History & Vision

Where it all began and what we have set out to accomplish.

In the beginning...

Princeton had always been at the top of my list. My standardized test scores were
average. My GPA was decent. I had never once received any recruiting mail from any
of the Ivies because my PSAT and other test scores probably didn’t reach the level
they were recruiting. They had no idea who I was. I was a public school kid out
of Utah, half-hispanic, and ambitious. No one in the Ivy League had ever heard my
name.

And that was fine.

So I went to them. I decided to let them know who I was.

My passions through high school were sports, leadership, and technology. I was well
involved and had significant achievements in various activities. Through years working
with the high school newspaper (Editor-in-Chief), I had acquired publishing and
layout skills. Through years of breaking, building, and banging computers (President
of computer club), I became proficient on both the hardware and software side of
things. I particularly enjoyed web/graphic design and art. So I decided to put together
a sweet-diggity-dog portfolio. My photoshop skills would be put to good use.

On the front page of my portfolio I transposed my picture into a photo of the Princeton
campus—beautiful gothic arches behind me—hundreds of years of tradition at my fingertips.
I put the Princeton logo on my sweatshirt, and in big block letters above the picture,
“Dean Fred, I’m ready to be a tiger.”

I put myself out on a limb. This was extremely risky.

The rest of the pages in my portfolio (probably about 12 total) included everything
and anything about me. It had all sorts of funky pictures of me doing what I enjoyed.
It talked about my family. It spoke of my hobbies, interests and passions. It gave
samples of my design work, my writing, and my photography. It truly painted the
picture of who I was. And I sent it to them.

I wasn’t sure if it would make a difference. And I still don't know if it really
did. But the bottom line is that I got the “Yes” letter. And I’m now a Princeton
tiger, class of ’09.

I’m not saying that students need to create and send lengthy portfolios to get into
their dream school. In reality, some admissions officers discourage this. However,
this experience in personalizing the admissions process caused me to reflect on
the current process and ultimately, it's what inspired me to start Zinch. I let
Princeton know who I was. The application itself didn’t give justice to what I could
do or who I was. So I created something that did. I basically knocked on Princeton’s
door and said, “This is who I am. Take me or leave me.”

To be honest, there isn’t a clear process or method to do what I did—to adequately
show who you are and what you’re all about. It doesn’t exist.

Most colleges and universities use practice exams and standardized tests as a method
of their recruiting. They'll go to The College Board (administor of the AP and SAT
tests) or ACT and ask for the students who got above a certain score. From there
they'll start recruiting these students.

This was the inequality that I recognized. What about the students who don't take
these standardized tests? What about the students who aren't great test-takers (yet
still have amazing abilities)? What about the students who lack the resources and
coaching to do well on these tests? With the current system, so many great students
are left under the radar, undiscovered and unrecruited.

Zinch is a tool that allows for high school students to showcase their talents,
skills and passions to colleges and universities, well in advance of the actual
application process. On the other side, admissions officers can do comprehensive
searches through our database to generate a list of students that match their specified
criteria--and then start recruiting them.

Recruitment efforts by colleges can finally be based on more than test scores. Students
are so much more than that. Like me, wanting to showcase my abilities to Princeton,
students from all over the world can now do the same to their dream schools--in
a way that's almost effortless yet incredibly effective to admissions officers.

And that is why I founded Zinch: to level the playing field and to provide a means
by which individuality and greatness can be extracted from everyone during the college
admissions process. Every student will now have an equal opportunity to basically
say, “This is me. Love me, hate me, recruit me, or trash me. This is who I am.”

Mick Hagen
Princeton University, '09

Founder

The Zinch Vision

Students

Many students are overwhelmed by the college admissions process — and with good
reason. Students have over 4,000 colleges and universities from which to choose,
multiple standardized tests to prepare for and take, and numerous applications to
fill out. The process begins too early for some, causing anxiety and a quest for
overachievement and perfection. For others, it begins too late leaving little time
to prepare for this important process. The pressure of college visits, college fairs,
homework, tests, athletics, extra-curricular activities and part time jobs are all
juggled by today's high school students, while the some of the operations of the
college admissions process magnify and exacerbate this stress.

Students lack control and visibility in this process. Zinch empowers all students
to better view their options and present themselves. It allows students to actively
let any college in America know who they are and to show what they bring to the
world. Zinch is a movement for students to show colleges that they are not the 27
or 1860 they're currently seen as; they have names, passions, and background differences
that make them unique and desirable to colleges. Zinch is thus a tool by which colleges
can make better recruitment decisions based on better information. It's a win-win.

Colleges & Universities

Colleges and universities have long recognized the need for a greater reach in their
recruiting efforts. There has been significant movement in the last few years: over
700 universities have dropped the requirement to take and submit an ACT or SAT score
and big-name universities like Harvard and Princeton have dropped their early admissions
programs. "We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process
has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged," said Derek Bok,
the interim president of Harvard.

Whether through targeting minority students or those from diverse backgrounds, universities
are anxiously engaged in finding better methods for recruiting. Currently, due to
lack of reliable alternatives, colleges and universities depend heavily on test
scores to recruit high school students. Unfortunately, these practices inherently
filter out many students. First of all, has the student taken a college entrance
exam? How did he or she score? Was that score indicative of their ability to succeed
at a college level? Our fight is not with entrance exams; we recognize that this
is one method to begin a selection process. We argue that this is one among many
criteria that profile a student and admissions recruitment should reflect this.
Further, unless students have resources, including knowledgeable college guidance
counselors, parents or college bound peers, access to college campuses or books,
they fall short in the college race.

As college admissions become increasingly competitive, the need for better information
earlier in the process is imperative. With better methods, the gap between privileged
and underprivileged will decrease.

Zinch

Zinch levels the playing field by providing all high school students with the leverage
they need to thoughtfully engage in the college admissions process without the need
for expensive resources. Zinch shines light on those students hidden in obscurity
and adds fire to those already burning their candle. On the most basic level, we
believe high school-age students to be, regardless of circumstance, champions in
embryo. We believe that many students have abilities and talents best developed
in a college or university setting. The question is whether or not that picture
of potential can be extracted for a college admission officer to see. Zinch exists
to reveal that ability. By utilizing Zinch, colleges can recruit students with complete
information. Students can shine for all that they are. This is our mission. This
is how we seek to level the playing field.

Zinch asks students to: "Showcase yourself. Be discovered. Don't make college admissions
a passive process, hoping that somehow, colleges in America will find you. Shout
aloud your dream university; then go get it. You are more than a test score. Find
them. Show them. Personalize the process."