Recommendation Letters

I have a love/ hate relationship with recommendation letters.  When they are needed, I am more than happy to write them for my students and I love taking the time to try to show you off and make sure the colleges know just how lucky they will be to have you as a part of their campus.  But there is so much confusion that surrounds rec letters and I really do hate when teachers or I are asked to write letters that never go anywhere at all.  Many colleges have moved away from requiring letters of recommendation - in part because all students will pick teachers that like them to write letters on their behalf and so the letters often sound similar and therefore it doesn't really help them to differentiate between the students.  So, your very first step connected to recommendation letters is to figure out if the colleges you are considering will actually need any letters of recommendation - and if they don't then you just saved yourself and your teacher a lot of time.

There are some colleges that will want a recommendation letter and others that will want multiple letters.  You will want to look specifically at what they are asking for you to provide.  Some colleges will require teacher recommendation letters, some counselor letters, others may be open to coaches, bosses, religious leaders or other adults who know you well, and yes, some may even want multiple letters.  Each college gets to make up their own mind and determine what information they want to have as a part of your application package.  OSU, for example, does not require any recommendation letters. (Can you blame them? Imagine trying to read 88,000 recommendation letters on top of the applications and essays that they receive.) Harvard, on the other hand, will require 2 teacher recommendations and a counselor recommendation. After reviewing the college websites, if you are still having problems determining if the colleges you are considering require recommendation letters – just stop down to see me and I can try to help you figure it out.

If you find that you do need recommendation letters, you have some work to do.  First, give some thought about who you would like to ask for the recommendations. Look at the requirements specified by the school – are they open to coaches or community representatives writing letters or do they want them to come from academic teachers? If it requires that the letters come from teachers can it be from any subject area or are they only open to the core subjects of English, math, science, and social studies? Are you looking at a career in a specific area that a teacher at WKHS can write about your strengths in that field? For example, if you are considering majoring in Spanish perhaps a recommendation letter from one of your Spanish teachers would be appropriate. What teachers know you best? Who can speak to your work ethic and classroom contributions? If possible, it is often ideal to show your strengths across multiple subjects, so if you have a few teachers to pick from and 2 are math and 1 is science perhaps it would be beneficial to ask 1 math and 1 science teacher rather than the 2 math teachers simply to show that diversity. Remember, in recommendation letters from teachers the colleges are asking for information about you as a student and your potential for handling the academic rigors of college.

Once you have figured out the teacher or teachers that you want to ask for a recommendation (if needed) it is then time to ASK them if they are willing to write a letter for you. It is really important to be reasonable in the amount of time that you are allowing them to have to write your letter. (Think at least 30 days - preferably more!) They are very busy with their classroom work and grading homework and papers and of course life in general and many teachers are often bombarded by students requesting recommendations. If a teacher is unable to write a recommendation letter for you – either because they don’t feel that they know you well enough to write a strong letter or because they have too much on their plate, don’t take it personally, simply ask another teacher. You will be thankful that you didn’t force them to write the letter because it wouldn’t be as solid of a recommendation letter if they were rushed or only had vague highlights to discuss.

After you have asked a teacher to write a letter on your behalf (and they agreed), then you will want to provide them with the teacher recommendation letter forms that can be found on the www.wkhscounselors.com website.  You will also need to be sure to invite your teachers electronically if you are applying through Common App.  It is rare that you will need any of your recommendation letters as a hard copy, but if that is the case you are responsible for providing your teacher with an envelope addressed to the appropriate college.  Please be sure that you have indicated to your teachers your application deadline.  You can submit your application through Common App even if your teachers have not uploaded their recommendation letter, but your application packet will not be complete until all parts (including the rec letters) have arrived at the college.

If you are applying to schools that do not need teacher recommendation letters, please do not waste your teacher's time by asking them to write a letter. Also, only ask the number of teachers that you need recommendations from - so if you are applying to two schools and both need 1 teacher recommendation letter, just ask one teacher to write a letter that will be used for both schools. You do not need to ask for more letters in case one is "better" than another - if you are not sure the teacher will write a positive letter for you, then you need to pick someone else. If you trust the teacher enough to ask them to write the letter, then you should trust them enough to be able to send their letter (without seeing it) to the college.  In fact, you should not be reading your recommendation letters - they are supposed to be confidential.

