMore YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@counselmore](https://www.youtube.com/@counselmore) - In the app: the **Help** button, the Knowledge Base, and 15-minute tech calls \[CHECK: Add links if the article format allows.\] ### Coming Up at Study Hall Bring one or two tools or habits that made the biggest difference for you this application season, whether they’re in CounselMore or not. We’ll trade best practices in an upcoming session. Friday Study Hall with Tamra meets at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / noon Eastern: [https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-community-work-group](https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-community-work-group) --- #### **Study Hall Follow-Up — September 18, 2026 Session** Tamra walked the group through three recent releases: AI Rewrite, Search in Banners, and OutcomesIQ. The session closed with a practical discussion on pacing assignments. Here is what came up and where each item stands. --- ##### **1. AI Rewrite — how far can custom instructions go?** The most useful thing you can do right now is use AI Rewrite on your real work for a week. Then bring back where it saved you time and where it fell short. It is already well suited to tidying the short, rough text counselors write all day: meeting notes, quick messages, assignment instructions. Longer workflows were also discussed, such as turning a meeting transcript into a formatted family summary. That direction is consistent with where AI-assisted notes are headed inside Assignments. **Specific use cases** from practice are what shape that work, so describe yours at Friday Study Hall. --- ##### **2. Search in Banners — the quiet time-saver** This one drew little discussion, but it is likely to earn its place quickly. Type "Major" or "Tags" into the banner search and you land on the field directly, without scrolling to a section you already know exists. Try it the next time you open a student record. That small repeated saving is the point. --- ##### **3. OutcomesIQ — questions, feedback, & how to read it** OutcomesIQ is new, and the group's reaction was the right one: use it, test it against your own judgment, and decide how far to trust it. Here is what was raised. **Where does the AP count come from?** This has been sent to the product team for confirmation. The answer will be posted here. The group also noted two related problems. The purpose of the "classes" field next to the course-count boxes is unclear. Course information also appears in more than one place. The second point echoes the September 4 feedback that course data under Fit Assessment and Course Planning should live in one place. Both points, along with the suggestion that a transcript upload should update course and AP data without overwriting prior entries, have been forwarded together as a single request. **Setting the ideal mix by student.** Several counselors want the target mix set per student rather than as one default. The strongest version of the idea was a default for everyone, with an override for any student. One use case stood out: tying the target number of schools to a package, such as 8, 12, or 16 schools depending on the service tier. This has been logged. It will be weighed the way every request is, by how many counselors would use it and how often. **The Action Needed flag & letter grade.** Feedback was direct. A prominent red flag and a failing grade on a list that is close to target reads as harsh. It reads especially harshly if a family is looking at the screen. That design feedback has been forwarded. In the meantime, remember that OutcomesIQ is a counselor tool. Whether any part of it is shown to a student or parent is your professional call. **Strategy recommendations & timing.** The group raised a real nuance. The right strategy changes with where a student is in high school. Taking more APs is useful advice for a sophomore and useless for a senior. Counselors also want a way to flag a recommendation that is simply wrong, such as suggesting an Early Decision plan a school does not offer. Both points have been forwarded. Until a feedback mechanism exists, treat strategy output as a starting point for your judgment, never a substitute for it. If you see an error, send it through the Help button with a screen recording so the specific case can be traced. --- ##### **4. How many assignments, & when do they go out?** The session closed on pacing: how many assignments to build, when to deliver them, and how many to open at once. The short answer is from the September 4 notes below. The Start Date on each assignment row controls when it becomes visible to the student. Your full curriculum can sit in the account while the student sees only what they are ready for. For a working session on building and pacing assignments alongside other counselors, book the Routine Assignments & Curriculum group session: [https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/google-drive-assignments](https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/google-drive-assignments) --- Have a question that did not make this list? Bring it to Friday Study Hall or post it in the Professional Forum under Help, and it will be answered in the next round. ### Study Hall Follow-Up — September 4, 2026 Session --- #### First, on the Extracurriculars prototype Every piece of feedback gathered in Friday's session on the Activities & Extracurriculars redesign has already been collected & delivered to the product team. A new tool reflecting that work was sent to Tamra last Friday. She will walk the group through