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then then on November 5th the CSA rivalry game CSA foda versus CSA Lincoln that game will begin at 6:30 p.m. then on November 7th Richards will face off against Schmidt at 8:00 a.m. on November 23rd Mount Healthy will face off against Smith at 6:30 p.m. and on December 8th Clifty Creek will take on their County counterpart how we doing Mr Hester good to see you um sorry about that folks Clifty Creek versus Taylorville so appreciate Dennis Pierce uh doing everything that he can to uh schedule it out so that each team will be featured uh the boys and girls as well as our cheerleaders and really appreciate all the efforts uh of he and his team as well as every school uh families students just doing everything that we can to um celebrate and uh highlight our student athletes but also uh to keep our kids in school uh we are blessed at bcse to have three different options uh both with inperson bridge and Columbus virtual pathway at the elementary level um and we've been really thankful for the support of the community We Begin the third period here let's get back to the action Southside brings the ball up the court and speaking of e director Dennis Pierce he has joined me in the booth Dennis how are we doing tonight we're doing great this is a great game to start our second night of ebl it's really really good game so far yeah and uh last night you started uh night one of a very uh busy week here uh tell the folks a little bit about how the schedule is working this year well we're going to play Mondays through Thursdays um games will start at 6:30 and then on Saturdays we'll probably have up to five games starting at 8:00 so we've got a lot of games to play in about 8 weeks of time we'll be done before Christmas so we got a lot of games gam to play so that's why we got to go Mondays through Thursdays and on Saturdays as well yeah that totally makes sense and it's great to be able to have a gymnasium here uh like Southside where we can physical distance but also have a great game like we are uh here tonight tell me what you've seen so far early on between uh Southside and Parks side well I like their intensity both teams are playing really really good defense I think early in the season defense is always going to be the better of the two your offense takes time so I think both teams are playing a really really good defense and I think you know unfortunately there's not been a whole lot of practice time for our teams this year so like I say the offense is going to lag for sure so I like the intensity of they're playing really really hard yeah you know especially from oh great shot they from Hester number 32 I'm going to try to update the scoreboard here just a second doing a lot of things at once here Dennis as you said uh wow another more defense this time from Southside but back to park side um defense definitely has been good on both sides uh Park Side very aggressive uh Southside able to get to the line but um you know about half and half able to convert um what are some of the things that you know you think are important for the Elementary uh boys and girls to be working on these days with you know a little bit of practice they're just getting their season started what's their mindset in game number one well I think for for our e we we like for it to be a learning League I know that the kids want to be competitive but we think it really is a learning leag they should be able to learn how to play defense how to pass how to rebound how to block out all the basic fundamental things we'd like to see our coaches preach and practice and hopefully they can apply that towards the game as well very good that's great you know coach Moes and Coach bodart I believe this is a rematch of last year's um ebl Super Saturday final is that correct yes I mentioned that to them before the game tonight and they said well that was last year so they didn't even want to talk about last year they were ready they were really focused on this year and getting their teams ready so but yes definitely a rematch from last year for sure well you know much like uh the NFL starts with uh often times the Super Bowl champs facing off here we are with the uh finalist of last year we've also got a great girls game coming up um Parkside I believe won that as well last year uh tell me a little bit about our girls League this year and and what we're looking forward to well the girls you know they they play the same rules as the guys um you know the the the one thing about girls is the they they boy they it's a I think people think it's a girls game and so they think it's going to be some lesser quality basketball game and that's not the truth at all these girls can really play uh we there's some great like last night we had a couple girls that they boy they could dribble between their legs uh they were very fundamentally sound I mean it's just it's really a pleasure to watch the girls games because they really work on the fundamentals too so we're we're excited to see the girls this year and then and what they can do for sure awesome well I want to say thank you very much to you and your team everything that you've done to make this season possible um really looking forward to the season and uh off to a great start this week well we thank you Josh and and your sponsors this year for allowing us to live stream and without our sponsors obviously it was not be possible at all and also like to be a big shout out to bcsc because they they're the ones that came to us and said you know give us a plan so we can something that we can kind of get behind and we presented them a plan for the season and they approved it so thanks to bcsc and supporting us we're able to have this season and I didn't think we were going to have one this year so we're very excited about it as well awesome well thank you very much Dennis we're going to go ahead and get back to the action I I see principal BM up here GNA update the [Applause] scoreboard 14-9 Parks side with the lead here in the third quarter oops apologies [Applause] [Music] [Applause] there good defense from Parks side oh but unable to keep possession Parkside drives and a very nice shot there from the Pirates 16 to9 [Applause] oh and it bounces in gets the shooters roll for Southside oh and a good drive oh but unable [Applause] to and one opportunity for the Mustangs looks like number 34 Aiden Bumble with the N1 opportunity 13-6 and he's able to convert the and one oh here's defense from oh good defense from the Mustangs but Parkside retains [Applause] possession wji pops for three oh barely in and out [Applause] [Music] whoa I like the aggressiveness from the point guard number 23 Excuse Me Maybe the shooting guard because number four is bringing the ball up the court as well oh very nice Southside pushes the [Applause] [Music] pace oh number 24 in the corner very nice move to the Baseline and smacked that aboundance Mustangs keep the [Applause] [Music] ball Mustangs find the open man oh just barely strong good rebound from the Mustangs and the game is tied [Applause] up back and forth [Applause] inbounds from the Mustangs Parkside able to steal it oh and a good Hustle but the ball will remain with the [Applause] Pirates giv go from the inbounder woi again oh just a little bit long 40 seconds remaining in the third quarter tie ball game 16 [Applause] all there's nothing like basketball in the hooer state no matter if it's elementary middle school high school college pros and 49 other states it's just the game but this is basketball and a bank shot apparently the Mustangs don't believe that the bank is closed thankfully there is 24-hour banking in many of our local locations I know that was kind of a bad dad joke I apologize 17- 16 and here are our Parkside Pirates lady cheerleaders [Applause] go ahead and announce them Alise cha Carolina hailes Evelyn mun Doo delosi Sydney Bostic Ali Riley Hayden Henry Bailey Benfield and Esther Batista on each end of the court so the Southside folks will go out this door and go up the stairs and outside you can pick up your child in the hallway cuz that's where their storage is and we're going to have the Parkside folks exit this door here and go up the stairs this way to the outside once again we appreciate your patience this is our second night we're just glad that we're having a season we appreciate your patience and Dennis Pierce was just giving a little bit of explanation for how things are going to be going with our exiting doing the best that we can to promote physical distancing and a healthy environment here Southside folks come in one entrance they go out a certain exit and then Parks side families go out another that's our efforts to try to do the best that we we can to keep everyone safe and healthy and still be able to enjoy a great ball game as this one certainly is 14 with the oh it's a good shot Hester brings up the [Applause] ball good pick and Hester able to draw the foul hey thank you number 32 at the line and the first shot is good Park Side takes the twoo excuse me Southside takes the two-point lead extends it to a three-point [Applause] game oh but Parkside comes right back with a great layup down the lane oh but Hester comes [Applause] [Music] back both teams going back and forth Parks side will take the timeout is 21- 18 clock stops at 7 minutes and 52 seconds in the fourth period here and our Southside cheerleaders come back out on the court [Applause] it's that time of the game when both teams and families are getting into it you might be able to hear The Stomping of feet and cheering from both sides certainly a close game here in our first week of elementary basketball last year Parkside able to take home the championship in both boys and girls uh e tonight a close one we'll see if they can start the season out one and0 or if Southside will get a little bit of Revenge from last year's e Super Saturday final Hester once again takes it to the right side but Parkside able to come up with the rebound Park side pushes the ball able to pass it and a nice shot from Parkside but unable to convert [Applause] [Music] and the three from downtown [Applause] Brennan Hester has definitely led the way in the points column for Southside tonight and anytime you can get a three that's a great feeling for an elementary baller [Applause] travel called on Park Side Southside gets back The [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Possession eser back at the line [Music] I apologize I had to uh correct the score I'm not sure if that counted as a three but he was definitely well behind the [Music] line first shot comes up just a little bit short [Applause] Southside takes the 2418 lead with just over 5 minutes [Music] [Applause] left ball stays with Parkside Diaz good pass to number 21 back to Elwood with the shot oh and lwood will get a pair of three free throws at the line Slater lwood just a little left [Applause] 4 minutes and 15 seconds left in this first match up between Parkside and Southside just an In-N-Out [Applause] there Parkside picks up the pressure [Applause] [Music] Southside with the side out of bounds and to number two and Parkside able to pick it off just a little strong on the layup but no fear 21 with the layup number 21 Carson gallion able to cut into the Mustang lead oh and another defensive play number 14 Angel espeel 22 Park Side on a on a run here let's see what Southside does in response Hester with the ball on the right side goes to his normal pick and roll oh and a nice left side shot good rebound offensive rebound from the Mustangs oh just a little bit long wow hey great great sportsmanship from both teams though aggressive play but good job on both teams to help the Parkside pirate up there 24-22 2 minutes and 15 seconds left close ball game here in the fourth period oh and Hesser with the layup [Applause] espel with the layup a Hesser will draw the foul and he'll get a pair of free [Music] throws see if he can extend the Southside Mustang lead 26-22 Timeout on the court 1 minute and 44 seconds left thank you to the nearly 100 devices that are currently watching this bcsc ebl game of the week between the Southside Mustangs and the Parkside Pirates if you would if you haven't already please subscribe to the bcsc YouTube channel so that you'll be notified when there's a an upcoming live stream or a new video available to watch also if you'd like for someone in the community to be able to watch this game with you as well from the comfort of their own home make sure to share this video uh the easiest place to do that is probably Facebook so please share that and thank you for those who have liked the video that means a lot a minute and 40 left 26 to 22 Hester at the line and he sinks the first of two free throws 27- 22 let's zoom in a little bit oh and short Parks side with the rebound espel drives and there looks to be a scrum on the floor that leads to a jump ball possession stays with Parkside Diaz was getting ready to inbound the ball but a Timeout on the floor just a little over 1 minute to be exact 1 minute and 4 seconds left 27-22 Moes looks to be drawing up a play to try to get his Parkside Pirates back into this game while bodart coach bodart on one knee encouraged in his team to I'm sure keep doing what they're doing and try to Edge out this victory in game number one the boys game here between the Mustangs and the Pirates coming up next The Parkside pirate girls will take on the souths sign Southside Mustang ladies definitely be a great matchup that you'll want to continue to tune in with us [Applause] hey and we just topped 100 devices so thank you so much anytime we can get into triple digits and beyond that is really cool inbounds from Elwood to woi woi with the shot draws the foul [Applause] wji just a little bit long on the first free throw let's see if he can convert on the second wji is a great player for the Pirates he certainly has shown some leadership throughout the game oh and just out of bounds espeel with the rebound out to Diaz Diaz with the pass to Elwood oh and the referee calls a traveling [Applause] violation and another Timeout on the floor both teams will talk about it 54 seconds left still 27 to 22 go [Applause] [Music] I want to say uh thank you to Tanya elely who is a fellow Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation School uh not School Board member excuse me Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation board member uh with myself who let me in on the secret that there are no three-pointers in elementary basketball so while Hester uh definitely was well behind the line that is why the Southside Mustangs did not get the three [Applause] points 30 seconds left Mustangs continue to move the ball playing a little bit of a keep away but oh there's esel with the pickoff and he drives to the Lane and he makes it number 14 angel espeel with a great shot to pull the Pirates within [Applause] three and also just a quick thanks to our head of Elementary education Dr Laura hack I she texted me saying that she was tuned in watching the game thank you Dr hack appreciate your support of your elementary schools and thank you for all that you and your team are doing uh both on and off the court to uh make this first semester go as well as it can certainly has uh just been a extraordinary time in the history of our country and specifically in this County and uh we're trying to do everything we can as a school corporation to you know have some sense of normaly with things like elementary basketball league I mean this is just a cool moment here that traditional up up on your feet from the Parkside Pirates and the Southside Mustangs getting into it with their crowd this is what elementary basketball league is all about learning for both teams great sportsmanship shown throughout from from both squads and um just a lot of hustle been really impressed with uh this game of the week between Southside and Parkside and it's not over yet and the first free throw is good for the Mustangs a clutch free throw made there by the Mustang 9.7 seconds left espeel great hustle keeps it in oh and just out of bounds 3.7 seconds left gives the ball back to Southside who is up by four they just need to inbound the ball and let the clock run out but the clock did not start but they knew that the game was over and so they ran it off 28- 24 the final here and a standing ovation from both teams for the great hustle from Parkside and Southside thank you to oh look at that that's a really nice uh gesture obviously not able to do the customary handshakes and fist bumps after the game but as we saw last Saturday at uh volleyball sectionals just a little bit of a wave From a Distance game one goes to the Southside Mustangs the host of elementary basketball league this season we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with you once again my name is Josh Brett I'm the have the privilege of being the bcsc Communications coordinator and uh just a lot of fun to be able to bring this e game of the week to you tonight's version Southside versus Parkside we'll be right back [Music] [Applause] [Music] need e what's go e e e and we're here for game two of our ebl game of the week Parkside girls taking on the Southside ladies going to go ahead and announce some of our players here to be able to give you an idea of um the talent from each Squad first for the Parkside Pirates Laya rager Nola Robinson Ava Kerber Claire fny Danica H Sophia gallion Lucy nans Greer Lane emmey mclellen Emma lowther Aaliyah Grimes and Olivia Rogers head coach Kanan hashman that is your Parkside Pirates girls basketball team and for the Southside girls basketball team got to find my notes Here Ally Wilson Lexi Sals Cory Jones ji Hardesty Lucy Ross Kai Jernigan Madison Andress Riley Sims Adeline I IO Ava Wilson Brooklyn Russell Avery Baker Anna Holly Ida Shetty and Ellie Frasier those are your Southside girls for thank you once again to everyone tuning in to this ebl game of the week if you're just tuning in my name is Josh brunett I'm the bcse communications coordinator and it is our privilege to be hosting and streaming this ebl game of the week each week we will be streaming a boys and girls basketball team as well as highlighting our cheerleaders to uh celebrate as well as um introduce you to our Elementary talent at both schools let me try to change your angle here there we go we are here at Southside Elementary throughout um this e season uh for those of you who are familiar with the Bartholomew County you might already know this but if you're new to the area uh Southside used to be a middle school with 7eventh eth and Ninth Grade uh eventually uh due to our growing School Corporation was turned into an elementary school and thankfully the gymnasium is large enough to allow um the best possible opportunity for both teams teams to uh get to participate in basketball as well as allowing families to come and and watch their uh child student athlete uh play and participate in ebl I want to say a special thanks to Dennis Pierce who is helped with scheduling our ebl games of the week and uh tonight is Parks side against Southside we will uh each week feature a uh different Squad um I'll go ahead and I'm going to look up those matchups once again all right here we go uh tonight again is Parkside versus Southside on Halloween Mount Healthy will take on Rock Creek and on November 5th CSA fodrea will take on CSA Lincoln after that the CSA rivalry game November 7th Richards will face Schmidt that'll be an early one at 8: a.m November 23rd Mount Healthy will face off against Smith at 6:30 p.m.
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and put in play by the spartans believe sterling passes forward but amherst defense able to knock that ball away sterling gets it back has a little bit of time and space but her pass is knocked down and swung out and here comes amherst monica cage trying to take it up field one on three but it's quickly taken back by esau meadow here comes numbers two on one pass in it's kicked aside a nice save rebound comes right back to the spartans and once again kicked away by the goaltender mackenzie schreier dominant control from the spartans to the first two and a half plus minutes of this game and they will keep possession and they'll put it in on this free hit about a 45-minute drive down i-91 for the hurricanes there's a bomb of a shot by sterling from the point doesn't get through the rebound is fought for and finally dragged out and played forward by gabrielle mahoney but quickly giving back to the spartans amherst looks a little gassed already with how much time is spent in their own attacking zone and sterling's able to keep it in amherst has been trouble has had trouble getting it past midfield since the get-go a little bit of a stumble there from mahoney and it's going to roll out of play and wait they're saying it was last touched by amherst interesting call [Music] the whistle blows once more we forgot to mention at the beginning of the game one of the key inactive three song meadow is uh sophie saras is out for today's game we don't know how long the uh if this is an injury if this is any type of sickness we don't know what it could be but all we know is that she will be out for at least today's game question will be is if she'll be able to return for thursday night's game yeah big matchup against longmeadow a team that's consistently year in and year out been top team in western mass when it comes to field hockey is that ball will go all the way out if you're looking to watch that game on thursday it'll be right here on lcat right here in east meadow wait isn't it isn't that getting delayed because of the red zone because the eson meta was put into that red no okay so no updates yet on that so to be decided if it will yeah yeah just uh be sure to check out mass live and make sure that that game is in fact still taking place anyways on they play pass is picked off by sterling it's had a lot of action so far but it'll be given right back to the hurricanes taking forward the pass to the far side of the field sterling back there to get it she was looking to get that ball all the way through for olivia rob but he's unable to do so and the whistle blows and how about this decent opportunity for amherst you can see here's the excitement on the other side of the on the uh sidelines i should say it was when i was actually just gonna bring up when we were looking at the four games that amherst had played and the scores on them we i don't know if you know this you might be able to tell me on this one but is it the lack of experience that these players have are we is the song without facing a bunch of sophomores maybe freshmen surprisingly no there's only two freshmen on the roster so there's a lot of a lot of upperclassmen i you know i to be fair they did play against two of the top teams in western mass and longmeadow miniature so didn't help to have that draw of a tough schedule to start but i don't know maybe they just got into such a big hole but here's a great opportunity on net but smartly taken out and dragged out by anna macareni there's a little bit of a mistake by mackerel as that ball ended up glancing off her foot 843 remaining still no score first five minutes was all these songs meadow but here come the hurricanes with a bit of a surge of their own and the whistle will blow and this time it will come all the way back there's out schilling who couldn't keep the ball in front of her without using her feet [Music] sterling brings it back to the 15.
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to 10 p.m. we are having a class competition with Chick-fil-A please support our class and our classes by eating there with your whole family we have booked our prom site and grad night all pending approval if we go back on campus our new field is complete and we are pouring the rubber track in about three weeks it should be complete our leadership students provide weekly virtual announcements to inform our a Texs on what is happening at isusa High School gym bathrooms are 90% complete and we should and we should be polishing the gym floor within the next 2 to 3 weeks after construction is over there are 19 kids enrolled in our them together program with only five spots left and are working continuously in the classrooms to make sure that they get their work done and and it is turned in on time thank you thank you okay so we can call on uh Destiny please Destiny pleas please good evening last week Gladstone students and teachers had a 45 minute conversation about the experience of distance learning this year students presented survey data from both teachers and students and shared their stories the meeting was appreciative and respectful the students are well prepared and the teachers asked questions about a variety of topics homework distractions and other responsibilities all of ASB is involved with helping make videos to help students with online learning and have brainstormed future videos to present using Jam board video topics are based on the based on organization planning for class and homework help so far the videos are going to be made available on Instagram Snapchat and Google Google Classroom Crystal flamino our ASB vice president is doing a very good job organizing all the social media work with all the different class presidents [Music] we started Sports signups two weeks ago and have 269 students that have shown interest students are excited to get back to sports for breast cancer awareness month we had a senior clinical research coordinator from City of Hope do a video recording we can share explaining resources available posted General presentations and had students share a general experience they have had in their lives with dealing with breast cancer Club Rush week throughout the week ASB used Instagram Snapchat and Google Classroom to recruit students to clubs and sports clubs our plans for Red Ribbon Week are on Monday having students sign an online pledge to be drug flee drug drug free sorry along with a brief Google Slides presentation to introduce the week posted on all social media platforms Tuesday we will begin to post slides on these problems that exist today Wednesday we'll begin posting awareness videos Thursday slides and videos Friday we'll have a red out on social media our very first video announcement of this year was posted on October 19th thanks to Mr he thank you thank you Destiny okay next up is Alex good evening uh sir is coming to the end of our first trimester students will be taking finals in just a couple of weeks teachers and students have been working hard to assure that essential lessons are taught and students have learned the material one of the classes I am in this year is AP Government this class we've been covering material that will prepare us for the AP government test in may we have covered topics like Articles of the Confederation Declaration of the impedence and the Constitution Mr lamber has had us read articles and then have in-depth discussions to increase our knowledge on the subject we just completed a project on the Federalist essay as we continue to work together we are feeling better prepared for the AP exam are confident we will pass and that concludes my summary thank you and thank you and now on to board not board but um cabinet uh Miss Dr Mitchell good evening I have some updates uh we have received two more very generous donations and support of our students and families during distance learning we received a $2,000 donation from the Elks organization specifically to purchase microphone headsets for elementary students who may need them we also received a $4,000 donation from the isusa Ministerial Association to purchase internet connection for families we just continue to be so appreciative and grateful for the support of these Community organizations who thoughtfully partner with us to provide just these needed resources for um our students and our families and also one more update uh this morning Longfellow preschool had the privilege of hosting a virtual site visit for assembly member Blanca Rubio Longfellow was selected by child 360 and Child Care Alliance uh we were also joined by representatives from first 5 La quality start Los angelis um at Leo and the visit uh highlighted just the incredible work that's going on at Longfellow and featured a very special video of a robust lesson where