Holiday & Grief Workshop

Holidays can be stressful in the best of circumstances.  But for those students who have experienced the death of someone important to them, the holidays combined with grief can be incredibly challenging.  In recognition of the difficulties that grief during the holidays can create we will be hosting a workshop next week on December 16th for students to join in to learn more about what to expect when grieving during the holidays and ways to honor the memory of a loved one during the holidays.  If you have been struggling with trying to manage your grief this holiday season, please reach out to me so that I can add you to the holiday & grief workshop list.

PSAT Scores Released

CollegeBoard has released your PSAT scores today.  Your scores are being offered electronically.  This means that you will log into your CollegeBoard account to view and download your scores.  (Which is what you will do in the future when you take your SAT as well.)

If you submitted your email account when completing your answer sheet then you should have received an e-mail from CollegeBoard notifying you that your scores are accessible. Even if you didn't receive an e-mail from CollegeBoard you can still access your scores.

Go to the CollegeBoard website and select the PSAT test you took - you should select "PSAT/ NMSQT" from the choices across the top.  https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/ 

Once you are on the website in the middle of the page it will have an area for getting your scores.  If you already have an account, you can sign in using your username and password.  For many of you, you may not have an account yet so you will need to create one.  Next to the "Sign In" button there is a "Sign Up" spot - select that and then create your account.

After doing that you will be able to access your scores.

One of the best parts about the PSAT is that CollegeBoard has partnered with Khan Academy to use your scores to make a personalized practice plan.  This is a fantastic option and I strongly encourage you to use it.  If you have questions about this FREE option you can visit the Khan Academy website at: https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

Once you have your scores, you may be wondering what they mean.  The score sheets from PSAT provides a wealth of information so it can take some time to digest it all, but if interested, please know that the counselor website can help give you additional information, tips and links to better understand your scores.   http://www.wkhscounselors.com/. 

Don't forget, these are just practice tests so they are giving you an indication of where you might expect to score on your college admissions tests and you can use your results to help guide you in preparing to achieve college readiness.

I hope your scores were what you were expecting (or perhaps even better).  If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out and ask me.

December Students of the Month

On Friday morning 19 students were honored as December's Students of the Month! Students can only earn this recognition once during their high school career.  

A special congratulations to "my" students who were honored as Students of the Month!  They included  Ian Abahazie, Naiima Abdi, Joe Ahmed, Yara Al-Akhras, Libby Alderman, Sean Carlin, Ava Chapman, and Kate Dougherty.

I am proud of you! Thank you for representing the best of Worthington Kilbourne High School.

CSCC CC+ Forms

The state legislature has made changes to some requirements that the colleges must verify in order for high school students to participate in CC+ classes starting in the spring.  As a result, any students who are planning to take English Comp 2, Sociology, Government, or a class on CSCC's campus, need to complete the two required forms IMMEDIATELY!  These forms have been emailed to your wscloud account by Mrs. Mann, they are on the counselor website, and there are hard copies available in the front of the counseling center.  Once you and your parent sign off on the forms, please return the completed forms to the tray in the front of the counseling center.  It is important to realize that these are brand new forms so none of you had done it prior to Mrs. Mann sending out the information.  (In talking to some students they were confused and thought it was the same thing as you had completed last spring and these are new requirements from CSCC.)  

Please take care of this ASAP!  If you have questions or problems with completing your forms, please feel free to stop and see me.

Suicide Prevention Lines

There are times when we can feel overwhelmed, lonely, stressed, sad and hopeless.  All of these emotions are normal to experience, but when they happen to come all at the same time it can be very challenging and leave people feeling lost and desperate.

Perhaps you or someone you know have had times with that type of darkness and possibly even experienced suicidal thoughts.  It is important to know that there is ALWAYS help available!  Reaching out for support is a critical step in helping to give yourself the hope that you will not always feel the way you might be feeling right now.

