Spring Break!

Hooray! Although the weather certainly doesn't make it seem like spring, 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 will travel this week. Don't forget, if you end up on a college campus, please take a picture for the "Oh the Places You'll Go" display.

I will still update a few times over break, but probably not as frequently as normal. Have a great week and stay safe!

Accepted Data

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 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. The New York Times Education Blog called, The Choice, has been compiling some of the statistics regarding competitive school admissions. As of right now, it shows the lowest acceptance rate being 6.17% (Harvard). I think you will find the chart interesting (and perhaps a little scary).

Countdown to Spring Break

Just 2 more days of school before Spring Break begins! Have you been counting down? I know that it has seemed like some students have been counting down since we returned from winter break. :-) It is almost here. Of course, that also means that the end of the 3rd quarter is also upon us. This has been a tough quarter for a large number of you and so I encourage you to enjoy your break and refocus for the 4th quarter. While we still have 2 days left, I wanted to give you a heads up that I will not be accessible for the first half of the day tomorrow due to a meeting out of the building. If you need anything before break, please plan to stop and see me tomorrow afternoon or on Thursday.

Anxiously Awaiting Decisions

This is a big week for college admissions decisions. Most of the schools that have yet to announce their decisions will be releasing them over the next few days. 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.

Weekend Wrap Up

I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was wonderful as my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew were in town. If you know me at all, you are aware that I love to watch sports. I generally prefer watching sports when I know some of the people participating, which is why I like to watch all of you participating in WKHS sports. This weekend I watched many of the NCAA tournament basketball games and have been blown away by what good games they have been - such intense, close games. Even not knowing the athletes it has still been fun to watch.

Remember, with just four days remaining in the 3rd quarter, there is a good chance that a lot of your classes will have end of the quarter tests, papers, or projects due. Please spend some time preparing so that you can head into spring break on a positive note.

This week there are a couple of events coming up that you may be interested in attending:

Monday night at 7:30pm is the Prom Fashion Show which is a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital.

Tuesday night is the Generation Rx Presentation at 7:00pm which is a presentation on illegal prescription drug use and addiction.

Upcoming Deadlines

Next week there are a few key deadlines that I wanted to make sure all students and parents are aware of:

- Tuesday, March 29th is the deadline for students to register to take an Advanced Placement (AP) exam. The cost to take the AP test this year is $95. Please note that all registration materials (forms and payment) must be received at the Worthington Education Center by March 29th.

- Wednesday, March 30th is the deadline for students to submit their paperwork to indicate their intent to apply for and participate in the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program. You will turn these forms in to me.

If you have any questions about these upcoming deadlines, please stop by and see me.

"Senior Survivors"

Tonight was the Junior Student and Parent College Information Night. The focus of the evening was a panel presentation by senior students who have survived their senior year and are nearing the end of their high school career. The students shared about their experiences in college applications and successfully navigating the adventures of senior year. I was INCREDIBLY impressed with the student panel. The participants did an outstanding job giving honest viewpoints about the upcoming year for the juniors and their parents.
A very special thank you to (left to right) Rachael Mains, Ethan Dixius, Dave Reinbolt, Colleen Hile, Courtney Green, and Mark Bobson for their participation on the "Senior Survivor" panel. These students represented a variety of different college choices - different sizes of schools in different areas of the country. More importantly, though, they represented WKHS in a poised and helpful manner.

I was also excited to see so many of "my" juniors in the audience along with your parents. Hopefully you were able to gain helpful insight from those who have walked this path and you feel ready and excited to take on your senior year. Remember, I am always here to help you in any way that I can because I care a great deal about you and your experience along the “senior year journey.”

One last final thanks to Ethan and Mark. I appreciate your help more than you will ever really know!

Junior College Night

Don't forget ~ tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 23rd, will be the Junior Student and Parent College Information night. The meeting begins at 7:30pm in the WKHS auditorium. I'm looking forward to seeing all of "my" juniors and your families at the meeting.

Please Don't Ask

The approach to April 1st tends to bring increased anxiety for seniors who are still awaiting their college admissions decisions. 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 were accepted, the students would 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 did not get accepted and don’t ask about it as it puts them on the spot to share disappointing news.