For those students that will need a counselor recommendation, please be aware that I write the letters on a first come first serve basis. It is the only way I know how to be fair. Recommendation letters are incredibly time consuming - especially when I have so many to write because unlike with teachers, if your college requires a counselor recommendation letter you don't have a choice about who you are asking to write your letter.  So please, watch your deadlines and try to help me write the best letter possible by allowing me to have the time with it. As with the teachers, please plan to give me at least 30 days to write your rec letter.  Also, there is a Counselor Recommendation Letter supplement form that we ask each student to fill out and a Parent Brag sheet that we ask you to have your parents complete and turn back in to me to use when writing your letter.  Please, be detailed and thoughtful when completing these forms because I want to be able to showcase you in the best way possible.  Each of you are unique and have wonderful qualities that you will bring to a campus, but when writing recommendation letters generalized praise is wasted space so I need stories and examples to help give people a true image of you and to make it more than just what they can read about you in your application. Once you have turned in your 2 forms, I will add your name to my recommendation letter list.  Also, if you have developed a resume or list of activities and awards I would love to have that because this information can also be helpful when writing your recommendation letter.

Before I close I want to point out that the need for counselor recommendation letters is a great reminder of why it is important for students of every grade level (Sophomore, Junior, and Senior) to drop by my office throughout the year to allow me to get to know you better.  I sincerely want to know students of all ages so that I am more comfortable with talking about some of the incredible things that you all are involved in and are accomplishing during your high school careers.

Buckeye Bridge

On Monday OSU and CSCC announced a new partnership effort that extends beyond their Preferred Pathways Program. This new initiative is called Buckeye Bridge.

The Buckeye Bridge program provides students with a tuition-free path to complete their Bachelor's degree at main campus of OSU after completing an Associate's degree at CSCC.

To qualify, students must:

• Be an Ohio resident
• Complete an Associate's degree at CSCC
• File a FAFSA annually, by the priority deadline
• Maintain full-time enrollment at OSU
• Have a family adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or less (as verified by FAFSA)

With over 1,000 students transferring from CSCC to OSU every year, this is an incredible new way to find a cost-effective way to earn your degree. In fact, their tag line says, "Two degrees for the affordable price of one." And the chance to have all of your tuition and fees covered at OSU while you finish your bachelor's degree is amazing. Students will be eligible for the Buckeye Bridge program for up to 8 semesters or through the completion of their first bachelor's degree.

Want to learn more? Check out the website for Buckeye Bridge.

AI and Applications

AI and the college application process can be a complex topic.

Here is the reality, AI can be very helpful in certain aspects, but it is just your starting point and it is not foolproof or the magic solution to admissions.  After all, you are NOT a robot, you are YOU and there is no one better at being you than YOU!

So, let's get the temptation out of the way first... can it write your entire college application essay for you?  No, of course not.  Yes, I get that this is tempting to just let one of the AI tools come up with an essay about you for the college, but it is going to lack your personality and your unique story.  Will it be gramatically correct?  Yes.  Will it answer the question prompted?  Certainly.  But is that enough?  Unfortunately, no.

So, how can you use AI effectively in the admissions process?  

- It is a great tool for searching for colleges.  You can tell it a particular area of the country, a major, an acceptance rate, and the clubs or organizations you're hoping to find in a college and AI can generate a list of potential colleges for you to investigate.

- It can be a resource for figuring out how to tackle some aspects of the application.  For example, if you type in something like, "can you help me complete the activities section on Common App?" it will give you a step by step process which can be useful.

- It can help make revisions to your essays or condense something you have written down into the word count required.  As with edits made by your parents, your English teacher, or anyone else who helps review your essay draft, it is important to make sure that in the end the essay still sounds like you.  You don't want something that has been so revised to the point that it doesn't even sound like something you'd actually say, think or feel.

- You can even use AI to help brainstorm ideas on good topics based on your characteristics and values that you want to share with the college.

One of the presentations that I attended talked about how unbelievably exponential the growth of AI has been from an industry perspective.  So this is definitely a field that is growing and changing rapidly and how it will influence college applications will grow and change just as quickly.