our students were learning about off authors and illustrators and becoming authors and illustrators and then sharing their work with one another and their teacher all in a distance learning environment and so I just want to thank our director of early childhood education Jenny Lee for um just providing a spectacular overview of all of our PK programs for our visitors and a special shout out and thank you to our PK teacher Georgiana Taylor for not only opening up her um her distance learning classroom door so we could see her students in action engaged in learning but also for the way that Longfellow is engaging with parents as partners in their students learning so thank you thank you uh next Mr on good evening uh board president board members cabinet community members I want to start by stating how impressed I am with our students I truly appreciate the opportunity to continuously hear from our students at our board meetings um this is really a testament to uh your leadership and the hard and wonderful work that our students do Alex I was a former AP Government teacher so if you ever need a tutor look no further I would love to be able to support you um I also want to inform the Board of Education and that classified Orient classified employee orientations are are up and going we've completed two orientation meetings um at the beginning of the year I want to give a big shout out to our Dr Alexis Norman uh for really transforming trans transitioning our live presentation uh to a online digital platform uh while nothing can replace the in-person meetings that we look forward to having again uh I want you to all know that we are still aiming to formally welcome our newest team members to our wonderful District thank you and next Miss Jamal hello boy president and members of cabinet and fellow members of the board I want to use this opportunity to thank um Miss Carissa Mendes um she was actually a public comment speaker a couple of I think last month or a month before who gave us the brilliant idea and recommendation of issuing desk and I'm happy to announc that today we issued them we started at 9:00 but we had a line of over 40 cars by 8:50 um by 9:00 when we started we had over a 100 cars in line and today we Su successfully issued over 200 desks to our families and parents in the community and I want to just um personally thank our maintenance and operation team um Robert Zamora supervisor as well as David and their team that was there and I don't want to call out everyone's name before I forget someone um but they literally had a great shop going where we had parents sign off um release a liability but as well as help them load them into the cars um make sure everyone at least received one desk so I just want to thank everyone and but just thank um Miss Marissa for that open us up to another opportunity that we didn't even consider thank you thank you and Mr Ortega thank you um I want to Echo uh and just congratulate uh the district uh for the for the presentation this morning and such an honor of all the districts that they work with uh to choose uza as the highlight of what's going well in early childhood education uh spe specifically thinking about uh you know not not too long ago uh when we just were getting into uh preschool and where we have gone so far it's just a testament to the work that has been done so uh a big congratulations to the district for that honor um also like Mr ronio um thank you students uh for stepping up uh thank you for uh voicing um what what you are passionate about and I look forward to reaching out to you and working with you uh as we get ready for a study session here in the future um on October 8th uh we held our first classified superintendency advisory committee um and I just want to appreciate the partnership that we have with CSEA uh and the opportunity to be able to share updates with the team uh to be able to listen uh to comments and suggestions uh question questions and um just the dialogue I appreciate uh this committee and uh look forward to continuing this throughout the year at uh our last board meeting I shared that I had uh spent the morning uh had the opportunity to spend the morning with Monica Pringle uh who is the secretary of the adult school and Shadow shadowing her for uh for the morning um well on October 9th uh I had a second opportunity this time to uh work with Jenny weeby uh who is currently the principal at po Elementary uh in the middle of the day uh to to get a glimpse of what it's like to be an elementary principal right now during the pandemic uh during my time with her uh I was able to to see her and her community liaison uh come together and write translate and record uh Pal's weekly message uh had an opportunity to visit classrooms and observe how that takes place um we participated in a preschool license uh audit with Jenny uh Lee and Alicia Vargas Smith uh which we passed not only at pal but every single one of them so again congratulations to Jenny and her team um it was just uh it was good for me uh again to to be able to do this um and I just appreciate U Miss weeby for being open to this idea um I look forward to um to my future ones I have H A partnership with uh aea coming up and uh one with AA coming up as well so looking forward to those thank you Miss uh uh board me uh board president uh you are on mute this is why I don't I don't mute myself because then I forget okay uh now we'll move on to it 8.0 report Action of Clos session matters uh there is nothing to report so then we will move on to 9.0 General functions 9.1 covid-19 update Mr Rio yes uh yes uh board i' would like to start off by um talking a little bit about what the board of I'm sorry what the human resources department is doing uh the human re uh resources department continues to uh develop Implement and refine the protocols articulated at the K12 reopening um protocol this requires uh specific um uh items uh that are related to covid-19 uh like developing a uh surveillance testing plan if needed uh daily screening which we have up and running uh managing employee schedules and breaks coordinating an exposure management plan um and addition uh to this uh the HR department has participated in over 45 interactive accommodation meetings and um we uh continue to uh develop communication templates to communicate uh when an employee has had either a close close contact or possible exposure to the virus um and also a general site communication that's required when we uh do have experience a positive covid-19 case [Music] Mr M you want to go next yes I'm sorry I was trying to hit the mute button uh uh so yes we are currently um still working to organize our classrooms um uh yesterday was actually the last day that we gave the um teachers the opportunity to come in to receive items that they would personally like to move out um and so I'm happy that we are moving forward to maximizing how many students we can get in each classroom um as well as set our classrooms up and our facilities up to identify entry points exit points um illness rooms um revamp in our health rooms and vice versa so our team has been working tirely and looking forward to the day that we're just saying we're ready thank you thank you um last Friday evening um we submitted uh to the Los Angeles County Office of Education uh a draft of the the reopening protocol for K12 schools uh for feedback um they have been a very good partner uh they have been very responsive and giving us ideas and suggestions and so we're hoping to hear uh something um from them back soon uh again this was just a submitt uh for feedback on this reopening uh protocol uh that same day on 10:16 uh there was an update to the protocol um came out we have looked at that update and most of it is explanatory in nature um there are a couple of guidelines that have been revised uh but we would not classify them as major uh so I think it's going to be easy to address uh these couple of new updates there uh this Friday morning uh we look forward to uh meeting with our um covid-19 uh compliance team and sharing uh this draft of the protoc call um with them um and I'll turn over to uh Dr Mitchell okay um the allaha center has been very busy with administering initial elpac assessments uh we've been able to assess uh older students remotely and assess our younger students in person uh the school sites were provided with a list of students to schedule for the assessment so they have been scheduling our uh our students and they call the families and they schedule the inperson appointments that are taking place at the district office uh in several in uh several locations at the district office and we are following the health and safety protocols I had an opportunity to uh to visit and to talk with uh with staff and and check in and see how it's going and so far uh so great uh we're also working on special education uh assessments and we see us implementing that very soon as well um also uh think together um super excited about this uh we now have 255 students enrolled in think together uh neighborhood learning hubs and they uh we still have a few spots available and they're continuing to uh reach out to families uh for enrollment uh we've had uh reports uh from our principles um very thankful uh reporting that the the students and think together really are thriving and benefiting from the support from the think together staff so uh we really are um truly grateful for uh for this uh this work um they they're just doing a great job making sure that the students are remaining uh socially distanced uh they're following other protocols again we've had an opportunity to visit and it's um it's just a real treat to you know to see the to see the students and uh see this program in action uh they have been um adding to their uh learning environments with different themes in their classrooms and we've seen uh things like Monsters Inc and superheroes themes and so that's that's a lot a lot of fun as well and then uh my last update is uh you remember um at on my last update I talked a little bit about the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health uh is allowing sports teams to condition and skill build uh not uh participate in any contests or games but just really that conditioning and skill building um and they have their own health and safety protocol for this and so the High School principles and athletic directors have been working hard to prepare for this and so tomorrow uh we have a site visit to Gladstone High School and isusa High School to review the sports protocol implementation with the principes and the athletic directors walk the campuses and really get a firsthand look um at the implementation plan so we're really looking forward to that tomorrow thanks thank you I have a question um with with sports are the students going to be required to wear masks during the training when they come to the schools during the be I mean some of them are going to be outside right I mean yeah um they are they they will be outside for their uh skill building and conditioning and they still have to remain socially distanced um but they're in the protocol um if there is um a certain amount of exertion um then I then they they wouldn't be wearing um The Masks because it would be too difficult but they are staying um between six and 8 feet away and again this is um this is just with skill building so they're not participating in any like contact sport or anything like that does anybody else have a question or comment yeah I do I mean I think Adrian I think this would be a good time to talk about the issue you brought up earlier yeah I think that's fair yeah um so I can yeah I can lead and start that we talking about um the school Bo us as a board meeting person yeah so um a couple points one even as we just T just spoke a moment ago about how there are sports teams we have think together um that have where there are students on where we're looking at assessments we are I believe that there there we we still need to take a measured and careful approach to what coming back looks like I know I've heard I'm sure everyone else has heard in the news that you know I've heard things like these next several weeks could be you know they're they're could not be you know there there are some projections that that some of the cases could be worse going forward but as we're looking at some of the signs and some of the numbers I think it's important that we have a conversation uh because um I think it's important that we as a board show that we're not asking folks to come on um and be in be in person and transition to that if if we ourselves are not willing to um I and the same that I would be uh the same way that for our staff I would want to be concerned about are there any folks that have any typee of underlying health conditions or or or or any other types of vulnerabilities I would want to make sure that there's space for that but but I think that um we're I I would suggest that we're be maybe even Beyond um kind of behind a little bit in having a conversation what do we need to do in our in the in the in the boardroom in order to to have that can we house some folks online and some folks in person um but but I just think it's an important conversation for us to have uh publicly and for us to share our thoughts concerns and opinions around the topic I agree with you I think um if we're going to be asking people to come back and we have been then I mean I think we need to be able to model this the the level of safety and um still complying with all the safety requirements um I'm just wondering though whether do do the meetings need to happen in our boardroom our boardroom happens to be a pretty small room right with very little um there's no open there's no windows or anything so I'm just wondering if maybe there's um think about I don't know Arthur have you guys thought about this yet at all I hate to I mean I mean better to let you guys fig think about this yeah uh we can definitely um put out some U ideas and some suggestions some options um and we can bring those we can bring those back maybe even with a like a timeline or suggested timeline or yeah I think that would be helpful I think that would be a good