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August 5, 2026
August and Early September Program Tasks
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Update Office of Higher Education on any staffing changes from over the summer.
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You must send out the FERPA/Tennessen notices to families for opting out, allowing your standard window of time and the reply to preferences to do so. This must be done prior to any survey notifications being distributed to students.
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In terms of technology tasks, be sure to have your IT whitelist college’s and OHE’s domains so that students receive info back from colleges at their high school accounts. You can also review the Tool’s High School Resource Guide to ensure access.
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SIS partners have been integral in planning and finalizing steps over the summer months. All SIS partners are equipped to interface with the program Tool, with the exception being Skyward Qmlativ, which will use the manual upload process detailed in the Tool’s High School Resource Guide. All resource guides will be updated with SIS-specific info by August 15th, when the Tool maintenance window ends.
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RSVP and plan to attend the 2026-2027 program Kick-off on Sept 14th.
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RSVP and plan to attend the fall’s second round of training. Share with relevant staff. See below.
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Start to review the program websites, including the updated 2026-2027 K12 Partner Toolkit and supporting resources. Take note of the updated Tasks and Timeline document and Program manual (the latter forthcoming by the 15th), both found in the primary folder. Start to review the updated Student Center and Marketing support page and resources.
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Determine needs for free print marketing materials available through OHE’s service with Bolger, available starting after September. Leverage digital marketing materials prior to September.
Program updates for August follow:
Staffing Changes?
If you’ve had any internal changes in your team’s staffing or district’s operations over the summer, please let the program coordinator, Aaron Salasek, know those directly.
FERPA/Tennessen Notification
As a reminder, the FERPA/Tennessen notification must be reviewed, edited, and sent to all seniors’ families/guardians per your local opt-out process, informing them of the high school’s program participation. Drafts, including translated languages, can be found in the Toolkit folder hyperlinked above. Only after this step can the academic review process commence, excluding any students who choose to opt out.
Technology Tasks
- Please be sure to have your IT whitelist college’s and OHE’s domains so that students receive info back from colleges at their high school accounts (the OHE email domain is generally “@state.mn.us”, and the survey comes from Direct.Admissions.OHE@state.mn.us while the newsletter comes from MNOHE@public.govdelivery.com).
- Please double-check your school’s or district’s ability to receive batch emails. If emails need to be received under a certain limit (for example, “less than 200 at a time over the course of a 2-hour span”), please modify the limit for the program to account for your senior class at a single time (which can occur on a specified date and time) or communicate the limits to us at Direct.Admissions.OHE@state.mn.us.
- The program maintenance window ends on August 15th, and after that time, student data can be sent to OHE for processing and redistribution through the Program Tool, assuming the FERPA/Tennessen notification step has taken place. In order to leverage the Program Tool and exchange data, be sure to have your primary and technology-support staff review the Direct Admissions High School Staff User Resource Guide and your respective SIS program support information. Your program Tool serves many purposes and complements your established methods of supporting your students’ educational goals. Requests for Tool Access will be granted after the 15th.
Information within the tool includes:
- Your overall roster of students sent to our agency.
- Whether a student has made at least one selection to a direct admissions college.
- If a selection(s) has been made (“yes”), which college(s) the student has indicated interest in.
- When you need to send a transcript.
- To augment existent technology (Naviance, Xello, etc.)
You can use the tool to more directly follow up with and advise students about the college search process and their postsecondary options and interests. Multiple users can have access to the roster, though be judicious in who needs what “privileges”. If you are seeing low responsiveness from students to the surveys, or you have a college event on a specific date, OHE can always resend surveys to seniors or align survey send timing to your event. We can also do so for individual students upon request.
SIS Updates
For the upcoming program year, we continue to work closely with our SIS partners to enhance the program. We have tested the streamlined SFTP transfer process over the summer with Edupoint Synergy and Skyward SMS 2.0, and we checked in with jmc, Infinite Campus, and PowerSchool, who are all set-up with an internal program report and secure file transfer process.