If you are having suicidal thoughts while at school, I hope you will come to tell me or share that information with another adult that you trust.  If you are away from school, I hope that you will reach out to your parents or some other adult who your trust.  But I know that sometimes the people closest to us can miss the level of pain we are experiencing and so I'd like to remind you that you can always call a suicide hotline and there will be someone on the other end ready and willing to talk to you who can help brainstorm next steps.  As you can see in the graphic, the national suicide hotline is 1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-273-8255.

Additionally, over the last few years, in recognition of how much our society has grown to depend on text messaging as a means of communication, there is also a crisis text line where you can reach out for help and support.  To contact the crisis text line you would send a message to 741741.  You can send them any message to get the conversation started.  And I know that it can be hard to even know where to start so remember, you can always reach out even with just one word such as "4hope" (which helps connect you to someone in Ohio) or even "help or hello" and before you know it you will be communicating via text with someone else who understands what you are experiencing and is ready and able to help you.

The most important reminder I would like to leave you with is that YOU MATTER!  You are not alone - there is always someone who would like to have the opportunity to talk with you and to help you.  If you are having thoughts of suicide, PLEASE, reach out for help today!

Application Deadline Reminders

I know many of you are still working on your college applications.  I wanted to remind you to please, watch your deadlines!  The December 1st deadline was last night.  If you are applying by Common App, I will answer the number one question I have received lately - you can submit up until 11:59pm on the day of your deadline.  But really, you shouldn't push it until the last second!

If you are looking at a January 1st/ 3rd deadline you need to make sure that you have made arrangements with your teachers who will be writing your recommendation letters and provided them with all of the forms so that they can write your letter well before we leave for break. Remember, your teachers will be off enjoying their holiday break too so they won't be around to write a last-minute recommendation letter for you if you just "forgot."  And, in all sincerity, there is no such thing as a last-minute recommendation letter!  Your teachers put in a lot of time, energy and effort to write a strong letter on your behalf.  It is important to give them an adequate amount of time to successfully advocate for you as a student.  (Your goal should be to give them at least 30 days which means get them the forms TOMORROW at the latest!)

Also, don't forget that you need to complete your transcript release form and invite me through Common App to submit your transcript and this should be done no later than next Friday, December 10th, in order to make sure I can get it taken care of before break.  Like you and your teachers, I will not be here during winter break to get a transcript for you so you must plan ahead.  

Probably the biggest challenge I have seen students struggling with over this application season is not inviting me through Common App to complete your school forms which is how I submit your transcript.  We talked about this in depth during the Common App Workshops and at the senior college night presentation, but in the recommendation section, you will need to select me as your counselor and submit my email address.  Please be sure that you spell my name right.  I am 100% current on all of the transcript requests I have received so far so if you log into Common App and you see that I haven't uploaded your transcript yet then you need to invite me to submit your transcript or if you think you have already done that then you need to come see me ASAP because there is a problem with your request!

If you have any questions about your upcoming deadlines or where you stand in your application process, please stop by to see me!  And can I say it again - please, do not procrastinate on your applications!  

Career Related Opportunities

Recently I posted about the Delaware Area Career Center and the wide range of awesome opportunities that they have available for our students to consider.  Just as a reminder, tomorrow night, December 2nd, is the Open House at DACC.  I strongly encourage any students and parents who are interested in DACC to sign up and attend the open house to learn more and get your questions answered directly.

While the DACC is primarily for current sophomores (and some senior only programs are for current juniors), the next opportunity that I want to share with you is just for current seniors.  This program is the Worthington Industries Workforce Experience program.  This program is a great opportunity to get your foot in the door with an outstanding, reputable company with great opportunities for advancement over time.  I have more details about the Worthington Industries partnership in my office (as well as information on the counselor website), so I encourage you to come and see me and we can look at the information and see if it would be something that could work for you and your schedule.  I need to submit a list of students who would like to participate in the December 13th interviews that Worthington Industries will be holding within the next week so please stop and see me soon if you are at all interested in this option.

It's fun to try to think about what you might want to do as a job in the future, but even better through programs such as DACC and WI, students have the chance to learn and earn credit at the same time that you are learning skills that can help you in the future.