it in a Study Hall session, & that is where the follow-up conversation belongs. That means the items raised in session — the density & "twisties" idea, UC activity types, the naming of the Master Version, where an imported resume's descriptions land, the overwrite warning on Copy From, Trim to Fit retries, counselor feedback that does not consume character count, the "what good looks like" & brand-words boxes, & the filtered export to a single file — are all in hand. Nothing needs to be re-submitted. Hold your questions for Tamra's walkthrough so the group sees the answer in the tool rather than in a paragraph. --- #### 1. Routine Assignments generated from the App Tracker This was the strongest positive response of the session, & the nuance is worth writing down for anyone newer to the platform who did not fully catch it live. Any cell in the App Tracker can generate an assignment for that specific school. That much most counselors know. ### **What Tamra demonstrated is the next layer:** when the thing you are assigning is something you do over & over — request the portal login, confirm the resume is uploaded, verify the recommender submitted — you do not retype it each time. You build it once as a Routine Assignment & pull it in from the App Tracker cell, so the assignment arrives already attached to the right school & the right requirement. The payoff is that your process stops living in your head. The same instruction, worded the same way, reaches every student on every school, & you stop paying the small tax of rewriting it. Start here if you have not built routines yet: - Routine Assignments training: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/self-guided-5-routine-assignments](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/self-guided-5-routine-assignments?hsLang=en) - Convert an existing assignment to a routine: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/routine-assignments-convert-assignments-to-routine](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/routine-assignments-convert-assignments-to-routine?hsLang=en) - Live group session, one hour: [https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-routines](https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-routines) #### 2. "How do people actually use Notes to Student in the App Tracker?" Peter raised this at the top of the hour, & the answer that emerged from the room is a practice question more than a feature question, so it is worth capturing. #### The pattern Tamra described: #### work the App Tracker live while the student is in front of you. While they are digging through email for a portal link, you are marking requirements off & typing the note into the cell. #### The note stays attached to that school's requirement rather than floating in a meeting summary, so the student opens the row & sees exactly what they owe on that school. Tamra also demonstrated using the Status & Strategy columns to prioritize with the family in the room — asking the student to rank schools high, medium & low, then letting the mother & student look at the ranked view together. The reference for those columns is here: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/app-tracker-status-strategy-columns-for-application-requirement-columns](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/app-tracker-status-strategy-columns-for-application-requirement-columns?hsLang=en) If you use Notes to Student differently, bring it to a Friday session. This is the kind of thing the community answers better than the documentation does. #### 3. "I have a lot of assignments. Am I asking for trouble by giving students too much?" Anthony's concern is the right one, & the platform already answers it — quietly enough that most counselors do not notice the mechanism until it is pointed out. The Start Date on an assignment row controls when that row turns on & becomes visible in the student's portal. That is your release valve. You can load the full curriculum into the account & still hand it over in the sequence you choose, opening work only when the student is ready for it. The student never sees the wall. #### **So the answer to "do I have too many assignments" is usually no — the question is whether your start dates are doing the metering. If every row is open on day one, the volume is the problem.** #### **If the dates are staged, the volume is your inventory, not the student's workload.** Returning Assignments & auto-email reminders work alongside this: - [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/assignments-tab-how-the-returning-assignments-feature-works](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/assignments-tab-how-the-returning-assignments-feature-works?hsLang=en) - [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/assignments-tab-auto-email-assignment-summaries-reminders](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/assignments-tab-auto-email-assignment-summaries-reminders?hsLang=en) #### **4. The new student first-login experience** Several people had to leave before this was demonstrated, so Tamra will show it again. What the group saw was a first-time student login with a new interface where the student can type answers, speak answers, or skip. Two pieces of feedback came out of the short demo & both have been forwarded to the product team. The first is a wording correction & it is a good catch: the field asking for the number of classes needs to state that it means by the time the student finishes high school. As written, a ninth grader & a senior will answer the same question two completely different