thing C could I ask other colleagues if there you know their thoughts and if if there are concerns um that that they have with the having conversations about starting starting to have an option for a meeting in person I I think that we should start a conversation not a night F on board with you as far as if we are expecting our students and our teachers and our staff and our employees to come in and be in the building then we should probably lead by example as well so we need to but we do also have you know whatever it takes we can all discuss it I think it's a great idea to start talking about it I just have two things to say first of all I want to clar um make a clarification regarding I said the the uh 2020 Golden Ball at the golden B award I'm sorry I had a typo here so I just want to clear that up people probably saying saying it wrong but anyways I I do agree also for myself I it kind of depends where the location would be because I do know the boardroom is small um to return it depends the location what is it going to look like and I just like to see pretty much what's going to look like um prior that's my input thank you and I understand Yanda because I have asthma and I have been with the the smoke that's been going on I have been a mess I know you do yeah so we you know we I'll work through it and figure it out yes I would also agree with I would also agree with my colleagues um I I think it's important for us to to be able to to come and have our school board meetings in person with um with precautions of course and um that's I mean we're having a discussion right now I keep hearing let's have a discussion but are we are we're having it right now correct yes but say yes okay so um to clarify arur you're you're going to find um a place where we can um all um board members and uh cabinet can come together where there's open windows and where we are able to be U far apart um enough for us to be in person and I totally agree with that as well yeah just a point of clarification um I definitely do that um my original understanding was that I would come maybe at our next board meeting come with some options or if you prefer weekly board packet so we can have that conversation either way um options in terms of location options in terms of in-person hybrid audience members technology uh kind of kind of like a like a menu of items and then the board can decide uh the best route to to take yeah I I I would agree with that I um to to board member Arias's point you know this is the conversation so I wonder if in this conversation there are aspects of that that we should talk about I know that our counterparts at the city have been having conversation around should there be in-person um public comment or or or you know online or or comment I'm I'm grateful that we have throughout the the ation still allowed for live comment to happen even though it's been online and so I I would say that I think that that's I would say it's I believe it's important that we still provide that option so that folks are not required to come in and make a a public comment that's that's whether we allow in or whether we decide that it's wise to allow uh in-person public comment or not there should still be a virtual option um I I also wonder what you know are there other types of um physical um changes or or or you know whether it's plexiglass barriers are are there other things that we should evaluate as well it would be good to kind of hear some some of that and what best practices are and seeing what what other um uh governing bodies are doing um in the midst of of of covid but yeah are are there any of those those pieces that that any colleagues think that that aruro mentioned that you have thoughts or opinions on now so they have that as their preparing options for us I think I think those are all good points um um I mean I've mentioned in the past I think even if we move back once we go back to normal times although I hear there's never going to be another normal that that we should find ways to allow people to to give virtual testimony because I feel like we've had more people engaged and listening to board meetings and be and willing to take the time to give public comment um and I think I think it's a good thing right so I think finding ways to be able to continue that um um but I would just say I mean I from for myself personally I would appre I mean I appreciate getting maybe some of those some of your thoughts in the Friday packet but what I would I would prefer as a board member cuz I don't want to I mean I want don't want to spend a lot of time at the board meeting deliberating what you know whether we do this or that is i' I mean I'd rather prefer if the staff really go think about what's the best approach and I mean and bring us a recommendation right I mean obviously there may be some tweaks or what not but but I prefer that rather than having a menu of options that we the five of us have to like muddle through and figure out okay which one do we want to do right I think I think you guys have been studying all the safety pieces for months now so I think you have a good sense of what what needs to happen to be able to have an inperson board meeting and I need to ask Alex if he has any comment about this our student board member I don't have a comment okay wanted to give you the option if I can just uh if I can just loop back around um so we will uh bring forth a recommendation with the kind of things that we have talked about um I'm hearing um pretty loud and clear that no matter what the recommendation is that there that there still uh contains an option uh for public input um that does not necessitate someone to come physically um and that we would bring a recommendation forward uh that addresses uh all of these needs and then of course always room for some tweaks or some edits or some massaging is that correct okay we do okay any more comments all right then we'll move on to item 9.2 approval of contract with Fagan fredman and F Frost LLP do I have any motion on the floor I would like to motion to approve 9.2 approval of contract with fan fredman and Buro LLP second okay motion by board member Ariana seconded by board member Pena um any discussion okay then we can go ahead and vote [Music] okay passes 5 Z and now we will move on to um consent calendar 10.0 um all M 10.1 all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and will be enacted by the board in one Motion in the format following the last consent calendar agenda item there will be no discussion of these items prior to the time the board staff or the public request specific items to be discussed if discussion was is requested by a board member that item will be removed from the consent calendar and will be considered separately the superintendent and staff recommend approval of all consent calendar agenda items and just the reminder that 10 10.4 um BB 9121 will be removed and brought back at the next meeting so do I have a motion I like to pull item 10.7 okay item 10.7 does anybody else want to pull it okay um so all but 10.7 10.1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 and and 13 um do I have a motion on the floor to approve those second uh moved by board member Greer and seconded by board member Pena Cruz Gonzalez oh Cruz Gonzalez okay that's I couldn't quite hear all righty do we have any discussion other than that let's go ahead and vote do I vote Yes I'm now going to ask you to vote I approve yay okay it passes 5 Z and now 10.7 becomes 11.1 and we are at 11.0 items pulled from the consent calendar so 10.7 approve agreement with Caolina comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation service for athletic Training Services for isua and Gladstone High School uh member pen yes I just have a question regarding um I noticed it says outpatient um service and who do they use on the football field when is this someone from Kasa kma or is it a doctor is it a trainer I I just want clarification on that please sure I'd be happy to do that um so yes they employ um certified athletic trainers and that is who would go to um usually practices that have uh contact uh Sports um Home and Away football games and so they provide um certified um athletic trainers who are able to assess um any kind of athletic injury thank you okay any more discussion okay do I have a motion to approve item 11.1 I make a motion to um approve 11.1 I second 11 motion by board member Rodriguez P seconded by board member arianis uh let's go ahead and vote and board student board member how do you vote I approve you approve okay and it's across the board 5 Z 60 counting you now we'll move on to uh 12.0 Human Resources 12.1 isua Unified School District sunshiny Proposal with isua Educators Association so we are going to be moving into a public hearing on that so water I think it says information on there 12 yeah that one's information I was moving down to 12.2 oh okay well we haven't went I thought I was I rushed ahead I apologize is there a PL presentation on the I Board of Education was before you is the district's initial proposal uh for negotiation it's required by government code 3547 um where we um have an give the public an opportunity to one see the um uh articles in the contract that will be up for negotiations for the year and then um it's required to have a hearing and this is the Public's opportunity to comment on the um proposals uh the associations um both uh CCA and aea have already submitted um their proposals and the board's taken action on those the what's before you today is the district's uh proposals for both aea first and then CA second uh there are three parts to to this process the first part is the information uh the second part is the hearing uh and which is an action item and then the Third third part is the formal approval by the Board of Education okay so do I have a motion to open the public hearing on the Isuzu Unified School District's Collective baring proposal for negotiation between isua Educators Association excuse me and the isua unified school districts so Jerry you open the meeting and then you open the hearing and then if any public comment and then there's motion to close it oh that's what I was thinking and I was like okay I haven't thank you okay so I'm opening the meeting is there any public comment okay seeing none do I have a motion to close the meeting I make a motion to Mo to close the public hearing a second okay thank you and do we have any discussion all right let's go ahead and vote and student board member would you like to vote sorry I approve thank you and it passes 5 Z and then we will move on to 12.3 the board of education is required to officially adopt the Isuzu Unified School District's collective bargaining proposal for 20 2021 fiscal year negotiations with the zuza Education Association do I 12.3 he second a motion by board member Rodriguez paa seconded by board member arianis uh let's go ahead and vote thir stent and you're just going to step okay board member student board member you approve yes okay and it passes 5- Z and now uh we will move on to 12.4 zza Unified School District sunshiny Proposal with the California School Employees associationa chapter 299 CSA and this is was discussed earlier so I'm going to go ahead and open the meeting um for the public hearing or open the public hearing on the isua Unified School District's collective bargaining proposal for negotiation between California School Employees Association isua chapter 299 CA and the isua Unified School District district Sunshine proposal do I have any comments or questions from the public okay seeing none um may I have a motion to close the meeting I make a motion to close um 12.5 Y close the the hearing the hearing I keep saying meeting second I second the motion okay and it was uh moved by board member P Rodriguez Pena seconded by board member Greer and any discussion or anything okay let's go ahead and vote student board member I approve yay and there we go again 5 Z and then we will move on to 12.6 the board of education is required to officially adopt the Isuzu Unified School District's collective bargaining proposal for the 2021 fiscal year negotiations with the California School Employees Association isusa chapter 299 CSA do I have a motion to approve make a motion to approve 12.6 I second okay motion by board member Rodriguez penas seconded by board member Arianas is there any discussion he student board member I approve item 12.6 thank you and believe it or not Arturo did give me a rundown on that and I got [Laughter] lost okay and that passes 5- Z and we are at 13.0 adjournment actually uh board president if I if I may um just one moment there's I I apologize there's something I forgot to mention during um comment and I I'd like to mention it now um we we may have uh gotten a phone call from mayor Gonzalez earlier today um and he he reached out um and was asking the five of us school board members if we would be willing to um there there's a church in town who have a hundred turkeys and and and fixings that they're looking to give out and how to how to get that to 100 families and what he he suggested is challenging that the city council the five of them as well as the five of us to each identify 10 families that we could pass along um uh to to receive the the the turkeys and the dinner um and I told him that I was up for the challenge um to to pass along 10 and um wanted to make sure that that was uh passed along to all of our uh my colleagues and ask you also to accept that challenge um to work with our counterparts at the city um to see a 100 families um receive those uh those dinners I'm already working on it Adrian I love it I love it okay I'm up for the challenge I'm doing I love it let's do it sounds good I'm here I accept okay thanks everybody hey no worries anytime anybody has something at the last minute I have no problem with that so okay the score is eight3 that's all I want to say all righty Dodgers go Dodgers now we continue to watch the Dodgers at 8:05 PM because the meeting is now closed Y what time is the meeting closed 805 thank you yeah good night good night by good night
