"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

The question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is such an unfair question.  It doesn't mean that other people (myself included) won't ask it of you, but I just want to acknowledge up front how daunting the question can be for so many different reasons.

1. You are in high school.  You're still trying to figure yourself out let along what you want to do for the rest of your life.

2. You only know what you have been exposed to in your 14-18 years of life.  How would you know if you might love anthropology or ecology or philosophy if you haven't had a chance to learn anything about it yet.  There is so much to learn in front of you!

3. The careers you might end up selecting and pursuing may not even exist yet.  With the way that AI has stormed into our lives, it is hard to imagine what all of the future technological changes will look like and how you, as a future adult in the working world, might be in careers that are new and evolving.

So why do we even both asking what you want to be?  Well, part of it is likely an excitement over the future of the possibilities in front of you.  Adults may be curious to see and hear what you are interested in and what excites you as options for the future.  They also likely know that your future plans will change over time, but just having an idea of where your passions are currently is fun for those who care about you. 

If you find yourself surrounded by extended family over the holidays and they start asking what you want to be when you grow up, you can share whatever you are currently thinking.  You can tell them that you aren't sure, but are excited to start dreaming about and exploring all of the opportunities ahead of you.  Or you can flip the tables on them!  (Which is one of my favorite suggestions.)

If you are flipping the tables on them you can start asking them about THEIR career path, what they wanted to be when they were in high school, what they studied, what their first job was, how they transitions to various jobs or additional responsibilities over time, what they like about their job, etc.  This is often nice for students because the pressure is taken off of you and the feeling that you need to have your whole life planned out.

But you can use your extended family members for potential contacts.  If you know that you are interested in pursuing a career in a particular field you can share that information and then ask your family if they know anyone who works in a similar job.  This can be incredibly valuable information because oftentimes students can benefit by talking to someone in their desired jobs or shadowing for a day.  If your family members know of someone who works in a job that you're considering for their future, ask if they would help connect you with that person.  Often your aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, or family friends are thrilled to be able to be a resource to help support you on the way towards your future path.  Plus, even if they don't know of anyone off the top of their head, you never know who they might meet or come in contact with that could connect you in the future.

Current Seniors & Honors Diploma

The students in the Class of 2025 (seniors) are the last group with the current honors diploma requirements.  I will talk more about the updated honors diploma requirements for students in the Classes of 2026 and beyond in a future post.

But, I wanted to draw seniors attention to the honors diploma requirements because I know that heading into your 2nd semester of senior year it can be tempting to request to drop classes in favor of an easier final semester of high school.  Before you make that decision you should keep in mind all of your other goals - and if honors diploma is one of those goals, then you will want to be sure that dropping classes won't change your eligibility status.

For some students, earning an Honors Diploma is an important goal. I have to be honest, this is not a factor for the colleges because the honors diploma recognition isn't granted until you graduate so colleges are not considering it when making their admissions decisions. The requirements for the honors diploma listed below are established by the state department of education.

To receive an honors diploma current seniors need to fulfill 6 of the following 7 criteria:

• Math: 4 units (CCSS Math 3 and another higher level course)
• Science: 4 units (including two advanced level sciences)
• Social Studies: 4 units
• Foreign Language: 3 units (including at least 2 units in each language studied)
• Fine Arts: 1 unit (during high school)
• Unweighted Grade Point Average: 3.5 on a 4.0 scale
• ACT/ SAT Score: 27 ACT/ 1280 SAT

One of the areas that I have noticed as a trend of some students falling short of meeting the honors diploma requirements is in Social Studies since only 3 credits are required for graduation so students won't take the full 4th credit needed. The other area where students frequently don't meet the designated standard is with the 1 credit of Fine Art.  This is because many students rely on the fine art courses they took during middle school for their graduation requirements, but those courses do not equal high school credits.  (They count for graduation, but aren't actual credits earned.)  So students who want to have that requirement met for the honors diploma would need to complete the 1 credit of fine art during the high school years. 

Don't forget, it would still be possible to earn an honors diploma if you were missing one of these, but you will need to make sure you fulfill all of the remaining criterion.