ways, & the data will not be comparable. Noted. The second is a design question Tamra raised & did not resolve in the room: should a student be asked to type in their courses at first login at all? The tension is real. Asking makes the first entry into the portal heavy, at exactly the moment you want the student to feel that this is manageable. Not asking means you are bringing them back later to do it, & a transcript upload does not currently populate those fields either. Tamra also flagged that course information appearing under Fit Assessment & under Course Planning is duplicative & should live in one place. If you have an opinion on this, the next session is the place to give it. This is a prototype under active design & counselor input is the reason it is being shown at all. #### A standing note on how feedback moves Study Hall is where practice gets demonstrated & where prototypes get tested against real workflow. It is not the intake channel for bugs. If something behaves incorrectly in your account, send it through the Help button in the app header with a screen recording. Every ticket goes to the same place regardless of who submits it, & a recording is worth considerably more than a relayed description. Product suggestions are recorded whether they arrive through the Help button, email, or a session like this one. What determines whether a suggestion gets built is how many counselors would use it & how often — & we watch what members actually do, not only what they ask for. Requests that keep surfacing while usage data shows the need has grown are the ones that earn development budget. Several features in the platform today started exactly that way. Have a question that did not make this list? Bring it to Friday Study Hall or post it in the Professional Forum under Help, & it will be answered in the next round. --- ### **1. Mobile App — availability and App Store visibility** **One thing that trips people up:** students and parents must register and log in through the **web** portal at least once before the mobile app will work. Open the counselor's invitation email, click the registration link, complete registration on the web, log in once, and then download the app. Skipping the web step is the usual cause of a student who cannot log in on mobile. KB article: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/for-parents-students-counselmore-mobile-app](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/for-parents-students-counselmore-mobile-app?hsLang=en) If you have searched the exact app name and still see nothing, please send a screen recording through the Help button in the app header so we can look at it directly — regional store settings and device OS version both affect what appears. Keerthana's Study Hall visit has been requested and is on the list. --- ### **2. App Tracker — window closes and returns to the wrong place** **Question asked:** In App Tracker, clicking a college name and then closing the window returns some users to Assignments instead of App Tracker. For some users the list also reorders on return. Not consistent across accounts. **Answer:** Thank you for passing this along. Inconsistent behavior across accounts on the same action is exactly the kind of thing that needs a ticket, because the difference is usually in the path taken to get there rather than in the feature itself. If this happens to you, please send it in through the **Help** button in the app header with a screen recording. What our developers need to see: - Where you started before you opened App Tracker - The college you clicked - How you closed the window — the X, the browser back button, or clicking outside the panel - What the list looked like before and after The close method matters more than people expect and is frequently the variable that explains why one counselor sees it and another does not. **And to say this plainly:** nobody in Study Hall needs to serve as the bug tracking service. Send issues in directly. Every ticket goes to the same place regardless of who submits it, and the recording is worth more than a relayed description. --- ### **3. Extracurriculars — counselors using spreadsheets instead of the platform** **Feedback collected and new round of edits to be reviewed**   KB article: [https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/bio-banners-participation-information](https://helpdesk.counselmore.co%EE%80%80m/bio-banners-participation-information?hsLang=en) **Why the export looks the way it does** Some of what gets read as clutter is deliberate, so it is worth explaining the design. The export displays **all** entries rather than a filtered selection. That serves two purposes: it is a complete record of everything the student has logged, and it puts the counselor in the position of removing what is not needed for a given use rather than hunting for what is missing. Subtracting from a full record is faster and safer than rebuilding a partial one. Each activity occupies its own row, and you will see a column labeled **Use with**. That column exists because a single activity rarely gets described the same way twice. The version that belongs on a ***resume*** is not the version that belongs in an ***application*** field, which is not the version that belongs in a ***scholarship*** packet. Several description types have to be available to many different counselors working many different ways, and the ***Use with column*** is what keeps those variations attached to one activity instead of scattered across separate documents. **On the redesign:** the feedback about the interface has been logged and forwarded