Junior College Testing

A quick reminder to all sophomore and junior students/ families.  the deadline to register for the FREE PSAT is coming up this Tuesday, September 15th.  If you want to participate in this test and haven't signed up already, please do so today!  Here is the link to register if you haven't already.

When I think about the PSAT it made me realize that in spite of so much recent time and attention being on supporting seniors with their college applications, I need to switch gears today to help juniors be focused on one important component related to your future college admissions process and that is your testing plan.  I know... you are dreading it, but truly it isn't that bad.  Some junior students/ parents have probably heard that this year many colleges are test optional and that may continue for some colleges for the junior students, but in the college information sessions we have been attending we have found that while some (like OU) have made the decision that they will remain test optional, most (like OSU) are NOT remaining test optional or at least have not made the decision that they will be doing that yet.  So, I believe firmly that it is important to keep as many doors open as possible and that includes being prepared for the reality that test scores may be needed for admission.

It can be challenging to figure out how to put your best testing foot forward so I have some testing suggestions for you...

1. As mentioned above, in October, take the PSAT.  This will be during the school day on Wednesday, October 14th or Thursday, October 29th.  It is the practice test for the SAT, but it is also the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarships.  

2.  Take the Pre-ACT.  We are still working on the specific details for this test, but our plan, if all goes well, is that we will be able to offer this test on 2 back-to-back days for interested students this fall.  There will be a fee to take this test which has usually been just about $15.  It is the practice test for the ACT and it is a great, inexpensive way to practice for the ACT.

3.  In December, consider strongly taking the ACT or SAT.  You don't have to take the test in December, but it's a good chance to take one of the college admissions tests.  If you are planning on focusing on the ACT, another great reason of taking the ACT in December is that you can also order your score questions and answers with the test which would allow you to review how you answered and what the right score is which can help better prepare you for the future tests.

4.  In February, take the ACT.  This will be during the school day and is the FREE test opportunity that all juniors will get to take.

After that, depending on how you have scored you can determine the rest of your testing plan.  There will be more opportunities to test in the spring and summer as well as the early part of the fall during your senior year.

If you have any questions about these testing opportunities or why I am making these recommendations, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask.

College App Deadline Terms

As you start through the college application process you will be exposed to a variety of new terms. One area that can be confusing is what all of the different application deadlines such as Early Decision, Early Action, Regular Decision and Rolling Admissions mean.

Early Decision

The key to remember with Early Decision is that it is a final decision and a COMMITMENT! Applying to a school in this program is considered a contract between the student and the college. You can apply to only one school as an Early Decision school. If you are accepted, you are promising to withdraw all other applications. Few students will ultimately apply to a school Early Decision because you are promising to attend the school - without seeing their financial aid package - and most students are not 100% certain that they want to attend one particular school. If you are considering applying to a school under the Early Decision program, please stop in and talk to me as there will also be a form I need to complete for you.

Early Action

This is a non-binding option and significantly more students will apply to schools using this option. Early Action has an earlier application deadline and students will typically learn if they have been accepted to the school much earlier than regular decision dates. (Some schools will defer an admissions decision to the Regular Decision deadline if the student is on the bubble and they want to wait to see how the rest of the applications will look.) Early Action is not a contract and, as a student, you are not obligated to attend school at that institution.

Regular Decision

This is the deadline that you will generally see publicized from colleges as it is the most common. This means you are applying and will hear your decision on their regular time schedule. There are no commitments or early notifications. It is important to note that the Regular Admissions deadlines are often AFTER the deadline for scholarship consideration – which adds in a whole additional set of deadlines to watch, but that is a different story for another day.

Rolling Admissions

This means that the colleges look at each application as they arrive and they make a decision as they go. So, if you apply quickly to a school with rolling admissions you are generally going to receive your admissions decision quickly. Schools that function with a rolling admissions policy of evaluating applications will still generally have a regular decision deadline which is the final date that the college is willing to accept any applications for the fall class.  (And yes, I have already had my first student be accepted to his college of choice!)

It is really important to be watching your deadlines carefully – I can’t stress that enough!  You need to know what the timeline is for being able to complete all of your applications so you can start with the end target date in mind if you are going to be able to plan and organize your time effectively.

Virtual College Fairs

Learning about colleges when you can't walk on the campus and see the students can be a challenge, but there are LOTS of virtual opportunities that colleges have been working to create and provide for students.  We will talk more about learning about schools from them directly in a different post, but tonight I want to highlight the benefits of doing virtual college fairs.

So, I have to be honest.  I think that college fairs are incredibly overwhelming when they are in person.  They let the counselors have a preview day so that we could get a feel for what it is like for students and, at least to me, I only found it slightly less overwhelming.  But at the same time I also really enjoyed the chance to hop on to various sessions and learn about different schools without having to set up individual appointments with separate admissions offices.

