For what it is worth, I will also be off and not checking emails and rarely (if at all) updating the blog as I will also be trying to enjoy the time with my family and enjoying some down time.
A special congratulations to "my" students who were among those recognized this month (in alphabetical order): Nathan Bradley, Sean Brennan, Aminata Bundu, Diego Cobo, and Riley Douglas. I am proud of you! Thanks for making a positive difference at Kilbourne!
Just 1 more day of exams left! You've got this... finish strong!
One of the projects that they spearhead for Kilbourne students and families is the "Care Closet." In this designated area they have stocked a wide range of personal care items that individuals may want/ need but not have the extra money to keep on hand. For example, in the Care Closet you can find shampoo, conditioner, lotion, soap, shaving cream, toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant and so much more! And it is all there FREE for anyone who could benefit from a little extra help. This can be particularly helpful to families during the holidays when money may be even tighter than normal or a family might need some basic toiletries to use as a gift.
The Care Closet is a cabinet located in the back hallway between the Counseling Center and Administrative Offices. Please know that we WANT you to use this resource! That is why they provide it for our families. So, if this is something that you know would help you, please stop and help yourself. You can also see me if you want me to help point out where the supplies are located. And then, in the future, you can always go to the Care Closet area and help yourself to any materials that you or your family need. (Parents, know that you too can come in to take advantage of the Care Closet if your son or daughter won't make use of it on their own.)
Also, as an ongoing reminder, we invite all students, families and community members to contribute to the Kilbourne Kindness Closet by donating any gently used Kilbourne clothing items that you no longer need. Whether it's an old sweatshirt, a sport specific t-shirt, or any WKHS apparel that you no longer want or use, we would be grateful for your contributions. This includes both student and parent Kilbourne clothes. We know that wearing Kilbourne clothes strengthens school spirit and builds connection among students and families. Donations can be dropped off in the front Student Services office or in the Counseling Center.
There are a wide range of strategies you can use to help deal with anxiety:
- Research has indicated that spending several minutes before a test to write about your feelings will help decrease test anxiety and improve test scores. The University of Chicago researchers “believe worrying competes for computing power in the brain’s ‘working,’ or short-term memory.”
- Practice putting yourself in testing situations when studying. The more you get used to the experience and feelings of testing the less anxious you will feel when in the actual test.
- Just before the test, avoid talking about the test material with your friends. Chances are fixating on the test material and talking about it with your friends right before the test will only make you more anxious.
- Approach the test with a positive attitude. Don’t go into the test expecting the worst to happen. You can remind yourself that you have studied and know the material.
- Avoid distractions so that you can focus on the test and not on what other students are doing. Do not compare yourself with others and how they are doing on the test.
- Take a deep breath, relax, and do the best you can.
I should also mention that smart testing strategies like getting a good night of sleep, eating breakfast, having all of your required materials (pen, pencil, calculator, scratch paper, etc), getting regular exercise, and giving yourself plenty of time to get to your test on time will also benefit you as a whole and in testing situations.
Remember, Lexi and I will both be around during all of the exam days so if you're feeling overwhelmed and anxious, we are here to help! Good luck on your exams - you'll do great!
Obviously, if you are struggling, I want to talk to you! I want to problem-solve with you and help develop a plan for managing the feelings and experiences you are going through.
Stress comes from a range of events and life circumstances. When positive things happen such as getting a new job, dating someone new, or graduating from high school, stress levels increase. And, obviously, stress levels are higher when negative things take place like failing a test, fighting with family or friends, or having a lot to do in a limited amount of time. Quite simply, the reality is that stress is a part of life and it cannot be escaped, but it is important to learn strategies for dealing with stress.
Holidays can also create stress because expectations tend to be higher during holidays. Families are often together and sometimes that can be difficult or it could mean that siblings who are off to college are home and the change in routine can cause challenges. Students whose parents are divorced are often juggling multiple holidays and trying to be in several places at once which is never easy. Whatever the circumstances are for your family, try to remember that even though the holiday will not be the picture of perfection that you might see portrayed on movies or TV shows, it can still be enjoyable - even if it is stressful.
Finding the stress relievers that are effective in your own life is important not only during the holidays, but throughout the year. Talking to friends, journaling, drawing, reading, listening to music, running, coloring, playing sports, spending time with your pets, taking a walk, dancing, exercising, watching a funny movie, or helping someone less fortunate are all examples of some simple stress relievers that might be ideas you can consider utilizing.
Remember, I am here for you and I want to talk with you... especially if you are feeling stressed!
Interestingly, for many high school students, you don't yet know how to study. The challenging part of studying is that what works best for one person may not be what works best for someone else. And, even if you figure out what works best for you in one particular subject area, that still doesn't mean that this particular strategy will be most effective for a different subject. And, while, the week before exams isn't the ideal time to figure out what study strategies tend to work best for you, it is better late than never.