to the product team, along with the example spreadsheet shared in session. We do not announce release timing until a feature is confirmed and scheduled, so there is no date to give you. When it is scheduled, it will be announced in the app and on the events page. **Development Requests:** That points to how we build generally, and it is worth being specific about the test we apply. When a request comes in, the first question is not whether it is a good idea. Most of them are. The question is how many counselors would use it, and how often. Something a thousand members would touch every day gets built. Something that solves one practice's particular workflow usually does not — not because it lacks merit, but because the same development hours spent elsewhere would serve far more people. The second question is whether there is a common solution that gets ***most*** of the way there, ***faster***. Often there is. A field that serves six use cases imperfectly ships in a fraction of the time a purpose-built tool for one use case would take, and it puts something usable in your hands now rather than next season. And these decisions are not permanent. We watch what members actually do, not only what they ask for. When a request keeps surfacing and the usage data shows the need has grown, that is when it earns the budget. Several features in the platform today started exactly that way. It is a constant balance of priorities, budget, and time. We would rather tell you plainly where a request sits in that balance than promise something and go quiet. If you are new to the community, ask a returner if they've seen development happen consistently over the years, we think the answer is yes. Please keep the feedback coming and know that we record it all. Where is the Collaboration Lab?:  We take every suggestion submitted through the Help button or email or contact form, under an internal review. **On exporting directly into Common App:** this one comes up regularly, and the answer is no, for a reason worth stating plainly. It is not a common denominator problem, and building a direct push into Common App would run against our working relationship with them. We would rather be a good technology neighbor.  Your data exports cleanly, ready to use.     --- ### **4. College notes — AI Assist cleanup suggestion** **Question asked:** Could AI Assist clean up the rough notes a counselor dictates during a college visit so they read well in the college notes section? **Answer:** This is a product suggestion rather than something available today, and it has been logged and passed to the product team. Worth noting why the suggestion makes sense: the counselor mobile app lets you dictate notes with your microphone while you are walking a campus, which is the fastest way to capture a visit and also the reason the raw text arrives unpolished. The capture problem is solved. The cleanup step is not. In the meantime, notes entered in the mobile app sync to **College List Notes and Student Research Notes and can be edited from the web portal**, where a full keyboard makes tidying them considerably faster. We are moving Ai assisted notes summary into Assignments and believe this request fall under that path way and is eventual. --- ### **Seymore - AI Assistant HELP tool** - Seymore is live and in active testing — please use it this week. It sits behind the **Help** button in the app header. - **The single most useful thing you can do:** give a **thumbs down** on any answer that misses. Every thumbs down is reviewed individually. That is the fastest and most direct way to improve the tool. - When you flag an answer, we pull the exact question you asked and the response Seymore gave, then trace it back to the underlying knowledge base article and correct the source. - If a knowledge base video is out of date, thumbs down the answer that pointed you there, or send the article URL to [support@counselmore.com](mailto:support@counselmore.com). - Seymore is the first step, not the finish line. The direction is an assistant you tell what you need done — record it, send it, build the list — rather than clicking through to find it yourself. ### **Mobile App** - **Tech Mentor is joining Study Hall to demo the mobile app and take questions live. Aug 21** - The session will be recorded and posted to the knowledge base as a complete video answer. - **Only the screen share is recorded.** No attendee faces appear in the recording. - Please bring every mobile question raised in the group to that session so the recording captures the full set in one place. - Setup issues are not a Study Hall activity. If you are stuck getting installed or logged in, book a Tech Mentor session: [calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-meet-with-tech-mentor](https://calendly.com/counselmore-meetups/counselmore-meet-with-tech-mentor) - Reminder on demo records: you do not need to pay for anything additional to build a practice student. Set the record's status to **Prospect** — prospect and archived records do not count toward your active student count. [helpdesk.counselmore.com/archived-vs-prospect](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/archived-vs-prospect?hsLang=en) - Reminder for students and parents: they must register and log in once through the **web portal** before the mobile app will work. [helpdesk.counselmore.com/for-parents-students-counselmore-mobile-app](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/for-parents-students-counselmore-mobile-app?hsLang=en) ### **Next Meeting on the Dashboard** - Today the Next Meeting field is populated by scheduling