There are two main organizations that are coordinating and facilitating the virtual college fairs.  The Ohio Association of College Admissions Counselors is hosting their college fair over essentially 2 months.  They start next week on September 14th and run through October 1st and then they take a break before kicking back up again October 26th through November 13th.  There are lots of interesting options associated with their college fair including sessions about myth busting, college essays, applying to med school, plus, of course, all of the typical individual college information presentations.  (I have signed up and am looking forward to attending many of these sessions.)

The other organization is the National Association of College Admissions Counselors and they are hosting 4 days of virtual college fairs starting this coming weekend on September 13th from 12-8pm.  They also have dates scheduled for October 12th from 1-9pm, October 18th from 12-8pm, and November 8th from 2-10pm.  This was the college fair that I got to preview and I had a hard time figuring out who all had sessions running at any given time and felt like I was doing a LOT of jumping around.  One hint, in case it is helpful is that if you search for exhibitors by state you will see the colleges for that state and you can then scroll down to look at see when they might be running formal sessions that you could attend and on what topics.  So, for example, a college might have a general information session a few times, they may have a session on honors or other special programs, and they might have a financial aid and scholarship related session where other colleges may just have admissions information sessions.  They sent us an email today with a link to this 2 minute video on getting around and while I think it seems easy when I did it I didn't use all of the options they gave as easily as they made it seem.  So I strongly suggest you watch the brief video first.  And here is a quick start guide.  Also, one other hint - Don't look for OSU in the alphabetical list as "OSU" or even as "Ohio State" they are "THE Ohio State University."  Yep, under T's... not where I thought I would find them.

All of the college fairs are free of charge, but you do need to register for them.  Here are the links to sign up:

Ohio College Fair (not just Ohio colleges!): https://oacac.org/student-registration/

National College Fair: https://virtualcollegefairs.org/

Again, great opportunities will abound starting this weekend.  Don't miss out on any of the sessions that interest you!

College Admissions Rep Virtual Visits

Did you know that every year many college admissions representatives come to WKHS in order to visit with students? Stop for a moment and think about that – the schools pay someone to come to Kilbourne in order to meet with you and showcase the opportunities available at their college.  Now, obviously, we aren't in schools and even if we were, it wouldn't be safe for the admissions reps to travel from school to school, but they are switching gears and adjusting to the times by hosting virtual visits with our students that are still only for Kilbourne students. The visits kick into full swing this week.

While meeting with a representative cannot replace the actual experience of walking on campus, seeing the people, and experiencing the classes, it can be a very important piece of your information gathering process. Possibly even more importantly, you are expressing your interest and desire to attend their college! The admissions representatives who are meeting with students keep track of who they see. Many colleges can go back and tell you exactly how many times a student has come to tour campus, contacted the admissions office, or had an official interaction with a representative of the school. You never really know what can make a difference when it comes to admissions or getting a scholarship from a school, so if you are able to attend a meeting with a representative, it can only help you.

We have a list of the upcoming college visits posted on the Counselor website so that you can see which schools are coming to WKHS. As we get closer to the dates of the meetings the zoom links for each college's virtual visit will be posted on the junior and senior class Schoology pages.

All of the visits will be during the connections time during the remote learning phase.  When we transition back to hybrid, those students who are at home can log in to attend the virtual visit as well as those students who might be in the building on that particular day as long as it is during your lunch or options period.  We know that it might not be possible for every student to participate in every visit due to being in classes with the hybrid format, so we have tried to coordinate with the colleges to have them make a 2nd virtual visit during the opposite set of days so that every student will have the chance to participate.  Many have been able to be flexible in meeting this request, but some have such demanding visit requirements that they couldn't allow for 2 visits in one admissions season.  Again, check the website for the full list of upcoming visits.

These are great opportunities to talk directly with the college admissions representatives so please take advantage of their visits!  And yes, we know that this is definitely a strange dynamic for how you will meet and learn about the colleges, so don't forget that tomorrow at 11:30am we will be hosting a short workshop to help prepare you on Making the Most of the College Admissions Representatives Virtual Visits.  I hope to see you online tomorrow!  (Link is in your email and on your Schoology class page.)

Why are you in school?

Not too long ago I was talking to one of my students who was not "feeling" school.  I asked him why he is in school.  His answer was because he "has to go" and that was genuinely a heartbreaking response for me to hear.  And yet, I am wondering what most of you would answer to that question?  For real, why are you in school?  Why do you log in or come to school every day?  Is it because you have to?  What would you do if you weren't in school?  What would your future look like?  What would you want to do or become and how would you choose to spend your time?  Perhaps the future seems far away to you.  I know, I am old, but I promise you that my age allows me to tell you that time plasses SO fast and that before you know it everything is different.