Also, I wanted to point out that these are the requirements for the most common pathway to the honors diploma, but there are also honors diploma pathways for students participating in the IB diploma program or in a Career Tech program at the Delaware Area Career Center and the state of Ohio also has additional pathways such as STEM, Arts, and Social Science & Civic Engagement pathways.  You can check them all out here.

Remember, you don't earn the honors diploma until graduation so obviously this doesn't matter to colleges when they are evaluating your application for admission, but if it is a personal goal you have set for yourself then you want to make sure you end your high school career strong so that you reach that goal.

WKHS Counselors Website

I mention the Kilbourne Counselor website often, but I still feel like it deserves to have a post all of it's own.  When we created the counselor website we wanted to provide students and parents with an easy, one-stop place, to get as many of the resources and information answers that you regularly need.  

Have you visited www.wkhscounselors.com lately?  

We work really hard to keep the website current and so it is updated on a regular basis.  The site features information about succeeding academically, college/ career pursuits, and personal/ social information resources.  So often people ask me questions and I point them to the website for the answer because it is the easiest place to find the information over waiting until you are back at school and going and finding the paper version of the forms, etc.

Take a moment and check it out and please be sure to bookmark the site so that you can refer back to it often.  And, if there is anything that you think it should include but don’t see on the site, please let me know so that we can add it.

Of course, I have to acknowledge that none of the counselors are very website savvy and so while I have literally read a "Joomla for Dummies" book to try to help create the website, none of what you see would be possible without the expertise, know-how, dedication and countless hours of time that Mr. Estice from Phoenix Middle School has contributed.

Teen Sleep

I cannot even begin to explain how often I hear students frustratingly proclaim, "I'm so tired!"  It is a statement that I hear over and over again each day.  Sleep is a tough issue to tackle because it is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and yet it is also something we frequently push aside.

The research about the importance of teen's getting sleep has frequently been touted and yet, as I talk to you, it is shocking for me to realize how little sleep so many of you are getting.  Lack of sleep is not only exhausting, but it decreases your immune system, makes it more difficult to regulate your emotions, and can mimic the signs of ADHD.  

I wish it was as easy as saying you need to go to bed earlier, but for many of you, your schedules are so packed with homework, studying, jobs, sports, clubs, and other activities that it is hard to make everything fit into the window of time that you have between the end of the school day and a "reasonable" bedtime.  Additionally, many students have talked about the fact that it is hard for them to go to sleep once they eventually go to bed because their mind races, they think of "one more thing" they need to do, or they lose track of time while texting or checking social media late into the night.  And, although it isn't easy, sleep is important and it is a choice to make it a priority because the reality is that so many of you genuinely are exhausted!

I am the first to admit that I NOT a morning person and, quite honestly, I don't think I ever have been.  When my sister and I were in high school my mom set 9:00pm as our bedtime.  Every now and then we would argue that we should be allowed to have a later bedtime like all of our other friends and she would agree and say, "No problem, as soon as you can wake up in the morning without me having to say anything to you to wake up, then you can stay up later."  (FYI, my mom is really smart!)  She knew there was no way in the world we could successfully wake up without extra help because we were tired and we needed the sleep.  We couldn't argue with her because she wasn't having us go to sleep earlier as a punishment - she was trying to help us get the amount of sleep that we needed.  Later, when I was in college and was getting WAY too little sleep, I would call my mom stressed and upset and she, with all her perfect motherly wisdom, would simply say, "Stop what you are doing and go to sleep."  She knew that I was too tired to think straight and that I wasn't doing a good job with studying or homework or whatever else I might have been working on at the time because I was exhausted.  While I am certainly not your mom and in no way am I saying that 9:00pm is the right bedtime for you, I do think that most of you could benefit from getting more sleep.  

So, here is my encouragement and challenge to each of you.  Consider what 1 small thing you could do in these next few weeks to try to increase the amount of sleep you get each night.  Even if you are just getting an additional 30 minutes to an hour of sleep per night, it can make a difference.  You need to decide what you think would work for you, but a few ideas you could consider would be to stay off your phone after a certain time, start your homework earlier so you aren't up so late working on assignments, or using your time throughout the day wisely so that you can make the choice to go to bed earlier.  If you want to discuss what you are doing to help yourself get more rest or to brainstorm other strategies, please stop by and see me!

