The Corsava Card Sort

The Corsava Card Sort activity helps students identify their deeper college preferences, which in turn aids counselors in finding the best college fit.

Students sort the cards into four categories—Must Have, Would Be Nice, Do Not Care, and No Way—based on the importance of each characteristic. The cards fall under six categories:

Academics: The academic opportunities that are important to the student, including specific majors, such as business, English, or biology

Campus Culture: A reflection of the social culture and what's important to the student body, such as whether students are outdoorsy, creative, full of school spirit, etc.

Educational Culture: How students learn best, what type of structure they prefer, and their preference for the type of student interaction that occurs in the classroom and study groups

Extracurricular Activities: How students want to get involved outside of the classroom and which clubs and activities they prefer

Residential Life: A student's preference for their residential experience, surrounding communities, on-campus housing and dining, and weather

Student Resources: Helps students identify their preference for support—discovering their major interests and career path, connecting with professors, and getting necessary accommodations for learning differences or disabilities

After completing the activity, students see a breakdown by category as they consider their future college choices, including which overall aspects of the college experience they value most. For some students, this might be campus culture, while for others it might be strong preferences focused on academics or residential life.

Conducting the Card Sort online through Corsava

With a Corsava account, your student will create their own account tied to yours and can use the features of Corsava including doing a sort, adding colleges to their list and then giving their impressions of their Must Have and Would Be Nice cards at their colleges, resulting in a rank-ordered list.

Customize the Card Sort for Your Students

Your Corsava Card Deck is your own. You can enable or disable cards for all of your card sorts or just one time, with one student. Navigate to "Cards" in order to select cards for use in all your card sorts. For student-level customization, search and then select a student in "My Students" to load his/her profile, then click the Customize button.

>Learn more about building your own Corsava Card deck

Sending the Card Sort to Your Student

In order for a student to complete their card sort, you will need to invite them to create an account. The first step is to log in to your Corsava account and click on the My Students icon at the top right of the page. Then click on +New Student and choose one of the options below for onboarding a new student.

>Learn more about inviting a new student

The Card Sort Activity

After accepting your invitation and creating their account, the student will be prompted to begin the card sort.

Students will be given a randomized view of the cards where they can assign each card with a Must Have, Nice to Have, Do Not Care, or No Way preference.

Following the completed card sort, a report summarizing the student’s preferences automatically generates. Students and counselors can access the report from their Corsava accounts and share it with families and mentors.

Using the Hard Copy Corsava Cards

Open the two decks of cards. Place the following four choice cards—Must Have, Would Be Nice, Do Not Care, and No Way—face up at the top of a table or workspace, ideally with a few inches between them. Each of the four choice cards represents the strength of a student’s preferences.

Give the student the remaining cards that reflect elements of campus culture, academic life, and other college characteristics. Ask the student to place each card under the choice card that best represents their strength of preference for that particular college characteristic.

Interaction During the Card Sort

This is an excellent opportunity to open discussions with the student about different college characteristics they may never have considered. Encourage students to ask questions as they sort the cards. The insert card map of the US is there for you to discuss location during or following the card sort.

Entering a Student's Card Sort into Corsava

Either during a card sort or soon after, you can save your student’s choices on Corsava. First, you need to log in to your Corsava account, and click on My Students, and then + New Student. On the right side of the page, enter information about the student under Add a student and click the + symbol. You then click Enter Sort Results and enter the results from the four piles of cards completed by your student and save the report. Any card that is not entered will fall automatically into the Do Not Care pile, so there is no need to enter these results.

>Learn more about entering the card sort into Corsava

Generating a Report for Your Student

Whether your student completes the card sort online or you enter their card sort results on Corsava, all sorts will generate a student report. Through a fun and professional presentation, it summarizes the student's card sort results by category and level of importance to the student. The report helps both counselors and families by opening discussions on factors students may never have considered.

>Learn more about Corsava Reports

Introduction to the Corsava Card Sort Print