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and then December 8th Clifty Creek will take on Taylorville we will uh do our best to I I'll create a graphic just so that we can put that uh schedule out there each week um this week uh is the very first week of elementary basketball league and so um was able to to stream we were able to stream the um sectional 14 of the volleyball uh High School uh girls volleyball with at Columbus East last week uh five different matchups and now uh I get to transition into to basketball season and for those of you who are watching earlier as I said um you know basketball in Indiana whether it's Elementary Middle School uh High School College Pros uh it's just it's a beautiful thing maybe I'm just a um a sympathetic hooer who who uh really enjoys basketball uh but I think for the state of Indiana in general uh we just have basketball has a special place in our hearts and so you know you might have heard in 49 other states it's just a game but this is Indiana and uh I'm really excited to be uh presenting this live stream Southside versus Parkside uh tonight as you see both teams warming up on on the court we've got about 4 and 1/2 minutes left before tip off our Southside Mustangs girls team are coached by Nate bean and Parkside once again is coached by Kanan hashman e I'm joined in the studio by one of my friends Josh Robinson from Josh Robinson Productions um I wanted to give a quick shout out to him because as soon as I saw him it reminded me of something that I'll talk to him about in just a second but um for those of you who have been enjoying the live streams uh Josh has been just a helpful resource for me I've talked to him a couple times and he's got some experience with live streaming as well as he uh was able to fill in at one of our football games earlier in the season Josh uh you are a parent of one of our um student athletes here uh tell us a little bit about what we can expect from The Parkside lady pirates this season well um could be a little unexpected as uh we got a lot of new faces uh out there on the court that we haven't seen before so uh they're really hyped up though and excited that they are are getting to play so um it's uh it's going to beting in we'll see how it goes yeah last year the uh Pirates took home the championship as I remember and yeah so two years in a row wow so it'll be uh was this a is this a rematch here did they take on Southside in the finals I I don't remember who the you know what I believe it was Mount Healthy it was Mount Healthy wasn't it I I don't remember we definitely played southide apologize I've got uh covid-19 era brain right now I know that Mount Healthy has had a very successful girls program as as well as the Southside Mustangs but forgive me maybe someone could uh send me a text or a Facebook message to to jog my memory but just wanted to give a quick shout out to Josh Robinson great guy as well as uh small business owner here in the community and um now that I get to work with bcsc I've really enjoyed uh just seeing all the work that Josh is doing to celebrate our small businesses in the community thanks for talking for a second Josh e you 5 seconds left the clock is about to go off and we're getting ready for game number two here of our week one EO game of the [Applause] week as Josh said Parkside the two-time defending champs taking on the Southside [Applause] Mustangs great to hear our Southside Mustang cheerleaders encouraging their classmates and Jernigan gets the [Applause] tip oh in an opening bank shot from the Mustangs and as I learned earlier thanks to Tanya elely there are no three-pointers but but that was a three-pointer in my book great shot and start to the game for the [Applause] Mustangs hashman must have wanted to talked about something with his ladies that was a quick timeout just 24 seconds into the [Music] [Applause] game Mustangs bringing the Press early and the ball out of bounds goes back to the Mustangs Mustangs bringing the pressure Sims takes the ball out [Applause] [Music] 15 out to the top number [Applause] 11 number 11 with the drive and a great [Applause] shot and once again the must must things bring the pressure that was Avery [Applause] Baker and a nice take to the hole by Riley Sims but good defense by the Pirates Sims inbounds out to Baker passes to Wilson oh just a little bit out of off and ball goes to [Applause] Parkside kickball out of bounds [Applause] Southside brings the pressure off of Ava Wilson ball stays with [Applause] Parkside number three Ava Kerber takes the ball out of bounds passes in into number 20 passes ahead to number five for the shot and a great shot by Parkside now 4-2 that was Danone with the shot Wilson passes it out to Baker Baker over to Wilson wil into Jernigan Jernigan clears out back to Sims oh and a steal by [Applause] Parkside and that's Kerber taking it out of bounds once again oh and a steal by [Applause] Sims passes over to Wilson Wilson finds a wide open number 45 Wilson again just a little bit long Jernigan out to [Applause] Sims and Parks side oh steal by Baker back to Wilson oh great defense from The Parkside Pirates oh and just a little bit long but a great rebound and oh what a putb what a putback by number 15 [Applause] [Music] Emma lowther sorry about that folks I'm trying to do too many things at once [Applause] here 4 to four 527 in the second period Parkside inbounds it to wower wer takes the ball up the court and a great [Applause] steal man trying to click between buttons again [Applause] apologies Parks side will regain possession passes it into lower Southside still with the pressure number five brings the ball up the court four to four oh looks like a called travel and the ball will go back to the Southside Mustangs hey there's DBL director Dennis Pierce Dennis so far some great defense shown from Southside they're bringing the pressure what are your thoughts so far this match well I uh you know once again the defense is always going to be a lot better right now than the offense early in the season so I think you're seeing seeing that right now Parkside I know loves to press it's kind of been their thing they've done over the years and obviously it looks like they're doing that now so uh got a great game going right now for sure very good looks like uh Ava Wilson I believe and just a little bit left [Applause] second shot coming from Southside oh and just a little bit long Dennis things looked like it went pretty well in between games tell us a little bit about some of the uh things logistically uh that you've put into place to make sure that we can have a safe and healthy season for our student athletes and their families well we started off for sure uh We've we've limited the amount of tickets that uh and the amount of fans that can be in the gym at one time each student is allowed four tickets to purchase so that's limit the amount of people obviously in the gym and then we're uh we're letting people in at a certain time and then we're exiting people after the game out a different way so people coming in and the people leaving aren't crossing paths we're wiping the ball down every quarter and uh all the kids on the bench if you notice on the TV that they're all wearing their mask and I think everybody in the stands is wearing their masks too so everybody's done a really good job job of trying to follow the rules and I think that's what's going to make hopefully the season last for n you know eight weeks is because everybody's going to follow the rules yeah and you know um at the end of this last game very close match between Southside and Parkside uh Southside able to come out with the victory but you know uh everyone gave a standing ovation and do you think that that's just you know people are excited to be able to have a season this year well I think you know rumors sometimes happen and I think the the the rumors the standing rumor was there's not going to be an ebl season and I think everybody really thought that so I think most people are willing to follow the rules and do the right things because we're allowed to have a season so I I think most people are very excited that we that we get to play and the kids get a chance to do something besides stay at home and sit in their room because of Co so I think they're very excited to be out and be able to do something well very good well we appreciate everything that you're doing and wow oh just barely in and out [Applause] appreciate everything that you're doing Dennis um you know last year Parkside able to bring home the championship in both boys and girls um is this a repeat as well or who was the other um competitor playing against Parkside last year um you know to be honest with you Josh I I don't remember I I I do know this I was talking to to the Parkside coach before the game and he was really worried because you know he lost 90% of his scoring he said and and was really worried about where the scoring was going to come from but it looks like they're you know a competitive game so you know the girls obviously are ready to play and he'll have to find some scoring from somewhere but he was really concerned about his scoring I don't know how much Southside lost from last year how many girls have back but I do know I talked to the Southside coach and he said all of his girls that are back this year are sixth graders for the most part so he was expecting a big season out of his sixth gr group yeah and definitely Ava Wilson hits both free throws six four good defense from the Mustangs able to pass it down to Kai Jernigan for the layup 45 seconds to go in the second quarter and Dennis you know you're officially getting older when one of your friends that you went to high school with and played basketball has a sixth grader who just scored a layup yeah that's always a sign of old age for us for you and I both for sure so and and a great layup from Kai Jernigan there I know her dad Taylor is in the stands and I know he's proud of those first two points from his daughter defense once again coming from Southside Southside pushes the pace but back in the hands of Parkside let's see it looks like a jump ball but that will be the first half 8 to four Southside over Parkside and once again just want to say a big thanks to Dennis Pierce director of ebl for all that he and his team and all the elementary squads as well as now you see our uh cheerleaders coming out thank you for everyone uh doing everything they can to save this season and allow our student athletes to just have a as normal as a time and a great experience during this basketball season we're going to go and take a quick break so you can enjoy our cheerleaders [Applause] that was your Southside cheerleaders who just came on we're here with Southside principal Jeff Bach before we get started happy National principales month uh for those who might not know um my two kids go to Southside of trying to be as impartial as I can tonight but I want to say a special happy principal month to Mr BM as as well as Mrs Jackson um Mr bmar is going to go ahead and announce our cheerleaders who just came by and I'm going to go and turn the mic over to him thank you Mr Bernett uh it is good to be with you this evening we are very fortunate to have a great set of young ladies uh that are student athletes here at Southside Elementary School and our cheerleaders tonight are Madison man bellaa Walsh Addie nap Lyla motam mano mogz mogus jeda Smith Addie kitel Lily donica Samayra Gala San Pula and Lanna lyans and they are coached by Mimi Walsh and Stephanie gambell awesome thank you very much Mr BM Mr BM you were your team was able to bring home the very first game of tonight's eblo game of the week what did you think about the performance from the Mustangs well Mr Bernett I would at the front door taking tickets but the beautiful thing was I was sitting there on YouTube uh cheering by myself uh but it was a fantastic game it is always a great evening to have the Parkside Pirates come by and and play a close game they are always close doesn't matter which season it is so uh I was very impressed by both sides and it's a great way to start the season obviously with a a nice cross town rivalry here in the state of Indiana well thank you for everything you as well as our uh your your Compadres with uh I see Mr Smith over there I tried to get him on the the microphone he wasn't willing to come over but I want to say a thank you to Mr Smith as well as Mrs bodart for all that they've done tonight I know that you guys have been doing double and triple Duty so appreciate everything as Riley Sims just knocked down a couple of free throws Mr bachmeier I think your Mustangs are looking pretty good to start this second quarter here oh there's Riley Sims once again with oh I would I wanted to say an a in-one opportunity you know um I just got a text and this is a championship rematch from last year and you know it looks like you've got I talked to Mr Bean he said that there's quite a few girls that are return from uh last year's team tell me a little bit about your Mustangs out here on the court whether it be you know um obviously they're great athletes but also great students as well well I am amazed at what all the coaches in in bcsc have done in in just a few days uh We've obviously crunched the timeline to get everything in and so our basketball teams and our cheerleaders have had a very short turnaround time to go from tryouts to uh game weeks as we've started but Ive I have been impressed um we are very fortunate at Southside as well as in bcsc to have uh student athletes and we stress that that we've got to have great students before we can allow them to play The Athlete role model part but uh we do put some pressure on our kids here to be good role models for the Mustangs uh as you as you Dawn a basketball uniform in the state of Indiana uh it it comes with pride uh not only in your school but in yourself and uh we we do expect our students uh student athletes to be good role models and we are very fortunate at Southside uh to have great role models for our kids here at Southside but yeah Avery uh Riley a lot of leaders from last year that have taken it upon themselves as sixth graders just as we do with all every sixth grader we we kind of put the pressure on them to be