integrations — **Calendly and Acuity**. [helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-dashboard](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-dashboard?hsLang=en) - The suggestion to make the cell directly editable will not be pursued. The reason is not that it is a bad idea — it is that a broader approach is already in development that would make that specific fix obsolete. - The direction being built is scheduling-tool independent, so counselors can bring whatever tool they already use rather than being limited to two. A directly editable cell would not be compatible with that approach. - A separate suggestion has been logged for an additional field to hold meeting information. - The dashboard itself is also being reworked. The content is right; where it sits on the page and how it reads needs improvement. That work comes first. - [helpdesk.counselmore.com/how-to-connect-your-calendly-account-to-counselmore](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/how-to-connect-your-calendly-account-to-counselmore?hsLang=en) ### **Trigger and Stealth Essays** - **A screenshot is not needed and will not be accepted. Submit the URL.** - This applies even when you found the requirement inside the Common Application. We still need the URL — from there we can navigate directly to the source ourselves. - We have purpose-built tools for retrieving and validating this data. The submission screen asks for exactly what we need; follow what the screen asks and let the process work. - **You will see your update in your own account immediately.** Keep working — you are not waiting on us. - On our side, the entry is validated and posted, generally within about 24 hours. Please note we have already updated 1000+ schools ### **Then do the two things that help everyone else** - **Record it in the Counselor Opinions column.** This is the most valuable step you can take, and it is the one most counselors skip. Scroll right in your Counselor List, hover over the cell, double-click the eyeball icon, type your note, and save. [helpdesk.counselmore.com/college-list-columns-counselor-opinions-tags-hyper-links-college-notes](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/college-list-columns-counselor-opinions-tags-hyper-links-college-notes?hsLang=en) - **Why this column and not a note somewhere else:** what you write there stays attached to the college itself. It does not expire with the student, the season, or the application cycle. A colleague working that same school next year reads your note, sees that a stealth essay appeared in the prior cycle, and knows to watch for it again. A stealth requirement that surprised you once becomes something the next counselor anticipates. - Write it plainly and date it — for example, "Stealth supplemental appeared in the portal after submission, Fall 2025." One sentence is enough. Vague is useless; specific is durable. - **Bring it to the Forum too.** The professional Forum is where a live finding travels fastest, while counselors are actively working that school in the current cycle. The Counselor Opinions column is the long memory; the Forum is the real-time alert. Use both — they do different jobs. - This is the whole mechanism by which we stay ahead of schools that change requirements quietly. No vendor can source this faster than a room full of practicing counselors who write down what they see. ### **Parent Broadcast — Forum Question** - This refers to the Broadcast Station question raised in the in-app Forum. - A bug was identified and has been submitted for correction. - Broadcast Station is found under Settings. [helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-broadcast-messages](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/settings-broadcast-messages?hsLang=en) ### **Assignment Start Dates** - Suggestion received and submitted. - Worth understanding before it goes further, because it is not a simple addition: **a start date already exists in the counselor portal, and it is doing work.** It controls when an assignment row turns on and becomes visible in the student's portal. - That is the counselor's release valve. It is how you meter the work out — opening assignments only when the student is ready for them, rather than handing over the full curriculum on day one. - The request is to display that date to the student. Doing so requires the assignment row to already be visible, which means every assignment is open from the start. The date would be shown, and the metering would be gone. - The counselor would be trading the ability to control the pace for the ability to show a date. That trade is invisible to most people asking, because the staging works quietly — you only notice it if it stops. - The version under consideration is a **separate, display-only date** that appears on a row after it has turned on, telling a student "begin this now" on work they can already see. The existing field keeps controlling visibility. Both behaviors survive. - It is not likely that the suggestion will be taken up. We must design for a common denominator of users. And when we cannot we offer customized development to individual users. So in the case when a user would want this specific functionality we could deliver that to that one individual. This request seems much more like a project mapping request.  And that view will exist soon under the calendar view already existing in the app. ---   --- ### **1. How does CounselMore handle "stealth" essays that only appear once you're inside a school's own portal?