Right now, some colleges are saying that they don't anticipate knowing if students are using AI to create their essays, but others say that they are leaning heavily on the ethical statements students commit to when submitting their application that this application is their words, their creation and their own voice.  Some even stated that if they were to find out later that the essay was AI generated, then they would hold revoking the acceptance as a viable option. And some colleges have even shared that they are no longer considering the essay as an evaluative component of the application, but will still be requiring it as a way to develop a wholistic view of the student.

When in doubt, remember that the best rule of thumb is if you wouldn't ask someone else to do it for you then you shouldn't ask AI to do it for you. Read the college policies and stance about AI carefully and be sure that what you are submitting will fall in line with their expectations.

Half Way

I wanted to give you a heads up/ reminder on a few items for this week...

1. We are half-way through the first quarter. Can you believe it? This is a great time to pause and check your grades. How are you doing in your classes? Where do you need to step it up? What changes do you need to make in your homework routine or studying skills?

2. I am out of the building for a conference on Thursday and Friday of this week so if you need me this week, please try to stop by tomorrow or Wednesday.

3. Wednesday is another PACK period day.

4. College rep visits are continuing. The conference I am going to Thursday through Saturday is a national convention of college admissions counselors that is being held in Columbus so there are a TON of colleges that are going to be here this week and so many visits are also happening around this time. Check the counselor website and sign up to meet with the reps.

5. Don't forget that Sunday is the Columbus Suburban College Fair at Capital University. (Again, college reps are here for the conference Thursday through Saturday and then the college fair is on Sunday to align to their timing of being in town.) Don't miss the chance to meet them if you want to explore more colleges.

Lockdown Reflection

I have thought a lot about it and tried to decide what I wanted to say about the lockdown situation we had last week and part of me wanted to just not address it on my blog... but I also believe that my blog is the place where I try to reflect on all of the things happening at school and this was a big one.

Thursday was scary. 

It is scary to think that something bad could happen in our school. There is so much in our world that is negative, beyond our control, and overwhelming to even think about. And then, on Thursday, we were all forced to react to the possibility that the scariness of the rest of the world was happening at Kilbourne - a place we all love, feel safe in, and where we are surrounded by friends and classmates. 

First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that those feelings of fear you were feeling during the lockdown were (and are) valid and real.

I wish none of us had to know a world where scary, unpredictable things can happen. And yet we do. And so that is why we have drills, so that we can practice and think about what it would look like if a real crisis took place. Because I suspect that many of you, like me, weren't really thinking a lot at first - you were just moving and doing the things you have practiced during lockdown drills.

There is no doubt that everything didn't go as planned or expected. There isn't anything good in that except that we are now learning from it. At school we spend a lot of time encouraging students to fail forward, to try hard in your classes and when it all goes wrong, to figure out where things fell apart and work to correct that for the future. I promise, the WKHS administration are working hard to get the various people involved with aspects of the system that didn't work properly to make corrections and get it right so that you will feel even more safe and reassured that should something ever happen at WKHS the systems designed to help keep you protected will work.

You all know that there wasn't actually a crisis that caused the lockdown. But there could have been. And that is yet another reason why it is always so important to speak up if you see something that doesn't look or feel right. You don't want anything bad happening at your school or to you or your friends. We have to look out for one another, support one another, notice if something isn't right and work to fix it. 

If you are still feeling stressed and uneasy about last Thursday's lockdown, I want to remind you that my door is open to you and I am here to talk about those feelings with you. I am so thankful that this wasn't a true crisis and that we are able to process all of this together now with that knowledge. 

Character Strengths

I am always on the look out for new ideas and approaches that students can use to help launch them into their college essays. Essays can be tough for so many students because you aren't used to writing about yourself. And, although this isn't accurate, too many of you also tend to think that there isn't anything unique, interesting or engaging that you could write about.

Let me clear that up right here and now. YOU are the only you there is which makes you unique. YOU are interesting in how you think and what you enjoy. And YOU are engaging in how you live your life to put those interests into play. And even if you are overthinking this (as some of you are prone to do), remember that you can talk about any part of your life and share why that represents an important value or characteristic that helps to make you YOU.