role models in the classroom as well as on the floor and and we're fortunate to have some really good players back from last year's team to lead them on the floor as well well very good I know Mr BM you've got a lot going on but just wanted to say thank you for all that you and Mrs Jackson are doing I know it's it's a lot to be hosting uh the e but really appreciate you know you're able to use this former middle school as a great uh basketball gym for this ebl and really appreciate all you've done to be just a great host well I I appreciate you taking the time to to come out and and live stream games uh I would I would guess in the 50 states uh there aren't very many places where we're live streaming elementary basketball games and we've got I think I heard you earlier say a 100 devices watching uh live but it is it's a great thing so I appreciate you guys taking time and I appreciate your family uh giving a little bit of time here uh to have you out and live stream games as we go through the E season hey we are glad to do it and uh thank you for your time all right 14 to8 Southside oh hopefully everybody's okay with that Collision some aggressive play from uh both teams Riley Sims able to walk it [Applause] off 4 minutes and 45 seconds left in the second period perod and if you're watching this uh I just wanted to do a special plug once again for our principles uh you might know that may is National national uh teachers month and there's often teacher appreciation week but here during the month of October it is National principal month wow great [Applause] shot from Avery Baker right there to update the score [Applause] here 16 to8 as I was saying it's National principal's month here well in the in the nation actually duh um but uh here at bcsc um on the Facebook page if you go there at the very top we've pinned a video that I created just to raise some awareness to National principales month and we are throwing out a challenge we've already had a couple people take part in that by using the hash bcsc principles Rock and if you would like to create a video or perhaps uh you know send a card or um you know do a drawing and then give that to your principal if you put that on social media what a great shot from Southside if you do that you will be included in a drawing later in the month we just like to uh say a special thank you to our principles as you know all of our teachers all of our principes all of our staff members uh everyone within bcsc is is just working their hard out to do everything we can to make sure that our kids are getting a great education that they're staying safe and healthy and and making sure that uh in the midst of you know just a you know hopefully once in A- lifetime situation with covid-19 that you know we can be a a stable and supportive Foundation um partnering with our our families all over the community to invest in these children uh they certainly deserve it and are worth it and we are glad to have the opportunity to have options whether it be uh in-person instruction the bridge program Columbus virtual pathway is as well as uh providing great extracurricular activities like in this case tonight ebl with basketball and [Applause] cheerleading and a good rebound from Southside there got on a little bit of a roll there talking and I have to hit some buttons to make sure that our camera switch and I'm trying to make sure that you get a good experience here live streaming in a great Breakaway layup from The Parkside Pirates number 20 Aaliyah Grimes and that's 10 points on the board for the Parkside Pirates and I wish wish that I could uh just one more time thank our principls like Mr Smith who's walking by here and uh also Mr bmy I'm going to try to coax him over at one time so that he'll talk maybe next time 18- 10 Southside over Parks side [Applause] [Music] we got our Parkside Pirates tier leaders leading the let's go pirates tier oh this is [Applause] great and the Pirates are first on the floor ready to go ready to set the pace as Southside still with an eight-point lead 1 minute and 43 seconds left in the first half here Southside inbounds the [Music] ball oh and and those things are going to happen this early in the season as Mr bachmeier said um these guys and girls have have not had the opportunity to practice a lot and so you know early on you're seeing some some really strong defense uh the scoring might be a little bit lower than you'll see later in the season but the one thing that you're going to see from from all of our teams this season is is a great hustle oh and an inbound to Grimes oh Wilson pushes the pace under a minute left to go back to [Applause] Wilson and it's a jump [Applause] ball possession to the Pirates Grimes pushes the ball up the court oh oh so close Grimes and Grimes with the [Applause] jumper 18 to 12 Wilson brings the ball up the court probably playing for the last shot less than 10 seconds five four three two one Wilson at the buzzer oh just a little bit short great last possession for the Mustangs and just comes up short good shot there from Wilson I'm sure that coach hashman and Coach Bean are giving some words of encouragement as well as opportunities to improve in this second half you know early on Southside really came out strong with a um a lot of pressure on the defensive side that got them off to an opening lead uh but Parkside didn't let up led by Aaliyah Grimes um just their team's been playing tough on both sides of the ball and I really see that uh this one's going to come down in my opinion uh hopefully down to the last few minutes um both teams you know off to a good start here in game number one uh for them on the season and uh just impressed with the efforts from from both teams so far we're going to go ahead and take a quick break and we will be back with you in just a few moments two minutes until the start of the second half here in the first week and tonight's um e game of the week between Southside Mustangs and the Parkside [Applause] Pirates e [Applause] hey see see what up e [Applause] and we're ready to start the second half Southside up 18 over Parks sides 12 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Southside will start with possession Sims into Wilson Wilson to Sims Wilson over to Baker Baker oh with the jumper just a little bit strong oh Baker back with the ball oh and possession stays with Southside [Applause] [Music] [Applause] want to give a shout out to my friend Mike Tinsley who is watching the live stream tonight he was able to uh help me remember something and Mike you're exactly right sometimes that is the uh that's the truth but thank you so much for texting me as well as tuning in to tonight live [Music] stream at the line for the Mustangs Baker [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh and just in and out but Sims with the jumper oh and just out of bounds possession Parks [Music] [Applause] side Grimes brings the ball up the court passes down low [Applause] passes down [Applause] low and Southside with possession [Applause] Wilson brings the ball up the court and the bank is still [Music] open Quick timeout taken [Applause] 7 minutes left here in the third [Music] [Applause] quarter Parks side with the ball Grimes brings the ball up the court Sims playing some aggressive defense called for the [Applause] foul steal by Southside Sims with the Breakaway and it's [Applause] good and Sims with another steal but Grimes able to track her down [Applause] 22-2 6 minutes left to play in the third [Music] quarter due to the 10-point lead Southside is not able to press at the moment Grimes with the ball Wilson brings the ball up the court [Music] Jernigan back to Wilson a wide open Mustang oh just a little short Grimes oh Grimes hit the shot there's some confusion basket counts probably could have something to do with the mask there there looked like some sort of confusion the assistant coach for Parkside was talking but the referee shows a shows some Grace and counts the rewards Grimes for the great shot Southside brings the ball up the court Wilson passes it oh and a good [Applause] shot Parkside brings the ball up oh and just gets away from the Pirates number two NOA Robinson in Wilson brings the ball up [Applause] Jernigan back to [Applause] Wilson passes it [Applause] around [Applause] Grimes with the bank shot cuts into the lead of the [Music] Mustangs apologies there folks I was trying to update wow what a shot from [Applause] Wilson I am taking volun volunteer applications at this moment trying to do three things at once apologize once again for that [Applause] Park Side pass up to Grimes and it's [Applause] good 24 to 18 2 minutes 40 seconds left oh and a and a steal by Parkside [Applause] Wilson Oh in good defense from [Applause] Parkside AA Kerber with the deflection there Riley Sims back in [Applause] Sams passes in the [Applause] corner oh and just out of bounds off of the [Applause] [Music] Mustangs 1 minute 35 seconds left in the third quarter 24 to 18 [Applause] Parkside Pirates cheerleaders getting into [Music] [Applause] it Elise cha Carolina hails Evelyn mun doosy Sydney Bostic Ali Riley Hayden Henry Bailey Benfield and Esther Batista coached By Zoe Smith Parks South excuse me getting into it now pass into lther Southside picks him up at Full Court and looks like a foul might be called [Applause] there wow there with the shot oh Sims brings the ball up passes to Wilson oh just through her [Music] [Applause] fingertips Southside brings the ball up stolen oh but it's just in and out out what a heartbreak great defense from Avery Baker ball brought up by Noah [Music] Robinson Riley Sims comes up with it passes it ahead oh just stepped out of [Applause] bounds H so gallion passed that ball in Noah Robinson now with the ball oh and that's the end of the third quarter 24- 18 Southside Mustangs still in control of this one and here's our Parkside pirates that I just introduced a few moments ago special thanks to Zoe Smith and the parks side Pirates cheerleaders [Applause] ladies and genten we like to thank everyone for out this evening we appreciate your patience as we get through this first week of basketball I want to make sure that everybody knows when we exit this evening we're going to have the Southside folks exit out this door over here uh the kids are their backpacks all that kind of stuff are in the hallway so you can pick up your kid and exit out this way and the par side folks are going to have you exit out this door wait for your child and exit out the stairs and outside for the once again thanks for your patience we appreciate you being here that was Dennis Pierce ebl director giving some instructions to those who are in person here uh making sure everything making sure that we're doing everything we can to uh keep our students and family safe um The Parkside Pirates are seated to one side and the souths side families are seated on the other and they went came came in through different entrances and are going out through different exits oh and a great shot from The Parkside Pirates number three Ava [Applause] Kerber that's into the lead of the Pirates ball back to Wilson [Applause] CT Sims drives to the left and foul on the [Music] floor Sims takes the ball [Applause] out passes it into Wilson back to Sims and she's [Applause] fouled Riley Sims will go to the wine and Sims Nails the first [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one and just a little off on the second one Parkside brings the ball up the court and a great shot by the pirates that was number 10 Sophia [Applause] gallion 2522 we've definitely got a close game 8 minutes left in the fourth period [Applause] pass in Sims oh and just short oh and she tries the dive and just out of bounds ball goes back to the Pirates gallion takes the ball out to [Applause] Kerber passes down low oh just in and out Sims brings the the ball up the court crosses her over goes to the Baseline and it's [Applause] in gallium brings the ball up the court to the right side and she's fouled [Applause] Park Side inbounds the [Applause] ball Baker oh Baker got the rebound and pushed the pace up the court got fouled by a Parkside pirate 6 and 1 half minutes left Sims to Baker Baker over to Wilson Sims down low great ball movement from the Mustangs Sims with the fake down low to 45 45 oh Mustangs called for a 3se second violation I have to say that didn't result in any points for either team but that was some great ball movement there let's see how Parkside respond as they get possession Kerber looks like a kickball we'll see who ends up getting possession Mustangs Wilson brings the ball up the [Applause] court and rebounded by [Applause] gallion gallion drives to the right puts up a shot is fouled she will go to the line for two [Music] [Applause] Grimes replaces Lyla rager Baker brings the ball [Applause] up oh looks like a called double dribble [Applause] gallion passes the ball to Kerber screen by Grimes Kerber drives shoots gallion with the putback Kerber is fouled AA cerber will go to the line for two 27-22 Southside currently leading the Parkside Pirates four minutes left in the fourth quarter Kerber oh and just a little short one more shot coming up Jernigan back in Herber second Sims brings the ball up to court passes it to Wilson [Music] Wilson to Baker Baker to Sims Sims to Wilson Wilson takes the shot and just a little long Jernigan tracks down the rebound oh and just out of bounds back to the [Applause] Pirates principal BM just came in and he said exactly what I was thinking this is a barn burner folks This is Indiana basketball [Applause] Grimes Grimes and Jernigan jump [Applause] ball and possession to the [Music] Mustangs Wilson brings the ball up the [Applause] court Wilson to Sims back to Wilson to Baker [Applause] Sims down low to Jernigan Jernigan passes it to Sims ball movement from the Mustangs Baker with the shot almost Tracked Down by Grimes but back to Wilson who passes it to eventually to [Applause] Jernigan and back to Riley Sims two minutes left passes it to Baker [Applause] Wilson the referee is counting and that's 5 seconds for the Mustangs possession back to the Pirates 1 minute 37 seconds left gallion about to bring the ball in [Applause] thankfully the clock has stopped giving both teams well it is a full timeout [Applause] taken and this is definitely uh I just saw one of our students saying hello it is a a pretty cool thing whenever you get to be on on TV right looks like that might be at least on the back of the shirt a Wilson family member Southside cheerleaders getting into it not to be outdone though by our Pirates over in the left [Music] corner gallion set to inbound the ball [Music] [Applause] Kerber drives and a jump ball possession stays with the Pirates Kerber inbounds the ball good shot by number 15 gallion oh and just out of bounds Emma lowther had a great attempt at a shot unable to go down this time Wilson brings up the ball to Baker wow they playing good D Baker passes it to number [Applause] 45 Sims with the [Applause] ball Wilson great defense from gallion gallion driving and Wilson called for the foul I'm going to do my best to announce as many names as possible so I'm going to go back to our Southside musings see [Applause] here I'm I'm looking for a Southside girls roster [Music] [Applause] the only one that's that I'm missing right now oh here it is wanted to give some credit to Lucy Ross number [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 45 Wilson to Ross back back to Sims Sims finds an open Baker in the corner oh and gallion with the rebound shees brings the ball up the court 15 seconds left Grimes with the ball oh and just out of bounds 9.7 seconds left inbounds the ball to Wilson and that ladies and gentlemen is the oh Jernigan 27-22 both games great matches from Parks side and Southside very close games and the customary waves tonight from the Mustangs I'm sure the Parkside Pirates will do that as well just to say say thank you for coming out and playing and claps from both great sportsmanship from both teams well tonight it was all Mustangs 27 to 22 in the second match of this week's e game of the week want to thank you for tuning in here on bcsc's YouTube channel we will be back with you next week for another game of the week in elementary basketball league thank you to uh our principals to our teachers to our support staff as well as the parents and students who made it out here tonight and are doing everything they can to make this season possible well for bcse my name again is Josh brette thank you for tuning in we will see you next time
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she will top that ball trying to put it in play but amherst is unable to take advantage pretty warm night here in later mid-october all things considered definitely a lot warmer last time we were out here gage back on october 1st absolutely um we were both covering the uh all right actually we'll bring it back to when we first started this and it was the first game for all of fall sports which happened to be field hockey we both were a little under prepared it was chillier than usual but we wasn't too bad then next time we come in it's for the varsity soccer girl soccer game and i think it was really windy that game was super i think it was like probably 10 degrees less than what it was the previous yeah and then so then i'm thinking to myself oh it's gonna probably be a chillier day and then here i am already debating on whether or not i should have brought shorts the pressure from amherst continues but possession award east saw meadow let's see if they can go back to that sustained attack they had in the first couple of minutes got a substitution being made it's terrapique who was in comes off in favor of talia weiss coach reed keeping the legs fresh out there a lot of substitutions being made so far the ball moving by the hurricane shot on net goes off a float but on they play and it's cleared out by the spartans chilling takes it to the far side well defended by looked like that was ron karate [Music] and she will send it up field but her pass is knocked away and another decent opportunity for amherst i mean credit to the hurricanes they've come out with a lot of pressure once they finally were able to get it to the opposite half of the field absolutely i uh it's shocking to see how poor i don't want to say poor the defenses three song mode because they have been able to stop it but the transition game free song meadow is not there every time they try to make that far past to try and set up their offense they managed to turn the ball over with just nobody being even close to it and then having to go right back on defense lily sterling [Music] sub coming in late that password looking for weiss goes just over her stick ron karate putting some pressure on maria knisney spartans get the ball back pass ford's knocked down just great defensive layers at midfield by amherst preventing the spartans from getting anything going forward ball lofted out on a nice play by lorac that passport almost a breakaway but a good job by knocking that ball out stepping in front of the passing lane as grace wilkinson probably saved a breakaway wilkinson wrists it forward but that one will go out of bounds here comes another substitution for the spartans ron karate comes off and she will be replaced by caitlyn dowd who did start this game so quick breather for dowden back in she comes [Music] all the way to the far side of the field wilkinson retrieves it a couple of good moves to free up some space she's able to switch fields [Music] not a whole lot on that pass forward by looks like that was maybe shilling but regardless here they come the other way down stepping in shot and it's kicked aside just getting a piece of it with schreier she didn't get all of it it looked like it just glanced off the outside of her leg so that will be possession award no it's actually given to amherst so must've just completely missed her and ended up missing the neck entirely yeah it was definitely a close one i i mean from the angle we're out that could go either way but um with the ref being on the other side of the field it definitely allows him to see what we couldn't see so from what we see that it's it's a 50 50 probably from what his angle was that was a good call comes another golden opportunity for the spartans pass is knocked aside and dowd stumbles a little bit it looked as though olivia rob had a great opportunity to put that one on net but she opted for the pass and said it was knocked away but the spartans do keep possession with three minutes left in the first quarter still scoreless sterling that shot is blocked given back to east longmeadow sterling winds up and cranks one on net it's going to miss wide to the outside post sterling hasn't been afraid to shoot the ball with a lot of force so far but still we stay scoreless yeah one thing i noticed that we didn't notice in uh previous games for the field hockey or east long metal field hockey team was the midfield battle um a lot of the games it was just back and forth right at the midfield no crazy possession times in the offense but uh so far this entire first quarter it's just been crazy possession time for you song meadow then it goes right to crazy possession time for amherst and then a repeat of crazy possession time free song meadow we'll see if amherst now takes advantage and tries to drain out the rest of this first quarter but so far it's been heavy offense good pressure from the spartans frees up the ball weiss's pass goes down low finds rob rob trying to get an angle rob with a shot kick save made rebound is loose and looks like amherst caught a break there as they're able to get it out on the whistle a couple of great chances late in this first quarter by olivia rob [Music] trying to lift that one forward is wilkinson but back come the spartans rob can't fight it through a couple of amherst defenders but a whistle is called fighting through is rob but again another corner so to speak but instead of the traditional corners now the balls just put in play back at the 25 these adjusted rules and got 50 seconds remaining so spartans wasting no time putting it in play pass is broken up a great defensive play not a whole lot of help but here comes all alone it's [Music] maria canesti [Music] can't fight through it macarena with a good defensive play to spin it back to the far side east long meadow might have time to get an opportunity of their own olivia rob rob gets an angle 18 seconds rob with nothing but open field in front of her 15 seconds rob with help gets broken up a great defensive play by wilkinson who's had a strong first quarter for the hurricanes final seconds tick off and it was an exciting first quarter here from east long meadow high school but we remain scoreless amherst in east long meadow in a tight battle gage what'd you see in the first quarter of action well i was saying it earlier and i'll say it again um offense was definitely even though scoreless offensive opportunities were at a prime in this quarter um one thing for east long meadow was their shots it was all down low and every save or every attempt for a stop by amherst was a kick save with that being said i don't know that could if they up the ante and put a little bit more power onto their hits they might be able to get squeeze a couple by um for amherst i think obviously we haven't seen how they've played before but from what we've heard and what the scores were right now they're doing phenomenal and right now they just need to keep it up and make sure they can hold the song meadow yeah i didn't get a look at the box scores of the first four games they played but this has to be probably the best quarter they've played all year with the exception of whenever they scored their one goal against longmeadow they must have come into this game knowing hey we played a couple of tough teams to start this schedule maybe it was a confidence builder instead of a morale ender so to speak losing those games by such margins and now they come into a game against nissan meadow team who's really in the same boat as them still looking for that first victory of the season and they came into this game thinking hey if we play hard we got a chance at winning this game and so far they have held their own against the spartans uh yeah absolutely another key thing that might help east long meadow is uh we were talking about earlier they're uh island windows head coach uh coach reed also the boys hockey coach he's used to having to be able to work under pressure have to quickly make changes to his game plan he's also from last year he was well he was able to overtake comebacks and take advantages of any defense that he was thrown against both teams getting ready to go back out onto the field for the second quarter just waiting on amherst to retake the field definitely not the same depth that amherst has compared to east long meadow with just about a half a dozen bench players so you saw metal does have that advantage of more players to go to the opportunity to keep most of their players relatively fresh so they head back out there both goaltenders credit to them they've made some big save schreier for amerstand strong performance as well from elaine nathan second quarter is underway fast forward does not find the intended target and it's knocked down by marissa bermier long pass intended for taft but it's too far forward pass by wilkinson gets through but knocked down by macarena who jumps up into the play ball will roll in just unable to keep it in his pq but looked like it went out before she tried making a play on the ball so it'll be spartan's possession peaky lofts to space stepping up's macaroni macaroni's pass is knocked down but so gets partially through on the far side centering pass kicked aside by the goaltender schreier rebound is swapped at swa swatted at excuse me and kicked aside once more by schreier so a couple of more great opportunities for the spartans and they still can't quite get that first goal passed keep possession with east long meadow they're gonna bring it all the way back out to the far side 25.
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spartans will play it back to mackerini pq finds it but that ball aggressively kicked out by schreier danger hasn't passed though macareni stayed stepping in all alone a shot she scores anna macarini gets the spartans on the board with 13 minutes left in the second quarter east longmeadow with a one nothing lead uh there's a lot of goal but there's a lot of macaroni there's a lot of chances for east long letto on that uh scoring opportunity obviously we had we had macarini right in there for the easy shot and right to her left she had one of her teammates there for a nice pass to try and get that one and um uh anna macarene decided to shoot it it worked so eson metal up one nothing and hopefully they can continue the scoring spartans looking for more trying to fight it forward past midfield but good answer there and i think the ball still is still alive [Music] no it is not didn't hear a whistle there but they're gonna bring it back a little bit in amherst we'll put it back in play grace wilkinson to midfield [Music] here come the hurricanes with some numbers pass is knocked away a great read by nevins nevins with her head up looking for options she's got plenty of help and finally is able to spin it forward and waiting for it are the spartans the convoy ahead ron karate going to chase it down we've got fireworks going off just completely out of nowhere and the ball will go out of play and it'll be awarded this long meadow this is right earlier parking lot over at st michael's adjacent to the field and here come the hurricanes pass lead forward intended for mahoney now nevins will send one forward past everybody that will force amherst to retreat that's catsalakis pass is knocked down but it went off a spartan's foot sent back in play picked up by beaumeer bowman with a great pass ahead here comes rob forward spartans great opportunity but taft can't get it through cleared out by amherst stepping up and it was beaumeer who got her foot in front of that [Music] bomb you're able to recover spins and a great pass forward weiss that was ron karate actually olivia robb has weiss cut into the front of the net rob back to ron karate wilkinson can't clear it cleanly and it'll be spartan's ball once again just over 10 minutes remaining a one-nothing lead for reese longmeadow looking to add to it here pass fed forward rebound comes loose for rob backhanded attempt doesn't get through rob another shot attempt just kept out still loose in front and another remarkable save made by mackenzie schreyer relentless push though from the spartans as they keep it on their opponents half of the field [Music] broken up by catsalakis put they'll give it back to east long meadow bowmere pass is knocked away catsalakis mahoney looking to move past there's a nifty move on nevins by mahoney gabrielle mahoney the junior he's able to draw a foul catsalakis puts it in play mahoney can't find it now on the far side it's mira city charity [Music] but rob sends it all the way down and here comes east long meadow again dowd looking for some help with weiss weiss comes over to play the ball it's a stalemate finally won by grace wilkinson who's certainly been a bright spot in this game for amers making a couple of huge defensive plays deep in her own end capsulakis who's also been pretty strong in the back end moves it forward but amherst just needs that offense they haven't had at all this season not to be so far bomiers pass is knocked down quickly played by rob ball goes through weiss's legs but she's quickly over to get it natalia weiss looking for the crossing pass gets through endowed with a strong dick down looking for a shot but she pulled it just a little bit and it misses about three feet wide so with 7 45 to go it'll be amherst possession once again they trail one nothing to the spartans large amount of substitutions made from amherst as they swap off about half their roster [Music] cutting up field is knee [Music] comes back to try to make a play now the spartans with a potential two on one but muddled by wilkinson second attempt to get it through finds white weiss with a shot but good job sealing off the angle by schreyer really strong in net once more went off of schreier last so spartans get it at the 25.