Also, Juniors, don't forget, the junior student/ parent college night will be held this Wednesday at 7:30pm in the auditorium! I hope you will be attending!

Summer Volunteer

Volunteers make a significant impact - not only are the people that you help impacted, but the people who reach out to help someone else are also changed for the better. There is not just one choice about what you can pursue as a volunteer project. Community service opportunities are as different as each individual who decides they want to help make a difference in the world around them. The sky is the limit and I encourage you to find something that inspires you.

As the weather starts to get warmer and we begin looking toward the summer, I thought it might help you if I mentioned that the Ohio State University Medical Center allows high school students to volunteer during the summer. (They only utilize college students as volunteers during the school year, but are willing to work with high school students in the summertime.) They only accept applications for volunteers between March 1st and April 30th. Volunteers must be at least 16 years old. If you are interested in applying, visit their website for an application and additional information.

In case you need a "reason" to push yourself to get involved through volunteering, please remember that many scholarships consider community service experience. It is not the number of hours you contribute, but rather the meaning and passion that inspire you to contribute in positive ways.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Sophomores have just one more day of OGT’s, so keep up the good work! (Hopefully the luck of the Irish was with you as you have been testing this week.) I hope the rest of you enjoy your final day of having extra sleep-in time.

On March 17, 2006 I was working as a school counselor at Grove City High School when two students were in a critical car accident. One student passed away and the other, fortunately, lived. I have found myself thinking about this crisis frequently in the last week, and especially today, knowing how much it impacted the families involved as well as the entire school. So, I decided this was an appropriate time to review the importance of communicating when crisis situations occur. It is important, as a school counselor, to be aware of any major incidents that impact students from the school as soon as possible so that we can help prepare an appropriate response. For the record, I tend to check my e-mails over weekends, holidays, and the summer for any critical incidents, but I do not check my school voicemail, so the best way to pass along any important timely news is e-mail. Obviously, my hope is that this information is never needed and that we will not face any crisis situations in the future, but I also know that it is better safe than sorry.

Enjoy the rest of your St. Patrick’s Day and please, be safe today and every day!

A Stressful Time of Year

This has been such a strange week. 35 minute classes should make the days seem faster than normal, but I have talked with several students this week who all agreed that this week has felt incredibly slow. Just 2 more days until the weekend... and for those of you who might be counting, just 11 days until Spring Break! :-)

This can be a stressful time of year, particularly for the seniors who are still awaiting admissions decisions from colleges. While waiting is difficult, I would like to point out that it could always be worse... you could have received a notification that you had been accepted only to find out that the college made a mistake and you were really not accepted. It seems like this has happened every year for the last few years and this year is no exception. Here are two stories of this taking place this year:

University of Delaware, citing computer glitch, rescinds 61 acceptances

Christopher Newport University accidentally sends acceptance letters to 2,000 students

I cannot imagine how disappointed and frustrated these students must have felt as their acceptances were reversed. Hopefully none of you will be faced with that situation.

When I Grow Up...

What do you want to be when you grow up? When you were little perhaps it was a professional athlete, a superhero, or (in the case of my niece) a princess. Chances are that now that you are in high school you have started re-thinking some of your potential career choices. While there is still a lot of uncertainty and will, in all liklihood, be plenty of other times when you will change career paths in the future, it is time to start figuring out what you would like to be when you grow up.

I *know* you hate it when I say this, but the reality is that you need to know yourself and follow your passions. If you love what you do and you are willing to work hard then you will be able to find success. Everyone has their own unique gifts and talents and it is imperitive that you determine what career will meet your needs. This means you have to figure out what is important to you and how you can incorporate that into your life. For example, for those who love sports it can be hard to imagine life without athletics and, many times, these individuals will pick (at least initially) careers that involve sports - athletic training, sports management, sports marketing, etc. This might be the perfect combination - or maybe not. Knowing yourself and knowing what you have a passion for is important in determining what characteristics of a job will be best suited for you. In this example, the sports minded person might pick a career that involves teamwork where groups of people work closely together to reach a common goal. Or, if you decide that you are not going to meet a passion in your life through your career, then it is important that you still honor that influence in some other way - perhaps playing on an adult recreational team or coaching a youth sport team. While this example deals with sports the same concept applies to any of your interests and passions - art, music, learning.