The best news is that there are lots of different ideas and strategies that you can use to develop a study strategy that works for you! For what it is worth, think of learning to study like you think of learning to run. You already know some skills that have helped you to know how to study and to be successful - just like you already know how to run, but if you practice and really train at running, you can improve significantly and studying will work just the same. Keep working at your study strategies, practice and continue refining your technique until you find the perfect combination that works for you.
If you are struggling to find strategies to try out, I encourage you to visit the WKHS Counselor website as we have lots of examples there. You can also work with your teachers and the Academic Assistant's in the Teaching and Learning Center as they have a wealth of knowledge and helpful tips for study strategies that can help you in their particular subject areas as well as studying overall. And, last, but not least, you can also stop in and see me and I can help brainstorm ideas that you could try.
Below is the bell schedule for your reference as it is definitely different than normal.
Period 1 - 8:40 - 9:19
Period 2 - 9:24 - 10:56 (Students will be divided to spend 1/2 the time in class and 1/2 in the assembly)
Period 3 - 11:01 - 11:40
Period 4 - 11:45 - 12:24
Period 5 - 12:29 - 1:08
Period 6 - 1:13 - 1:52
Period 7 - 1:57 - 2:36
Period 8 - 2:41 - 3:20
I am looking forward to seeing all of my students who are participating as a part of the assembly tomorrow. I also want to send out a huge good luck to all of the Band, Orchestra, and Choir students who will be performing tonight and tomorrow in the Home for the Holidays concert.
- Accepted: Congratulations - they are inviting you to join and be a part of their college/ university!
- Declined/ Rejected/ Not Accepted: For whatever reason the college did not feel that you would be a good fit. While it is understandably disappointing, please remember that there are lots of colleges and universities out there so don’t give up on finding a good match.
- Decision Deferred: The college is not sure yet… usually they will tell you what additional data/ information they are interested in receiving to help them make their decision. The most common piece of data they will look for are senior year grades at the semester time.
- Wait List: The wait list is not a denial, but it is not an acceptance either. Colleges use wait lists as insurance to make sure that their freshman class will be the appropriate size. If enough students decide to attend, the college will not accept anyone off of their wait-list. We will talk more about wait lists later in the spring because this rarely a response students will receive at this time of year, but it is more common later in the application season.
One of the realities of the college admission process is that not every student will be accepted to every college. The waiting game can often be one of the more frustrating aspects. With family members and friends consistently asking, "Where are you going to college?" the uncertainty present with each "I don't know" response can be overwhelming. Remember, I am here to help support you in managing all the stress related to admissions decisions.
Day One - Wednesday, December 18th:
8:40 - 10:35: 1st period exam
10:45 - 12:40: 4th period exam
12:40 - 1:20: Lunch
1:25 - 3:20: 7th period exam
Day Two - Thursday, December 19th:
8:40 - 10:35: 2nd period exam
10:45 - 12:40: 5th period exam
12:40 - 1:20: Lunch
1:25 - 3:20: 8th period exam
Day Three - Friday, December 20th:
8:40 - 10:35: 3rd period exam
10:45 - 12:40: 6th period exam
12:40 - 120: NO Lunch Provided!
1:25 - 3:20: Make-Up Exams
A couple of questions that tend to come up at exam time...
Yes, you are REQUIRED and EXPECTED to be in all of your classes during an exam. (Even if you don't have an actual exam, the teachers are going to be working with you on projects, papers, or other learning related to their course.)
No, you do NOT need to be in school during your scheduled lunch period or during your Options or Prep periods. (Which means, for example, that if you have 3rd period prep and 6th period lunch that you do not have to come to school at all on the 20th.)
Yes, there will be two bus runs on Wednesday - so you can leave after your 6th period exam, but if you need to stay for a make-up exam period then there will be another bus run to take you home then too.
Hope that helps clarify and I hope your studying efforts are going well.
As a reminder, if you decide to attend the career center, WKHS students are always Kilbourne students. With most programs you will have the option of attending the career center for full days (where you would take your lab coursework which counts as elective credits and your academic courses all at the career center) or for half days (where you only take the lab coursework at the career center and then return to WKHS for the other half of the day for your academic classes). You still graduate from Worthington Kilbourne and continue to participate on our athletic teams - even if you decide that you want to attend the career center for the full day.
I strongly encourage you to check out the programs because the hands on opportunities to learn something new while also gaining your required elective credits can be a very appealing option! Attending the Delaware Area Career Center is a competitive process and students must apply for consideration. If you are interested, please make sure to start working on your application because it is now open and you'll want to get it submitted so that they can consider you for a spot in their program. The priority application deadline for optimal consideration is January 17th.
Information about the Senior Only Open House, Family Tours and the application to attend DACC are all located on their website.
Additionally, while thinking about career exploration opportunities, all students received an email inviting you to sign up for a Healthcare Career Summit which will take place in February, but the deadline to register is this coming Friday, December 13th. There was a MASSIVE response to the email so I believe we already have more than the 64 students we are allowed to take to the event, but if you didn't sign up and are still interested in trying to attend, please be sure to register asap. There is a chance we will end up needing to prioritize by grade level since 9th graders would have 3 more years to participate, but Juniors and Seniors have a greater need to attend now with their time available to explore careers running short. But we won't know what we are going to do for registrations to attend until we see how many people were hoping to try to go.