** Good example, and worth clarifying the vocabulary here because it changes how you handle it. CounselMore coined the terms "trigger essay" and "stealth essay" back in 2016, and both are covered in your College Readiness Curriculum (Assignment 5A/5B, *Supplemental Essays: Trigger & Stealth Awareness*). They describe two related but distinct problems: - #### **Trigger essay:** An essay that appears because of an action the student takes inside Common App — checking a scholarship interest box, selecting a major, indicating honors college interest. It's triggered by student behavior. - #### **Stealth essay:** An essay that isn't listed on Common App at all — it only surfaces once a student logs into that school's own applicant portal after submitting. It's hidden until you go looking for it, the way the Santa Clara example works: no Common App listing, but an optional essay waiting inside the portal. Both are "surprise" essays. The difference is where they're hiding. ![counseloropinioncolumnstealthessays](https://helpdesk.counselmore.com/hs-fs/hubfs/counseloropinioncolumnstealthessays.png?width=670&height=270&name=counseloropinioncolumnstealthessays.png) #### **How to collect and track these:** 1. When a student or you discovers a stealth or trigger essay, add it to the school's essay document in Google Drive with a header noting which type it is and the date it appeared. 2. Generate an assignment in App Tracker for that school so the student drafts it from existing B-roll material rather than starting cold. 3. Add the discovery to that school's Counselor Opinions column in College List. This is the step that turns a one-off discovery into something the whole CounselMore community benefits from. #### **Using the Counselor Opinions column — the workflow shown in the screenshot (right):** 1. From College Data Menu, open the school's record. 2. Post your note in Counselor Opinions — dated, specific, and short (see the Yale example: "Yale dropped Why Us essay – June 2026"). 3. Once posted, use Broadcast Station (Messaging → Broadcast) to filter for every student on your roster applying to that school and send a quick alert. This is the fastest way to get a mid-cycle change in front of every affected family at once, rather than checking each App Tracker row individually. **A community norm worth repeating to your group:** the Professional Forum under Help is for asking questions. If a school-specific, time-sensitive detail gets shared there in the course of a conversation — a dropped essay, a changed deadline — copy that detail over to the Counselor Opinions column for that school so it's captured where the rest of the community will actually find it later. CounselMore isn't going to pre-decide what belongs in the Forum versus the Opinions column; that judgment call sits with the counselor who has the information. If you want the technology to do more of that sorting automatically, that's exactly the kind of feedback the AI Assistant team wants to hear. ### **2. Should CounselMore add a data field for a college's AI usage policy — maybe near the essay prompt column?** Not yet, and here's the reasoning so you can pass it along if it comes up again. CounselMore doesn't take on responsibility for a new data field the moment someone identifies it as a good idea. We wait until user behavior — not just verbal requests — shows it's warranted. Counselors often say a new field would be useful in the abstract, but that doesn't always translate into consistent use once it exists. Right now, the number of colleges publishing a formal AI usage policy for applicants is still small — comparable to how few schools were using the SAR/STAR-style reporting formats in their early days. A handful of schools moving on something isn't the same as an ecosystem-wide need. We balance the request against actual behavior before committing engineering time to a new column, so that the fields we do add are ones counselors will actually rely on rather than ones that sit empty. ### **3. Can we get a filter for UK schools, Canadian schools, or English-speaking international schools generally?** You already have this. In Counselor List, click Filters → Location — you can filter by country and region today, including international options. Longer term, this kind of search is also where the AI Assistant (accessible from the Help button) is headed. Right now it's built to answer questions about CounselMore's features and functionality. Over time it will grow to help with tasks like this — searching for schools by criteria and surfacing recommendations — but that capability isn't live yet. If you're using the AI Assistant today, keep sending feedback on it; that usage is exactly what will shape what it does next. ### **4. member can't log into her demo student account to see what students actually see — can someone attend Study Hall and walk us all through?** Yes — a Tech Mentor will be at the next Study Hall specifically to work through this with Louise and gather any related feedback on the mobile app from the group. In the meantime, the feature she's after is "Log in as Student," available from inside any student record — it's the fastest way to preview the portal exactly as a student sees it before granting real access. ### **5. The résumé/activities export only shows the SAT Math score, not Reading/Writing.** Thank you for flagging this — noted. The Tech Mentor will gather the full detail on this at the next Study Hall meeting so it gets routed to the right place. No timeline to share yet; we'll follow up once there's something concrete to report. Have a question that didn't make this list? 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