So, while I am not asking you to abandon your dreams of fame and fortune as the professional athlete, superhero, or princess, I am asking you to start thinking seriously about what will make you happy, what is important to you, and how a career can help meet your needs and goals in life.

Test Anxiety

It’s normal to feel a little bit nervous before and during a test. What is important is to learn how to deal with those anxieties so that they do not become overwhelming. Below are a few key strategies for managing test anxiety. If this is something that you struggle with, please feel free to stop in and see me so that we can discuss additional ways to help manage your test anxieties.

- Study. Being prepared is the single most effective way to help manage test anxiety. If you are confident that you know the material and have put forth your best effort to be prepared for the test, then you can relax and do the best you can.

o Learn from past quizzes and tests

o Ask the teacher for suggestions on how to best prepare for the upcoming test

o Don’t cram – that only adds to the stress and pressure of trying to “squeeze” everything in

o There are lots of study strategies available that can help students and I have a variety of ideas, so if you are interested, stop by and see me and we can talk about different techniques you can try to implement for various classes.

- Stay Positive. Being confident and entering the test with a positive attitude will help you to achieve success. There are lots of strategies people use to help maintain a positive outlook – visualization (imaging yourself doing well on the test) and positive self-talk (we all talk to ourselves so instead of thinking that you are going to fail the test replace that self-talk with positive comments such as “I am prepared” or “this test will allow me to show how much I have learned”). Sometimes it is important to stay away from other people who tend to express their negative outlooks and opinions going into a test… those people who will just stress you out more with their panic about the test.

- Take care of yourself. I *know* that you hate hearing things like this (and yes, I acknowledge that at times this can be a hypocritical statement for me to make), but it is important to take care of yourself. Get plenty of sleep so that you are well rested and mentally alert for the test. Eat a healthy meal (breakfast/ lunch) because you don’t want to be sitting in class focusing on food or listening to your stomach growl and you also don’t want to be coming down off a sugar or caffeine high and be dragging the rest of the testing period. Allowing yourself time to exercise is also important as it is a physical release of stress and can reinvigorate you for studying as you prepare for the test.

- Be a “smart” test taker. Don’t panic! Read the directions carefully. Take a deep breath to relax. Answer the questions to the best of your ability and if you don’t know an answer, skip the question to return to it later and continue on to other questions that you are more confident in answering. Budget your time, but don’t rush to be the first finished – this is not a race. Stay focused. (Focus on answering the question – don’t allow yourself to get off track and worry about your grade or how others are doing – just continue to refocus on answering the next question.) If you start to become overwhelmed with anxiety during the test, take a few slow deep breaths, relax your muscles and remember that you are in control of dealing with these feelings so just take it one step at a time.

- After you are finished, give yourself a short break from thinking about the test, but also don’t forget to consider what worked well and what could have gone better and then make changes accordingly for the future. If you were able to manage your anxiety effectively then you can continue practicing these skills for future tests. If some of the strategies were not effective, then you can try to adjust and adopt new strategies to help manage the anxiety.

Remember, it is also important to keep the test in perspective. It is actually quite rare that a single test will make or break you. (And yes, this includes the OGT/ SAT/ ACT tests because you can always repeat these tests again in the future.) Good luck on your next test!

OGT Week

This coming week the Sophomores will be taking the Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT's). Each day will feature a different test - Monday is Reading, Tuesday is Math, Wednesday is Writing, Thursday is Science, and Friday is Social Studies.

I cannot stress the importance of EVERY sophomore student attending school all five days to complete the tests. If you are too sick to make it to school you will have to take the test during the following week which is not as ideal of a testing environment.

Freshman, Juniors, and Seniors are probably looking forward to OGT week because they have the special added treat of a few extra hours of sleep. :-)

The busses are running twice next week in order to make sure that the Sophomores are able to arrive at school in time for their tests and also for everyone else to come to school after the extra time sleeping in each morning. Classes for the week will only be 35 minutes long so the week should go past pretty quickly for you.

For your information below is the daily bell schedule for this coming week:
OGT Tests: 7:45 - 9:35
1st Period: 9:50 - 10:25
2nd Period: 10:30 - 11:05
3rd Period: 11:10 - 11:45
4th Period: 11:50 - 12:25
5th Period: 12:30 - 1:05
6th Period: 1:10 - 1:45
7th Period: 1:50 - 2:25
8th Period: 2:30 - 3:05

Good luck on the OGT's!

