Application 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.

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 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.

Restrictive Early Action

This is a non-binding option that is much less common. Sometimes also called Single Choice Early Action, with Restrictive Early Action you are not locking yourself into attending the school if you get admitted like you would be doing with Early Decision, but you are communicating to the college that this is your number one choice school. If you apply Restrictive Early Action to a college then it means you cannot apply Early Action or Early Decision to any other private colleges.

Regular Decision

This is the deadline that is often publicized from colleges and it is the actual latest deadline to apply to that school. 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.

It is really important to be watching your deadlines carefully – I can’t stress that enough! If you are struggling to find the deadlines for different schools, please stop in to see me.

College Reps at WKHS

Every year college admissions representatives travel across the country to various high schools in order to meet with students and to talk about the opportunities available at their campus.  It always surprises me that more students are not flocking to these chances to meet with the admissions representatives.  Because even though you are technically there to learn about what they have to say about their school, perhaps even more importantly, you are expressing your interest and desire to attend their college! The admissions representatives who are traveling to the schools 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.  And, as if that isn't enough, at many colleges the regional representatives who make the visits are also the ones reading your applications and making admissions decision recommendations.  You have the chance to make a positive impression on them when they are at Kilbourne.  My hope, above all, is that the impression they leave WKHS with is that when you apply they don't look back and think, "hmm, they weren't even interested enough to come and meet with me when I was at their school."

College reps will start their visits at Kilbourne this week.  We have a list of the upcoming college visits posted in the Upcoming Events calendar on the Counselor website so that you can see which schools are coming to WKHS.  There are about 50 schools already scheduled day one includes some big interest schools such as Miami University (Ohio) and Dartmouth. If there are schools that you'd like to meet with, please be sure to sign up on the google sheet within the event calendar and then write down the dates and times so that you don't forget to come to the Counseling Center.  When you get there, a secretary will introduce you to the admissions representative and after your meeting with them is over the secretary will give you a pass to return back to class.

Juniors and Seniors have unlimited opportunities to attend these sessions. Please be reasonable though. If a visit is scheduled during a time when you have class, you should get your teacher’s approval in advance of attending the information session. You are responsible for all missed work and teachers are not supposed to excuse you from tests, quizzes, or labs. 

Freshmen and Sophomores are also invited to attend the sessions with the college representatives, but are limited to participating in the visits during your lunch or Academic Prep periods. 

These are great opportunities to talk directly with the college admissions representatives so please take advantage of their visits!  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. 

Life is all about choices

At the start of every school year I spend a lot of time talking with students about class selection and, for seniors, about college selections for where they will apply. There can be many hard choices involved with deciding what classes are most important to you when you also want to have lunch with friends or the opportunity to sleep in during 1st period. But I actually believe that wrestling with those decisions is great practice for the bigger choices that you'll have for the rest of your life.

Every time you say "yes" to something in your life, it also means you are saying "no" to something else. What do I mean by that? If I choose to say yes to scrolling through social media on my phone, then I am choosing to say no to going to bed earlier and getting more sleep. If I choose to say yes to sleeping in, then I am also choosing to say no to getting up and moving my body before school so that I am more focused throughout the day. If I choose to say yes to going out to eat for lunch every day, then I am choosing to say no to sticking to my budget of what I can afford.

I intentionally picked 3 examples that were saying yes to something I'd enjoy when the consequence is something I probably need more of and tend to neglect. But life choices aren't always that clear cut.

For example, I can say yes to going to college at College A, but that means I am saying no to all of the other colleges that I might like as well. I can say yes to taking a class that sounds interesting to explore for my future, but at the same time I might have to say no to continue in a class that I have been involved with for a long time and that can feel scary. Or perhaps it is being forced to say yes to one extracurricular activity over another even though you wish you'd have time for both.

There are so many different aspects that can come into play. Sometimes the choice is between what you want now and what you want in the future. Sometimes the choice is between 2 unknowns. Sometimes the choice is simply to trust yourself and step forward with faith in your ability to make decisions. You're getting lots of opportunities to practice making decisions now and that will only help you as you move forward into the future. So please focus on trying to make the best decisions you can now in the little decisions so that you will have confidence in your ability to make the bigger decisions as they arise. And remember, it can be hard to say no to something that you'd enjoy, but you are giving yourself other great opportunities with all of the Yes's that you choose.

Common App Workshop Reminder

Seniors, just a quick reminder that tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:45am is our final Common App 101 Workshop.  Please be sure to bring your laptop or chromebook with you because you will be working on your actual Common App application during the time together.  We will be holding this work session in Room 201 and look forward to seeing you bright and early tomorrow morning!

PSAT Registration

The PSAT is the practice test for the SAT and the qualifying exam for the National Merit Scholarship Competition. This test will be administered free of charge here at WKHS on October 14, 2025.

This is a great opportunity for students to begin to assess their progress toward college and career readiness standards. All junior students are strongly encouraged to take this test free of charge and it is also open for sophomores as well.

Students can register for the PSAT at bit.ly/PSATsignup25.  The deadline to register is September 12 at 3:20pm.

If students would like to practice and prepare for the PSAT, CollegeBoard and the KHAN Academy are offering a free supplemental practice tests. Information for this can be obtained online at https://www.khanacademy.org/sat and https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt-psat-10/practice

September 1st

I hope you had a great long weekend and had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather. It will be nice to have a shorter week ahead. But what I found myself thinking multiple times throughout the day today was, "I can't believe it is September 1st!" Obviously just the way the first few weeks of school have already flown past, but also realizing that some of the seniors have college application deadlines that are 6 weeks to 2 months away is mind-boggling.

Because time always gets away from us, I want to remind you that it is important to start working on your applications now. Here are a few steps you can take this week to help yourself be more prepared for your application deadlines.

1. Log into Common App and fill out the "easy" parts. Just go ahead and knock that out. You likely did a lot of the easy questions in the main Common App section during the Common App 101 workshop, but we didn't spend time on the individual college sections and that is important to work on as well.

2. Start brainstorming your essay ideas. This likely starts by figuring out how many essays you're going to need and what aspects of yourself you are going to show in the various prompts. Remember, you can come meet with me if you want to talk through some of what you're thinking as you're looking at your essay requirements.

3. In the Recommenders and FERPA section of your Common App, go ahead and assign me as your counselor. Please be sure to spell my name and email address correctly when you submit that.

4. Fill out your transcript release form on the Counselor Website. This is an easy step that is required for each college and so you might as well just knock that part out of the way now.

5. Figure out if any of your colleges want a recommendation letter and, if so, how many they want and from whom. Then it is time to ASK those people if they'd be willing and able to write a letter on your behalf. 

If you feel like you're making progress on those 5 items and want more steps, please just stop by and see me and I can give you a personalized step-by-step list of other application items that you can start working on now.

College Essay Guy

Anyone who knows me knows how much I genuinely enjoy learning, reading, and expanding my knowledge about what can better help students in all aspects of their lives. College applications is a huge part of that. And college admissions is an ever changing field.

I love College Essay Guy.

He provides amazing resources, great videos, and incredible tips to help students in putting their best foot forward in college applications.

Last night he hosted a webinar on "How to stand out on your college essays this fall" and while I couldn't watch it live because of Open House, I was able to watch it later and I thought you might be interested in seeing it too. 

It feels like it has been a long week, but tomorrow is finally Friday, it is the WKHS vs TWHS football game, and we get a long weekend!