Skyward has deferred implementation of Qmaltiv until a bit later this school year, and as such, for that SIS platform, we will again be utilizing OHE’s Academic Review spreadsheet process from prior years, in conjunction with the manual upload functionality in the tool.
Connecting in the Fall
Please save the date and RSVP to our Fall Kick-Off (and please feel free to pass along to others on your team!).
In addition to the program Kick-Off above, we will have a two-part fall refresher training series on the mornings of Tuesday, September 17th (RSVP for “marketing the program”) and Wednesday, September 18th (RSVP for “building the data”). Please feel free to RSVP and to pass along to others on your team who should attend!
Virtual Drop-in Assistance Hours
Please also note the slots for our Virtual drop-in assistance hours, which will occur twice most weeks of the fall through mid-November (unless falling on a holiday or another business need like a conference or pre-scheduled program event). They will recur most Mondays in the afternoon from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm and Fridays in the morning from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. In addition to meetings as needed by request, these are a great opportunity for any questions or business needs when the program year starts up in the fall school year. Details follow:
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Fridays, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (September 18th through November 20th, 2026)
Join Microsoft Teams meeting
Meeting ID: 274 455 654 588 272
Passcode: bS9Xe3NG
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Mondays, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (September 21st through November 23rd, 2026)
Join Microsoft Teams meeting
Meeting ID: 226 769 004 033 955
Passcode: PU3Nn2fj
Updated Websites
Both primary program websites – the Student Center for students and families and the Marketing Support page for K12 staff – have received overhauls over the summer months: please review them and utilize them as you can! In addition to sharing the Student Center with high school seniors and families, the best videos that explain the program are About Direct Admissions and You Got Your Direct Admissions Letter, Now What? Please also start to review the updated 2026-2027 K12 Partner Program Toolkit and supporting resources.
Print and Digital Marketing Materials
The agency will continue to use the Bolger ordering system for program print materials, which your school/district will be able to order in early September for the upcoming program year. Print materials will include student flyers and posters, translated into several languages. Digital resources are set for the year and can be found in the Program Marketing and Support Materials folder of the Toolkit (which has Frequently Asked Questions documents for students and school staff, Student Promotional Flyers, program PowerPoints for High School Use, Social Media and Digital Graphics, and Financial Aid Resource Flyers. Another helpful marketing resource that helps with timing out the above is the Direct Admissions portion of the MyHigherEd website. The Program Manual has a number of marketing ideas on pages 4 through 6 if you are interested in a starting place.
Final Numbers from Prior Program Year
For the recent program year of 2025-2026, 257 high schools sought to participate. The program year ended with 246 of the 257 high schools reporting (96% of the program’s cohort: 80% were completed by the end of October, and 87% by November’s end). They enrolled an estimated 40,395 senior students from 61 counties across the state. OHE sent 34,772 surveys, with 4,747 students requesting proactive admission to a participating college partner (approximately 14% of the eligible cohort). Almost half of enrolled seniors (44%) at participating schools identified as Black, Indigenous, and students of color. About a third of enrolled seniors (33%) at participating schools were eligible for free and reduced-price meals. Among students enrolled in grade 12 at a participating high school, 48% of students attended a school in the 7-county Twin Cities region. If you’d like to receive an overview of the senior survey analysis from this cohort, please contact our Data Analyst, Sally Krager-Constantine, with this request.
Numbers for the Upcoming Fall Cohort
For the upcoming 2026-2027 program year, 319 high schools seek to participate. They enroll an estimated 48,121 senior students from 65 counties across the state. Of eligible students, 51% identify as male and 48% as female. Almost half of enrolled seniors (45%) at schools are Black, Indigenous, and students of color. About a third of enrolled seniors (31%) at participating schools are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. Among students enrolled in grade 12 at a participating high school, 51% of students attend a school in the 7-county Twin Cities region.
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