Senior College Night

Next Tuesday, September 23rd at 7:30pm we will be holding the Senior Student and Parent College Night at WKHS. This is one of the most important meetings for students and parents to attend because there are so many process related questions that we will be able to answer. We will be meeting with you in "smaller" groups - either just all of "my" students and parents meeting with just me or there is a chance we may just split in half and Mrs. Gratz and I will meet together with all of our students and parents.

One of the things that we will review is the procedure for submitting your materials to be sent to your college, but I am going to hit the highlights for you here as it is definitely something that is coming up more frequently in the past few weeks...

- You should apply online unless you have some paperwork (like fee waivers) that require you to submit a paper application. Please remember though that an essay is an essay and you should take the time to actually work on writing a strong essay, have it edited and reviewed by multiple people before copying and pasting it into your online application.

- After you submit the application you will print out any papers that you need me to complete on your behalf.

- You will fill out a yellow Transcript Release Form.

- As explained in a previous post, you will turn in the form for me to complete along with your transcript release form and your $3.00 transcript fee to Mrs. Hoyt.

By doing all of this together rather than sending your transcript and then later realizing that you also needed to submit the counselor form you can be certain that the college will receive all of your materials in one folder together which helps make sure that it will be filed appropriately so that they can make a decision on your application.

- After you have submitted your application you may also need to verify that your official test scores were sent from the testing organization (ACT/ SAT) directly to the college. If you did not have them sent to that particular school then you will need to pay the fee to have them sent if the college requires official scores from the testing agency.

- Then it is time to sit back and wait...

- When you hear back from your schools, please stop in to see me and let me know the admissions decision as this is something that we track.

Back to Reality

Well, I am sure you were all anxiously awaiting the information about school tomorrow and as you are probably aware, we are finally heading back to school. Like you, I enjoyed the days off and today was definitely my most productive day. Don't get me wrong, I still have plenty that I could have done with another day off, but I am looking forward to seeing all of you at school tomorrow. What I am VERY jealous about is that you get to sleep in and have a 2 hour late start day, but staff have to report at regular time. Hopefully those extra few hours will give me the time to get some more done in my office.

The Windy Weather Impact Continues...

We received notification that there is no school, once again, tomorrow (Wednesday, September 17th) due to the power outages impacting the district following the windy weather.

I hope that you are enjoying the bonus days off... it will certainly be a short week once we head back to school!

Since many of you are bored... perhaps you found time to read the Dispatch. Today they had an article highlighting the impressive incoming class for OSU this fall.

So, I am curious, were you productive today? The day isn't over so I am still holding out hope that I will accomplish a few things on my list of things to do... we'll see. :-)

Another Day Off...

By now I am confident that all of you are aware that we do not have school again tomorrow. I don't know how many of you are still in the dark, but I have been fortunate enough that I didn't lose power. My grandparents are like many of you and still don't have electricity. Since we do not have school tomorrow you can let your parents know that the PTO Meet the Teacher night will also be postponed.

So, my hope is that you are going to find ways to make tomorrow a productive day. In addition to sleeping in (which I am pretty sure will be on most of your lists of things to do) tomorrow can be a helpful day to get a jump start on the tasks you hadn't made it to yet this year and the perfect opportunity to avoid procrastinating any longer. For seniors, tomorrow is a great opportunity to start drafting your college essays. For all of the grades this provides time to play around in PrepHQ (see link on right side of this page) and explore some options for your future. It is also a time to figure out what you need to do for your classes - do you have an upcoming project that you could do start doing research as a jump start or a book that you are supposed to read. I realize that this might not be as exciting as some of the other things that you could find to do, but getting some of these "not so fun" tasks out of the way now will pay off in the long run.

No matter how you spend it, I hope you enjoy your extra day off tomorrow!

No School Tomorrow!

Late Breaking News...

I just received a phone call alerting me to the official decision that we do NOT have school tomorrow (Monday, September 15th).


Enjoy your extra day off!

School Report Forms

As you are working on your college applications you will find that most schools require some type of a form to be completed by me. These forms have lots of different names - School Report Form, Counselor Report Form, High School Information Sheet, etc. They all ask some of the same basic information - what is your GPA, what classes are you taking, and many ask for my feedback on you as a student/ person. The one aspect that varies greatly on the forms from different schools is if they require a recommendation letter to be included from me. (If you realize that your forms require a recommendation it is essential that you come and see me to set up a time for us to meet as soon as possible!)

Some of you have been really organized and on the ball and have tried to bring in your school report forms directly to me to complete and hold on for you until you are ready to send them. I need to ask you to hold onto these on your own rather than bringing them to me in advance. For a moment, I am going to ask you to do the math. I have about 115 seniors. Let's say that 100 of you apply to college. Of those 100 some will apply to 1 college, but others will apply to a dozen or more. So, let's guesstimate an average of 3 to 5 colleges per student. That would be 300 to 500 forms that I need to keep track of vs. you keeping the couple of forms on your own and turning them in when it is time for me to actually complete them. You have a much better chance of keeping three forms organized than I do to keep several hundred organized. You will turn in these forms with your transcript release form and fees to Mrs. Hoyt and then she will run your transcript and give the entire packet to me in one folder with an envelope so that they are ready to be mailed. Trust me, this organization system works! You will keep the forms until they are ready to be sent. I will fill them out as soon as I receive them and then they will be on their way to your college.

The one detail that I would ask that you please pay attention to is if your college needs a counselor recommendation letter. I am more than happy to write the letter for you, but I do them in a first-come, first-serve basis in order to be fair, so if you turn in your forms and then when I am filling out your school report form I realize that you need a recommendation letter and we haven't met yet - your application is going to sit on my desk for a while until we can meet and I can write your letter. So, help me to help you by checking that out on your own in advance. If you aren't sure where to look, stop in and see me and we will figure it out together.

PTO's Meet the Teacher Night

Tuesday night, September 16th, is this year's PTO Meet the Teacher Night. This is a night when your parents can come through school, follow your schedule, and meet all of your teachers. The evening event runs from 7:00 to 9:00pm. Each class will be 10 minutes in length and yes, your parents will have the same 5 minute passing time that you have during the day. (Hopefully they won't get lost and be late or else they could end up with lots of tardies!) :-)

Here is the schedule for the evening:

1st period - 7:00 - 7:10

2nd period - 7:15 - 7:25

3rd period - 7:30 - 7:40

4th period - 7:45 - 7:55

5th period - 8:00 - 8:10

6th period - 8:15 - 8:25

7th period - 8:30 - 8:40

8th period - 8:45 - 8:55

Please make sure you give your parents a copy of your schedule or at least write down the room numbers for all of your classes so they know where they are heading for the evening! The parents of freshman will also have a chance to watch a video highlighting the 9th graders 1st day of high school in the auditorium during the lunch periods.

Please make sure your parents know about this evening because I know many of them will want to attend and they usually like putting a face with a name so that if you are talking about a test in Mr. ____'s class or an assignment for Mrs. ____'s class they will be able to keep it straight.