Junior College Information Night

On Wednesday, March 23rd the WKHS Counseling department will be hosting a Junior Student and Parent College Information Night. Over the last few years, this program has received the best feedback out of all of the information nights we host. The students and parents who attended this meeting in the past have expressed how much this helped them get started and move forward with the college search process and developed a better understanding of what to expect along the way. The meeting is at 7:30pm in the auditorium. I hope you will plan to attend! And yes, I want you to bring your parents to this meeting and no, I don't want you to just send your parents instead... this is YOUR future and you are responsible for deciding what direction you will take.

Academic Honors Night

Congratulations to all of the students who were honored at tonight's Academic Honors ceremony. As a component of the award ceremony, students are presented with gold, silver, and bronze keys in recognition of their achievements in academic excellence.

Gold keys are awarded to students who have earned a cumulative GPA of a 3.5 or higher at the end of 7 full semesters. 24 of "my" students were among tonight's gold key recipients.

Silver keys are awarded to students with at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA at the end of 5 full semesters. 22 of "my" students received silver keys tonight.

Bronze Keys are awarded to students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher at the end of 3 full semesters. 22 of "my" students were presented with bronze keys.

Congratulations to each of you for your academic commitments and achievements!

Picking a College

For seniors, the countdown to final decision time for picking the college of your dreams is rapidly approaching. For juniors, you are beginning your search and trying to determine which schools you can imagine in your future.

There are so many resources available to review and consider to aid you in making your decision. Campus visits, reviewing the college websites and meetings with admissions representatives when they visit Kilbourne are all great strategies for learning more about the college and finding the school that is the best match for you. I want to remind you that a wealth of information and resources are also available in my office that you are welcome to come in and read to help you in making your choice. There are books that give perspectives of different colleges based upon the responses current college students have provided in surveys about school, others that rank selectivity of schools based upon majors, and others that provide insight about the schools from expert researchers.

I know that this process can be stressful and overwhelming, but hopefully you are also finding it fun and exciting. As always, let me know how I can help you sort out your options.

March Students of the Month

On Thursday morning, approximately 20 WKHS students were honored as March Students of the Month. Students are nominated as students of the month by Kilbourne faculty and staff for their academic achievement, good citizenship, and/or service to the school or community. Students can only earn this recognition once in their high school career. A special congratulations to "my" four students who were among those honored this month - (Left to right): Tori Eger, Ethan Dixius, Keeler Callahan and, not pictured, Joshua Blake. I am proud of you all!

More on Scholarships

Haven’t heard enough about scholarships yet? Well, let’s talk a little about other scholarships that are available at the community, state, or even national level. You can always start with a general search, but there are also many scholarship search engines that you can use as a resource. With so many different scholarships, it can feel a bit daunting, but remember, if you are able to earn one of the scholarships, your time would certainly be worth the effort.

Here are a few of the scholarship search sites that might help you:

http://www.fastweb.com/
http://www.collegeboard.com/
http://www.collegenet.com/
http://www.scholarships.com/
http://www.scholarshipmonkey.com/

Also, remember that we maintain a scholarship drawer in the Counseling Center so you are welcome to stop and look through all of the applications we have available.

Never pay for a scholarship! Scholarships are meant to give you money – not the other way around so know that if they are asking you to send money, that it is a scam.

Here are some other articles related to scholarships that I think you might find helpful:

4 Do’s and 1 Don’t for Finding College Scholarships

Skip these 6 Scholarships Essay Errors

7 Things you Need to Know about Private Scholarships

Get your Scholarship Application Noticed

Local Scholarships

Local scholarships are a great opportunity for students to earn some additional financial help for college. And, with the scholarships being local, it means that there will be less people applying for the scholarships (compared to national scholarships) which gives you a better chance of receiving one of the scholarships.

Please take the time to carefully read through the criteria for the scholarships to see which ones would be appropriate for you to apply for and then start getting organized to get your applications completed. After you have determined the scholarships that you would like to apply for, please stop in the counseling center and pick up the actual scholarship application from the tables in the main area of the counseling center. (The picture is the table with local scholarship applications in the Counseling Center.)