Let me give you a concrete example of how fast things change.  "Pandemic."  I am sure that we had all heard the word prior to these last six months, but truthfully, at least for me, it wasn't a word I would have thought of often or really considered.  Now COVID, Coronavirus, and Pandemic are words that dictate so much of our lives.  It is strange, but the truth is, that is how the world works and there is a (weird) part of me that thinks this is actually rather exciting.

I love the fact that you are learning in school so many things that are designed to teach you not just content, but problem solving and engagement, and ways of thinking and doing that will impact you for the rest of your life.  And you get to look forward to a future, but your future careers may be jobs that don't even exist today.  You will most likely be facing different challenges than are present today - just like when I was in high school I never could have imagined the challenges that exist in the world like we are in right now.  (Granted, let's be honest, at the start of 2020 I wouldn't have imagined this either.)

So, how do you go about preparing for a job that doesn't exist today?  You absorb every ounce of knowledge accessible to you and you keep learning, you keep thinking and you keep growing.  You explore careers and think of them creatively.  You apply your own spin and I believe that these experiences of adjusting to remote learning and the eventual move to the Hybrid format on September 29th (hopefully you all heard that news by now) is going to allow you to recognize the value of thinking outside the box and coming up with unique solutions or different ways to approach whatever issue you may face in your life.  So I hope that as you are going through remote and hybrid learning you will try to view these not just as formats that are happening to you, but rather opportunities for you to push yourself in new and different ways.

Additionally, as you think about your learning and start to explore more careers, I want to put another plug in for YouScience.  It is a great tool that is FREE for all WKHS students.  You can use some of your connections time to do the aptitude assessments and then use the career tools to explore what types of jobs might fit your interests and your abilities, or, even better, a combination of the two.  If you have lost your YouScience code or perhaps you never received one, feel free to email me and I will send one to you.  Because while I don't know what the future holds, I do know that you have a bright future ahead and you deserve to find jobs that you love where you can and will make a difference in our world!

Week 2 Workshops

Tomorrow is your last day of Week 1 of school!  How is it going?  Based upon the emails and phone calls that I have had it seems like most of you are starting to settle into the rhythm and routine of this new schedule and know what to expect from day to day.  Of course, Fridays will look a little different because you will go to every class for a brief period of time, but you know how to move through your 8 period day so it shouldn't be a tough adjustment.

Next week the WKHS Counselors will be hosting workshops during several of the connections periods.  I hope you will read through the information below and look for the zoom links in your email and soon on the WKHS Counseling- Class of 202_ pages in schoology so that you can join me for the workshops that interest/ apply to you.

Making the Most of Virtual College Rep Visits

Tuesday, September 8th at 11:30am

This session is primarily for juniors and seniors who want to make sure you know what to expect and how to gain the most benefit from the virtual visits by the college admissions representatives.  Visits from colleges start on September 9th so you won't want to miss this short workshop.

Remote Learning Tips and Tricks

Tuesday, September 8th at 12:15pm

This is school like you've never done it before and there is always something to learn for how you can better manage remote learning.  We will share some Schoology and zoom hints as well as other strategies to help students maximize learning in this remote format.  This workshop is open and encouraged for students in all grades!

Common App 101 Workshop

Thursday, September 10th at 11:30am

Seniors, if you missed the set of Common App workshops last week, we are giving you one more chance to walk step-by-step through the Common Application and to make sure that you have all of the accurate information that you need to complete your college applications.  For what it is worth, we heard back from students who attended and one said that she had nearly all of the application done but decided she would attend just in case and was thankful that she did because she was able to catch several errors in her application.  So please, join us for this Common App workshop to get some momentum going on your application.

Senior College Information Presentation

Senior students and parents... hopefully you have already saved the date for this, but I wanted to give one more reminder that tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 2nd at 7pm we will be hosting the 'live' virtual Senior College Information Presentation. The zoom presentation link was emailed to all senior student wscloud email accounts and to all senior student parent emails based on the information in Infinite Campus last Friday. After we show the video we will hold a Question and Answer session for students and parents. 

The video will then be posted on the Counselor Website for anyone who isn't able to attend at 7pm to be able to review at their convenience.  After you have had a chance to watch the video, we will host two more zoom sessions for students and parents.  These links were also sent by email last Friday.

These two follow up Q&A sessions will be held on Thursday, September 3rd at 12:00pm (Noon) and on Friday, September 4th at 8:00am.

So much of college admissions have been influenced by COVID and so we hope that the presentation will answer many of your questions and we know that you will learn and benefit from one another as you share your questions with the group during the Q&A sessions.  

I look forward to seeing you online tomorrow night or later this week!