I had heard about the VIA Character Strengths and decided to check it out. Interestingly, when I went to log in I found that I had made an account before and I could see my results, but I went ahead and took the survey again just to see what the process was like and how my results would compare. It was a free, easy process to complete. You go through a series of questions and identify how much or how little that represents you. Remember, with stuff like this, it is always better to try to truly differentiate your answers. The more in the middle you give for everything the less accurate the results tend to be in the end. After completing the questionnaire you will be able to download your VIA Character Strengths profile which gives you a ranked order of what you have identified as being your top strengths.

If you are feeling stuck with trying to identify what you could write about, perhaps doing some more self-reflection activities like the VIA Character Strengths questionnaire could help you come up with ideas on how those strengths show up in your life. If you're interested in checking it out, go to their website at: https://www.viacharacter.org/ 

Columbus Suburban College Fair

The Columbus Suburban College Fair is coming up a week from Sunday on Sunday, September 21st from 1:00 - 3:30pm at The Capital Center on Captial University's Campus (2360 E. Mound St., Columbus, OH 43209).  This is the largest local fall college fair and a great opportunity for our students.

College fairs give you a chance to meet with admissions representatives in person. They are all gathered together in one place in order to meet you and to answer your questions. Many schools also keep track of the number of interactions/ meetings you have with their admissions representatives during your search and application process so that they can gauge your interest level in their school.

Be prepared before you get to the college fair. Know that there will be far more schools than you are interested in or can even truly take in during one afternoon, so it is useful to come up with a list of colleges that you would be interested in learning more about by doing a search that looks for different criteria that seems to be a good fit for you. With that list in hand you now have a starting point for the colleges that you would like to talk to during the fair.

All students are asked to register with Strive Scan by visiting www.strivefair.com because this will allow for you to have a bar code specific to you.  Then, when you are at the college fair next weekend and you talk to a college that interests you, they can simply scan your barcode and that will allow the college to know of your interest. I promise you, this is a MAJOR improvement over the days when students had to hand write out interest cards at each college table.

I encourage you to check out the Columbus Suburban College Fair information on the front page of the WKHS Counselor website for more information about this year's event.

A few other hints:

It can be useful to ask the same questions of each college so that you can compare them and their responses appropriately and I encourage you to consider thinking about the things you most want to know about the school and can’t find in a brochure or website. Everyone is different so your questions are going to be different depending upon your interests, but if you are really interested in playing a club sport in college, you might want to ask about their club/ intramural program and the numbers of students that participate. You may want to ask what the top 2 or 3 majors are on campus as that will give you an idea of what most of the students are interested in studying. If you are undecided about what you would like to study, it would be a great idea to ask them what support and services are available to help students in exploring different majors.

Take something with you to be able to jot some notes on - I suggest a pen or pencil over a phone because even though your phones are amazing for the notes app, the impression it may give to colleges is that you're not engaged in what is happening and are side tracked and paying attention to your phone instead. It is a crazy event with so much happening, so if you don’t write it down as you go you won’t remember much after the fact. The admissions representatives are giving you a small look of the college – what do you think following each glimpse?

When you are walking through the college fair with the list of schools that you want to talk to don’t forget to leave some time for browsing – you may realize that a school you had not previously considered has just what you are looking for in a college. It can be easy for us to get caught in the cycle of only looking at specific schools because that is what “everyone” else is considering.

Ideally, you will be able to avoid getting caught up in the crowds and confusion so that you don’t walk away from the college fair with a lot of brochures, but no real ideas or impressions about which colleges most interest you. At the end of the college fair you will likely have a bag filled with information about colleges. One of the best college fair articles suggested, “Don’t succumb to the temptation of just piling all those brochures in some obscure corner of your bedroom. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a day or two away from the college search. Then get out all of those brochures, along with the notes you took at the fair, and read through them. You may find that some colleges aren’t as interesting as you first thought. Others only look better the more you research them.”

If you have never been to a college fair before, I admit that it often feels like mass chaos.  But it is also the opportunity for you to gain a lot of useful information from a large number of schools in a short period of time.  Good luck and happy college searching… I can’t wait to hear about the schools that spark your interest!