The deadline for all completed applications is the end of the school day on April 13th and no late applications can be accepted. I cannot stress enough the importance of planning ahead and starting to work on these scholarships now!

Also, please pay attention to see if the applications require a written recommendation letter and if one is required ask your teacher(s) for a letter as soon as possible - especially if they have not already written a rec letter for you.

Take a Picture

We made it through another week! Granted, it was a four-day week, but from all of the students that I talked to today, it felt like a much longer week than that. I hope that you have fun adventures planned for your three-day weekend.

For some students, this weekend serves as the perfect opportunity to get a jump start on making college visits to get an idea of what different schools have to offer. For other students, it is time to start narrowing down to help determine which school you will be attending next year and so this may be a second or even third visit to campus. Either way, I would like to remind you that we would really like you to take a picture somewhere on campus to share with us!

Also, don't forget that tomorrow (March 4th) is the deadline to register for the April 9th ACT. If you were planning on signing up for this testing date, please make sure that you take care of that before the price jumps up.

Enjoy the weekend!

Paying for College

Paying for College is expensive! There is no question that higher education costs add up quickly and it can be confusing to try to figure out what all of the different terms related to financial aid really mean - especially when the economy is struggling. This is just a brief overview to give you an idea of what you might see/ hear when you are looking at your options.

There are two broad categories of financial aid – Merit Based aid and Need Based aid.

Merit Based aid is what you think of when you think “Scholarships.” These are usually awarded to students based on academic achievements, leadership, athletics, special talents such as art or music, volunteerism, or other personal qualities that set you apart. These scholarships do not consider financial need. A significant portion of all merit-based aid comes directly from the college/ university. Some schools may require additional scholarship applications, essays, interviews, and many colleges will have earlier deadlines to be considered for their scholarships. It can be helpful to know that a lot of times the smaller, private colleges will have more money available for scholarships in order to help make attending their school competitive with the lower costs of the public colleges. Please also remember that we have scholarship offerings available in the scholarship drawer when you first walk into the counseling center. It is important to keep an eye out for unique scholarships that might apply to your personal situation. In the past I had a student who was able to qualify for an Italian heritage scholarship. Perhaps one of your grandparents won a purple heart or maybe you have time to write an essay for one of the other scholarship competitions… no matter what the situation, if you find a scholarship that you meet the criteria for go ahead and apply – you might be pleasantly surprised at the result and if you don’t, the answer is definitely a “no.”

Need Based aid is what you will sometimes hear people refer to as “Financial Aid” even though both Merit Based and Need Based aid technically fall under that one category. There are a variety of different Need Based aid programs. Grants are considered gift assistance – they give you money and you do not have to pay it back. Loans which can come from a wide variety of sources – the federal government, the college, and private banks is money that you are required to pay back. Work Study programs are on campus job opportunities that the government helps find that allows you to earn money for college through working on campus. The big difference between Merit Based and Need Based aid is that Need Based aid is that the type and amount of Need Based aid you will receive depends upon the amount of financial need you have.

And, yes, just to add to the confusion – there are some scholarships that will consider financial need as a criterion. They are still awarding the scholarship based upon some specific aspect of who you are it is just allowing them to narrow down the potential applicant pool.

One last important reminder - NEVER pay to be considered for a scholarship! That is a scam. Don't waste your money!

If you have any questions you can always call the financial aid offices of the schools where you are applying as they are true experts in the field. I am also happy to try to help in any way that I can.

One other reminder - tomorrow night is the PSEO information night where you will have the opportunity to learn about the option of taking free college classes while still in high school.

Talent Show

Congratulations to all of the students involved in planning or performing in tonight's WKHS Talent Show! You did a great job. I always love being able to witness your many talents in action. 6 of "my" students performed among the 20 acts including (in alphabetical order): Ashley Butler, Christina Carrizales, Sayak Das, Robbie Davidson, Michael Dillow, and Lauren Hedges. Additionally, CW Boyles was one of the Masters of Ceremony and was also involved in entertaining the crowd. For any major event like this there is always a great deal of work to do behind the scenes and Hannah Vincent served as the event coordinator and Kyle Calcote worked on the lighting. Each of you did a wonderful job!