Final CC+ Reminder

First, I hope you had a great spring break! I am looking forward to seeing you and hearing about your time off from school.

Next, for the purpose of this post... All students looking to earn free college credit in classes next year MUST turn in the College Credit Plus intent to participate form by Tuesday, April 1st!  This is a firm deadline established by the State of Ohio and we cannot extend it so please make sure you get your forms turned in to us!  

Just as a reminder, this includes college classes on the college campus, online college classes, college classes taught by college instructors at WKHS (English, Psychology, Government, Sociology, Ethics), and the regular WKHS classes taught by the WKHS teachers which can get you college credit for the exact same class you may have already signed up to take (Pre-Calculus, Honors Pre-Calculus, AP Calculus AB).  

If you have any questions about College Credit Plus - stop and see me or watch the videos on the counselor website.  (www.wkhscounselors.com).  The intent to participate form packets which includes the video sign-off forms are also available on the counselor website.

Spring Break!

We made it and are now officially on Spring Break! 

I hope that you have a wonderful and relaxing break. Good luck to all of the individuals, groups, and teams that are traveling this week. 

Have a great week and stay safe!

Impressive Students

This month we had the opportunity to celebrate students at two separate ceremonies. Unfortunately, due to some other circumstances in the district, I wasn't able to attend either event, but I wanted to still give a well-deserved shout-out and recognition to my students who were recognized.

On Friday, March 7th there were 31 WKHS students inducted into the Socratic Society. The Socratic Society recognizes students for dispalying Personal Effort, Compassion, Lifelong Learning, Integrity and Scholarship. Students can only be honored once during their high school career for inclusion into the Socratic Society. During the ceremony, 7 of "my" students were among those recognized. A huge congratulations to: Leen Abusalha, Mohamed-Saeed Aden, Brady Baringhaus, Ella Beymer, Mackenzie Cain, Kaleb Colegrove, and Eric Collier. 

And then on Tuesday, March 11th, approximately 360 Sophomores and Juniors were recognized as a part of the Academic Honors Celebration with bronze and silver keys. Students earn this recognition based upon their grades. 

Bronze Keys are awarded to students who have achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher at the end of 3 full semesters. Congratulations to "my" students who accomplished this: John Abbott, Ibrahim Ahmed, Amani Alash, Micah Anderson, Isatta Bah, Gus Baugh, John Beachy, Colin Beckstedt, Rylee Bindel, Adriana Black, Madison Bockrath, Dihan Bouhamidi, Gavin Brown, Alex Bussard, Caroline Campbell, Jose Cano Illescas, Isabell Chen, Vivian Cowan, Michael Dolciato, and Mahmoud Eldresi.

Silver Keys are awarded to students who have achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher at the end of 5 full semesters. Congratulations to "my" students who earned this recognition: Charlotte Aagenas, Lacey Abbott, Callen Acheampong, Joseph Adrian, Aya Ahmed, Sydney Allwood, Esad Alpay, Ama Ampem, Jake Arens, Cameron Armstrong, Gia Aschenbrand, Finn Barker, Emily Bartlett, John Battle, Grace Beattie, Ali Becht, Gray Beckett, Rowan Beckner-Evans, Elizabeth Bennett, Callie Best, Ella Beymer, Sophia Bollentino, Julia Borchers, Safaa Bouhamidi, Akira Boyd, Kaitlyn Bradshaw, Zach Brown, Ryan Burke, Ellie Buterbaugh, Tyra Butler, Kate Campbell, Brayden Capperes, Mallory Carlin, Palmer Cavicchia, Jacob Caviness, Camille Chabannes, Nora Cheslik, Nikos Chimbidis, Sa'Kiyah Coleman, Nathan Corn, Quention Cost, Eliose Cotterman, and Grace Glaros.

I am proud of you all!

AI & College Admissions

There is no area that is changing faster and growing more rapidly than the influence of AI in college admissions. It is the area where I find I am watching the most webinars, reading the most articles, and listening to the most podcasts about than any other aspect of college admissions. 

Can AI be a useful tool in supporting your college admissions process? Absolutely.

Can AI be mis-used and therefore hinder your college applications? Absolutely.

And that is why it is a tricky area. 

Tomorrow, all junior students are invited to attend the Junior Seminar on AI & Admissions where we will spend 20 minutes talking about appropriate use of AI in applications. Juniors, as a reminder, the seminars take place before school from 8:15-8:35 in Room 201. I hope to see you tomorrow morning for this workshop!