Missing Application Items

This week I have been receiving so many emails and visits from seniors in a panic about the notifications they have received from colleges about additional requirements needed to complete their applications.

There are things that you have to know and take care of related to your applications - transcripts and test scores are two of the big ones that seem to be causing the most problem at this point.  See, the challenge is that colleges know these are components that many students forget so as soon as they download your application, many colleges automatically generate an email to remind you about needing to send them.

So what do you do if you get one of these notification letters?

The first step is to stop and ask yourself - did you request your transcript?  That means, did you fill out the online transcript release form for us?  If you did, and the application was through Common App or SendEDU you can log onto the websites to verify that your transcript was sent and on what day it was submitted and downloaded.  If you applied through a college that doesn't use Common App or SendEDU, you can double check with Mrs. McDaniel that your transcript was sent as requested.

For your test scores, it is often harder to recall off the top of your head if you had submitted your scores or not since you signed up for 4 free scores to go to colleges when you registered for the tests.  So, I suggest that you log into the ACT and SAT websites and double check that your test scores were sent to every college where you are applying that you wanted your test scores used in your application.

Colleges get really back-logged at peak application times and so it can take them several weeks to get all of the various components of applications matched up and processed and updated on their computer systems.  So, if your materials were sent in within the last 2-3 weeks and you can see that your materials were submitted, then you can relax because it just means that their system is backed up.  You can continue double checking on the college website to verify that they have everything.  If you are reaching the end of the 3rd week and they still don't show that they have everything, then you can reach out to them to double check the status of your materials.  Chances are high that they just haven't made it there yet, but there are times where materials can get lost in the mail or filed in the wrong area.  If your transcript needs sent again, we can help you work to take care of that, but first make sure that it is really missing.  (For example, OSU sent us an email last week saying that they know that they have students in a panic about missing application items and that it will take them a few weeks to get everything updated.  They specifically asked us not to re-send duplicate copies because it will just back up their process even more.)

If you have done everything that you were required to do then for now, try to just relax and wait this process out - I promise, this is a common frustration for seniors at this time of year.

CSS Profile

Thanks to everyone who came to the Financial Aid presentation tonight.  In addition to the FAFSA which opens up on December 1st, I wanted to be sure to remind you that you need to look at your desired colleges closely to see what their financial aid requirements include.

At some of the more competitive colleges - particularly those who cover all of demonstrated need for students, in addition to requiring the FAFSA, many of those colleges will also require that students and families will submit the CSS profile.  The FAFSA helps colleges determine federal aid, but the CSS profile helps colleges determine institutional aid.  The CSS profile typically asks for a lot more detailed information from families than the FAFSA does.  And while the FAFSA is free to complete, there are fees associated with the CSS profile, but fee waivers are available to students who qualify and are on free/ reduced lunch.

Usually this is a topic students figure out as they are going through the whole financial aid application process and the CSS profile is just another step in that process, but with the timing of the FAFSA being delayed, I realized that the CSS profile dates and timing haven't changed and so I wanted to encourage you to double check if your intended colleges are requiring the CSS profile and to watch your deadlines closely so that you don't miss them while waiting for the FAFSA to be released.

FSA ID

First, a quick reminder that tomorrow night is our Financial Aid Presentation at 7pm in the WKHS Auditorium.

When students and parents are completing the FAFSA, you will each need to have an FSA ID number.  This number will allow you to electronically sign your FAFSA and in the future it would let you sign promissory notes as well as complete future FAFSA's.

The student and parents will each create their own separate numbers.  You cannot use the same e-mail addresses for the creation of the FSA ID so if you don't have an e-mail address and have been using your parents e-mail in the past then this is the ideal time to create your own e-mail account.

You will make your own challenge questions to help you access your number if you forget it in the future so it is important to write down those challenge questions and answers to make sure you will remember it down the road.  I recommend that students and parents make a folder related to FAFSA where you store all of this information so that you will always have it when you might need it.

Here is a link to create your FSAID numbers: https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/create-account/launch