If colleges are sending you emails encouraging you to apply for a scholarship on their campus, APPLY! Too many times students don’t follow through and throw away that opportunity. Most of the best scholarship money comes to students when you are coming straight out of high school to be a college freshman, so you don’t want to miss out on these opportunities. Often times these scholarships are renewable which means they help you all 4 years of your college career.
I encourage you to ask the colleges questions about if they will look at updated information (like testing data) if you get the data before they are reviewing the applications. Another great question you can ask colleges or read on their websites is what will you be required to complete in order to be able to maintain the scholarship over time.
There is also value in considering scholarships that are beyond the college. If you go to the Searching for Scholarships page on the Counselor website you will find lots of websites you can use for searches. I also encourage you to make sure you check to see if there are any Franklin County Alumni Association scholarships offered for the colleges you are considering. You should also think about organizations that you or your family are involved with – service groups, community organizations, religious groups, parent businesses, etc. On the WKHS Counselor searching for scholarship page there is also a sample tool that you can use to help keep your scholarship applications organized and that has been particularly useful to students in the past.
The reality is that college is expensive, but you CAN and SHOULD take steps now to help mitigate as much of the cost as you can.
Financial Aid and the financial resources to help students pay for college is an important aspect of the college application process for students. One of the challenges related to financial aid is that much like college admissions deadline dates, each college gets to establish the dates by which they would like to receive student's applications for financial aid (FAFSA and sometimes also CSS profile). The priority deadline date is the day you would want to be sure they have your required forms completed by in order to put yourself in the position to get the maximum possible aid. The colleges, as a whole, will continue to give out whatever available money they still have left over for those who submit their applications for financial aid later, but you are potentially dealing with less money being available.
So you will want to check each college's website and look at the portion of their website related to costs and aid and see what their priority deadline date is and be sure that you submit ALL of your required paperwork to them ahead of that deadline.
Every college features a net price calculator on their website. This requirement was established in an effort to help provide students and parents with the information needed to make more informed decisions and choices about what they can expect to pay for a college education at each school.
Now, I will forewarn you that not every net price calculator is the same and some are more detailed than others. Why does this matter? Well, if it is very specific and takes all of the different factors into consideration that the financial aid office will be looking at when creating your financial aid package, then you are likely to get a better picture of what your estimated aid might be, but if it is a more simplistic calculator then there could be more variance when compared to your actual aid package. Plus, of course, the accuracy of the information that you submit will determine the accuracy of the information that you receive back.
Without a doubt, college is very expensive and so trying to figure out which colleges will be financially reasonable/ realistic is an important factor to consider in your college search and selection process. I hope that this tool will be useful to you as you investigate schools.
Paying for college is expensive! There is no question that higher education costs add up quickly. There are two broad categories that come into play when we are talking about 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 sticker prices of the public colleges. It is helpful to keep an eye out for unique scholarships that might apply to your personal situation. Last year 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 which will require you to fill out the FAFSA (and/or CSS profile) in order to be considered for them. 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 with Need Based aid is that the type and amount of Need Based aid you will receive depends upon the level 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.
Try not to get frustrated as you walk through the whole financial aid process. Just take it one step at a a time and remember that all of these applications ultimately will help you to make college more affordable.
For years, I have read the research about the benefits of writing down what you are thankful for. And during COVID I decided it was time that I truly put that to the test and I began keeping a gratitude journal. And so every day, I pause to reflect on what 3 thigns I had to be grateful for in that day. I try to be really intentional about not just writing the same things over and over again because it would be easy to say: Family, Friends and Health on repeat... and it would absolutely be true. But for me, it was the challenge to dive deeper and once I had acknowledged something I needed to be more specific or find something different to be able to identify. It has been a game-changer for me. Don't get me wrong, I still have bad days, but even on the worst days I have not had any problems identifying at least 3 things from the day which made me grateful. And how lucky does that make me?!?
As we leave Thanksgiving behind... a time when many of us all paused to think about what we were thankful for I'd like to issue a challenge to all of my students... every day, for the next month, please write down 3 (different) things that you are thankful for that day. You don't need a fancy journal. Just open up the notes section of your phone or grab a piece of notebook paper, write the date and I'm Thankful For... and then list out 3 things. Repeat that process for the next month. I will be excited to hear some of the things you come up with and how being intentional about identifying the things you are grateful for impact you.
In case you are wondering, here is what will make my list tonight when I fill out my journal.
12/1/24: I'm Thankful For...
- Having leftover Chocolate Caramel Brownies
- Being able to sleep in for the last 5 days
- That my sister's family made it home safely after visiting for the holiday
Please know that I am also thankful for each of YOU who read this blog! And I hope that you will consider taking on my challenge to see how focusing on gratitude impacts you over the next month.