PSAT Scores

CollegeBoard has released your PSAT scores today.  Your scores are available 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.)  CollegeBoard has a BigFuture mobile app that you can use for accessing your scores or you can use their website.

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.

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 testing section of the counselor website can help give you additional information, tips and links to better understand your scores.   http://www.wkhscounselors.com/

Don't forget, this is just a practice test so it is 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.

Big Changes Coming

I have been writing this blog for a LONG time... as in longer than my current students have been alive! And in these years I have published nearly 4,000 posts. Which is a little bit crazy and definitely a labor of love. But in the last year I have had feedback from quite a few people that they wish I was writing the blog posts for the entire WKHS Counseling Department. And, so, changes are coming...

As of this week I am now posting my blog messages to a new site. The new blog address is wkhscounselors.wordpress.com. I think it will be an easier blog address for students and families to find. And it will have the same easy option to be able to get the posts sent directly to you by clicking the "Subscribe" button.

What does that mean for this blog? It means that it is going to go away. For the rest of 2025, I will post all of my posts to both blog sites. I am going to try to add a reminder to the bottom of this blog's posts to remind people that you will need to switch to the other blog to continue receiving messages in 2026 and beyond... but you can make the change now.

I genuinely appreciate all of you who follow this blog and I am thankful to know that even after all of this time people are still finding it helpful... so I hope you will make the transition with me and follow my posts over on the new blog site.

(FYI - I will not be posting the copy of this message to the new site as I don't want it to be confusing to anyone.)

Pre-ACT Reminders

If you are taking the Pre-ACT tomorrow, you will report directly to the gymnasium when you arrive to school in the morning. You will need to have your student ID with you in order to check in. You will also need a number 2 pencil (no mechanical pencils allowed), a calculator, and I would recommend a watch. 

The test will begin promptly by 8:40 and you will most likely finish testing during 5th period.  (If you have lunch during 3rd or 4th period we will be sure you have time to eat and give you pass to go to 5th period.)

I was very happy to see so many of my students signed up to be taking the practice test for the ACT and I wish you all good luck!  I hope it will be a meaningful practice opportunity for you in preparation for future college admissions tests. Get some sleep tonight and good luck on the Pre-ACT tomorrow!

STARS

First, I hope you all enjoy your day off tomorrow!

Second, for the seniors, it is a good chance to double check to make sure that there are no clean up steps you still need to take for the colleges with the applications you have submitted...

1. Do you need to make an account in their college portal?

2. Do they require a STARS report? There are about 40 colleges that use the STARS (Self-Reported Transcript and Academic Record System) which is a lot like the Common App Courses and Grades system. For the STARS report, you will create an account and report all of your courses and grades with your credits. The big key is to be sure that you are matching your transcript exactly. So pull it up off of Infinite Campus (in the Documents section) and fill it out carefully.

3. Check when their financial aid deadline is and be sure to start working on your FAFSA so that you get it completed before the first college's priority deadline to give yourself the best chance of qualifying for financial aid money.

November 1st

It's November 1st! Yay! I know many seniors are feeling exhausted as the push to this first huge college deadline was a massive sprint for some of you. And now you know why kids from previous classes always emphasize preparing ahead of time and not procrastinating until the last minute as I know a lot of seniors were feeling a LOT of stress this past week.

Here is the one major point I would like to remind you about... after you push submit, it is VERY common for colleges to quickly come back to you with a reminder email saying that they need your transcript.  Why?  Because it is one of the most common steps so many students forget to complete.  (Remember, you must complete a transcript request form for every college where you are applying and you do that from the WKHS Counselor website - www.wkhscounselors.com .)  As long as you have requested your transcript to be sent using that form, then we have sent your transcript.  But, you don't need to take my word for it... and you don't have to email me or contact Mrs. McDaniel, our Registrar... you can check on your own!  Log back into Common App, you will be able to see the exact date when you submitted your materials and when they were downloaded by each individual college.  As you are looking at that information you will also see when they downloaded your School Report - your school report is the form with your transcript.  So, if they have downloaded your school report, then they have your transcript and you don't need to worry!

Congratulations to all of you who have your first wave of applications complete.  Keep focus and keep pushing as you finish out with the rest of your application deadlines!

Future Careers

Trying to decide what you want to be when you grow up can be difficult. It isn’t exactly realistic to think that you as 14 – 18 year old students – would know the precise career that will make you happy and fulfilled in the future. The data on how many careers a person will hold in their lifetime is difficult to track, but statistics on current adults said that, on average, they would have 7 different jobs in their adult working life. The estimates for current high school students is predicting that you will hold 12 - 18 different jobs and likely in a few different career fields. Crazy! But I suspect most of those adults who have had so many different jobs never imagined changing jobs so frequently. And, if they couldn’t predict what job they would want in their careers as adults, then I don't think it is realistic to think that you will know exactly what you want to do when you are still in high school. 

You don’t know about fields that you haven’t been exposed to yet – how could you know if you’d like anthropology or accounting when those are areas you haven’t studied. That is why it is important to take opportunities to be curious, to explore, to learn, to ask questions, to observe and to find out more about anything which interests you. Seek opportunities to shadow, interview career professionals, volunteer, or work a part time job – even if it isn’t in a field even remotely interesting to you because it will still help you to learn workforce skills.

Ultimately, I hope that you see career searching as a fun and exciting opportunity rather than a stressful task to be added to your “to do” list. Remember, every day you are preparing yourself for your future. You are learning and applying skills that will help you for the rest of your life like listening, organization, problem solving, critical thinking, analysis, time management, taking personal responsibility, completing quality work, meeting deadlines, working with others (including those you might not like) and so many more. There is no doubt that you have a bright future ahead and you will be prepared no matter what (or how many) career(s) you have in the future.

Lots of Articles

Keeping up with various news and headlines that matter to students and families takes up a lot of time. And as I read different articles that I think might interest you, I have a running document where I save them. Sometimes I drop those articles into a post on a particular topic, but other times (like this) the articles just pile up until I realize that I have a lot of them. And so here is a list of articles I have come across and saved for you all, but haven't shared with you yet. Skim through the list and if any are of interest to you, check them out! Happy Reading!

What does best university mean anyway?

Glow up your high school resume

How to use AI for finding college scholarships

How AI is changing the college search

What college secretly look for in students

Questions to ask your college tour guide

What teens lose when AI write the college essay

 

Humans and AI Collaborate to Review College Admissions Essays

FYI - In the article above it talks about how Virginia Tech app numbers have grown: Twenty years ago, they had around 17,000 applications, and this past year they received over 57,000. CRAZY!!

Apps for College Search

College application essay ideas: Tips on picking a great topic

Advice to Parents: Let them fail

This is what admissions officers really want to read in college admissions essays

Are college admissions interviews required?

Who you’re really competing against in college admissions

How to make a college list