There are some colleges that say students must cite any AI resource used in any aspect of their application. There are others that know AI can be a helpful tool in researching, brainstorming, or giving feedback. And nearly all colleges would say that you should absolutely NOT use AI to write your essay or complete your application as a whole.

The best rule of thumb that I have seen and heard related to appropriate AI use in your applications is that if you would not ask a human such as your parent, teacher or counselor to do something for you then you should not be asking AI to do it for you! I think that is a key way to help reframe thinking about AI and your applications.

AI and applications is an exciting, interesting area of growth and we will all continue to learn together.

Pathways & Possibilities Day

Tomorrow is Kilbourne's "Pathways and Possibilities" Day and I am so excited for it! During lunch periods all students will have the opportunity to interact with dozens of career professionals to learn about alternative pathways or possibilities for your future. 

We have intentionally targeted inviting job representatives that do not typically require a 4-year degree in order to work in the profession. You might wonder why. Well, there is so much time and attention spent in helping students look at 4-year colleges that we want to make sure that ALL students are getting support even if continuing on to a traditional college isn't in their plan. But it is more than that. There are a lot of jobs that you can get a certificate or other credentialling and be able to begin working where you will make more money than you would in just the typical high school diploma jobs.

My niece, Carly, is a perfect example of this option. Carly is a senior at the University of Kentucky. During the summer between her freshman and sophomore years of college she got 2 certificates - one in phlebotomy (drawing people's blood) and one to be a nursing tech. Then, from her sophomore through senior years of college she has worked part time at the UK Medical Center making far more money (and requiring way less hours of her) than she would have earned if she worked at a restaurant or store. Even more importantly, this clinical experience helped Carly have an even more impressive application when she was applying to med school. Let's be honest, did she want to be a phlebotomist or nursing tech for the rest of her life? No. Are those great career paths for some people? Absolutely! But it still was an important part of Carly's journey and has opened up more great opportunities for her in the future.

My hope is that EVERY student will take a few minutes out of your lunch periods to walk through the tables which will be set up in the commons and hallways to talk with the different career professionals. You never know about the various jobs that might peak your interest. Perhaps you will find something that will be a great pathway for your future or there might be jobs that can give you better paying possibilities. At the very least, please take a moment as you walk past our guests to say Thank you to them for giving their time to come and share with all of us!

Admissions Decisions Coming Soon

In the world of college admissions, there are several key points in time - the mad rush to finish applications before the deadline and months of waiting - and now, finally, the point when you find out if a college has accepted or rejected you for admissions. It can be a time filled with frustration, excitment, heart-break, and pretty much every other emotion in between.

The next few weeks will be big as students finally receive the college admissions decisions that you have waited months to receive. Most of the schools that have yet to announce their decisions will be releasing them over the next couple of weeks. This can be a very stressful time for students. Try to take a deep breath and relax – you have done the best job to put yourself in the best situation possible with your applications. If you are stressing out awaiting the news, feel free to stop in and see me so we can talk about it.

The reality is that some of the most selective colleges were able to be even more selective than in the past and the percentage of students who were accepted continues to shrink at many schools. This is, in part, because so many students are choosing to apply to a LOT of colleges which means applications are up at many of the schools. OSU recently announced that they had received over 88,000 applications! That is crazy and is a huge jump from the previous high last year which had also been a record so the trend just continues to spiral out of control.

Getting the decision can be hard enough, but often the more difficult aspect is being asked, “Did you get accepted?” by well-meaning friends. Trust me on this one, if they get accepted to their dream school, the students will be telling everyone – you won’t need to ask. If they don’t offer up the news sharing if they were accepted or not, then be sensitive to the fact that more than likely they still don't know or they did not get accepted. Be kind and don’t ask about it as it puts students on the spot to share potentially disappointing news.

Senior Pictures

It's a "Senior Sunday" which means it's a good time to remind all seniors... the deadline to submit your Senior Picture for the yearbook is this Friday, March 21st.  All seniors are invited to turn in a preferred photo to Mr. Balogh at this link to have your picture included in the yearbook.  For students who do not submit a photo before the deadline, the school pictures by HR Imaging that you had taken in August will typically be used for the yearbook.  If you have any questions, please stop and see or email Mr. Balogh.