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olivia rob get some help from weiss and it's lofted out and it is found by mahoney honey's got a decent amount of space takes it upfield herself her pass goes through maybe a two on one if amherst can recognize it but trouble getting it through and now the tables have turned here come the spartans [Music] that was molly haller again her first opportunity haller a head for weiss a little bit too far ahead voice persistent on that four check but up comes kaneshny maria knezhny's had the bulk of amherst opportunities in this game along with mahoney but we haven't seen really any opportunities for this hurricane's team gage since halfway through the first quarter i'd say absolutely uh ever since that uh first goal for east long meadow they've kept the pressure coming i i think the farthest we've seen the ball go was to what the 25 35 when they'd have to do until now here comes amber says they'll get another opportunity spartans will make a quick substitution as rob will check back in she replaces weiss who's logged some serious minutes in this game it looks like amherst is going to go more offensive on this formation they have their back defenseman up further than usual so we'll see if that ends up posing a factor shot attempt knocked down dug out by the spartans dangerously in front but beaumont is able to make a strong play and switch to the far side taller howlers pass finds rob rob has numbers looking ahead for taft centering pass for taps you can't get a stick on it it goes all the way through and out of play the opportunities have been there but they've only been able to capitalize once and amer still fighting hard to try to keep this a close game 403 left in the first half up field it's a good looking pass a little too far ahead for sophie sweden but the return pass finds sweden sweden's pass is knocked down and it goes off the leg of nevins nevin's able to make up for it by breaking up that opportunity gets her stick in but there's a centering feed in front great opportunity the shot doesn't get through and it's awarded to east long meadow man it looks like amherst might have had a golden chance to tie this game late in the first half [Music] clearing attempt is picked off nevins knocks it down and evan sends it for [Music] nevins stick handling by herself thrown forward it finds taft taft has macarini cutting way down the field she can take that open space here comes pressure from behind taft recognizes a little too late and it's kicked away by schreier boy she really had macareni streaking down the field with a golden opportunity absolutely uh what else i noticed with macaroni was she was actually cutting that across to try and make sure that she was known to be wide open shot on goal and that will result in a corner quote unquote and we got an injury here got a spartan down on the field and without with 205 remaining in the first half we'll take a quick timeout you're watching east long mouth spartans field hockey right here on lcap and welcome back to saw meadow high school you can see there anna macarini walking off the field under her own pat under her own power which is definitely a good sign gage and she's unable to come back to be a tough loss for the spartans after she scored the only goal so far in this game absolutely ignoring just the only goal for east longmeadow she also had plenty of opportunities where she made her presence known being wide open and making her presence known in front of the net it's going to be awful if islam leno doesn't have her come back but with her have walking on her own two feet that gives hope for the fans and even coach reed so in the meantime amherst looking for a an equalizer with less than two minutes to go in the half on the near side it's fed forward said he charity can't do much with it whacking at it was bowmere it's fought through for rob but quickly going the other way is amherst lobbed forward but nevins is back on defense that's actually isabel will rock fighting through and and whistle her it's a shot towards the front of the net loose in front and it looks like kicking that away was elaine nathan so talked a lot gage about triers strong game but nathan's had to make some pretty big saves herself absolutely all the opportunities that aguam has had nathan's been able to stop him and uh then right a couple seconds after elongated was able to clear it both goalies are having a great time ones one only remains down with the possibility of a shutout and nathan's right now praying she can keep that shutout going here comes more pressure from amherst there's a shot centering pass looking for it another swing at it and the whistle blows 15 seconds amherst looking to hustle and get this one in play 10 seconds that's not gonna be enough time three two one and they're out of time so that shot doesn't count and ooh looked like rob might have caught that stick right on the hand yeah she's holding this she's coming off to the sidelines that can never feel good but still some good things to feel or think some things to feel good about for the spartans they lead it one nothing at the half gage your thoughts on half number one well started off with um animaker or start off in the first quarter back and forth most of the possession time going to east long meadow second quarter hits and anna macarini gets the only goal so far we have in the half amherst had some lucky opportunities uh come at them right at the end of the second quarter yisong leto was able to hold them off and i think looking at amherst you need to build off that momentum that you got at the end of that second quarter try and use that to help you in the third quarter and possibly tie the game as for you song meadow i think they need to fix the mistakes that caused those opportunities for amherst but other than that they've been playing very good and right now they're just hoping they can get back anna macareni all right we'll take a quick break the second half of action coming up next you are watching east long meadow spartans field hockey live on elkcat you and welcome back to eastern high school the spartans lead one-nothing lone goal scored by anna mccarini about midway through or i'm sorry early in the second quarter with about 13 minutes to play in that second quarter gage the opportunities have been there for the spartans they have a lead but the opportunities have also been there especially as a flag for amherst absolutely um amherst have that like you were saying amherst had those opportunities late and it came late in the second quarter a lot of the ball was a lot of the times right in front of nathan uh a lot of coverage though with eson letter defenders and amherst attackers just being in the way so you couldn't really read where the ball was at most of the time but um those opportunities that came at the end of the second quarter for amherst they need to build off of that you bring that into the third quarter hopefully try and tie it that's reesong meadow once again they need to just be able to ignore what happened or try and build off and fix those mistakes but just continue what they're doing olivia rob trying to get the scoring started early going in one on three stops on a dime drops it back good opportunity a shot just wide of the outside post caitlyn dowd with a gorgeous chance but one goes just past the far post and just an fyi i did just look down on the song by the sidelines and the athletic trainer and uh anna macarina were talking and they brought over the coach it looks like she should be able to come in when they're ready for her it's definitely a good sign that she's standing in has her stick in hand so certainly that would be a big return for spartans if they can get it whistle blows in good possession back to the spartans it's lily sterling caitlyn dowd gets a piece of it clearing attempt is turned over fighting through is rob rob dowd return pass is picked off another great read by guess who grace wilkinson dowd can't keep it in play [Music] credit to the hurricane sidelines they've certainly been giving their team boatload of support in this one and to their credit it's been working [Music] wilkinson will be the one to put it in play it's gonna be lifted out of play but or lifted into play i should say and they're gonna send it back to amherst they'll do it again this is just precious time for amherst on the attack as opposed to time wasting so far i think majority of the stoppage time for these three minutes or majority of the time for these three minutes has just been stoppage time shot attempt is knocked down hard fight on the near side sidelines but they will give it to amherst and it's quickly giving back to the spartans rob loses possession almost giving right back to dowd sterling steps up looking for a drive that's going to be well wide at the inside post and it'll be put in at the goal line by the hurricanes 12 15 left in the third quarter still one nothing spartans looking for that first victory of the season if they can hang on i'll be giving back to the hurricanes moves to her right ahead for cage and it's brought back by lily sterling pass ahead to midfield here comes isla meadow olivia robb been controlling the offense for the most part for the spartans all game rob is fouled rob fades the defense chips it high but referee blows a whistle says that was an illegal hit wilkinson had it goes off this off the foot of mahoney not wasting any time is sterling she steps up into the play tape to tape pass centering feed is gonna go all the way through dowd fired that one towards the front of the net now a two on two as they got nevis way back to play defense and she's gonna have to here's here comes mahoney mahoney one on one moves it to space she's got a little bit of speed stick handling that ball glanced off of her foot another chance for amherst just doesn't end up panning out they're gonna bring mahoney out for a breather and not surprised seems like she ran a couple of miles in that one play oh there's a big defensive breakdown it looked like from amherst that would have had natalia weiss all by herself for those maybe ron karate whoever it was she was streaking down the field and it was going to be a breakaway it's a big break for amherst see if they could do anything with it quickly put back and play in whistle blows of your spartans ball bowmere waiting to put it in play and she strikes it forward and it gets through sent ahead to space tara pq will try to run it down she scored in the opening game of the season against belchertown lily sterling cuts off that pass she whacks it forward here comes pq ron karate streaking down field with pq had the her stick chopped out before she could make a play is probably a a smart penalty to take absolutely it allows for amherst defense to set up to get ready for the attack that is had this entire game and has continued to have in the second half quickly coming back are the hurricanes passes lifted forward seti charity working on her own doesn't get much on that pass but it's an illegal play by the spartans maria keneshny will put it in play ashley on the four-hand end she'll get another chance to put it back in play foul committed there athena ron karate kaneshny trying to fight through two defenders and foul committed spartans looking up field nevins finally puts it in play lofted ahead into open space by taft but nobody home turned back up field by shilling we should see pretty soon anna macarini coming on she looks like she's talking with the coach figuring out where she's gonna go but she should be back [Music] meanwhile on the other side a wrist shot on net and it's wide and the bench was fooled by that one and just another great opportunity for amherst and another one just going right past the post now i can't imagine how the happy they'll be when they actually do score just the one goal on the season for the hurricanes and a brutal start to the schedule against longmeadow and minichog in home and homes taking a tour of hampden county credit amherst they've played some of their best field hockey all season against the spartans this evening still well within striking distance trailing one nothing with six minutes left in quarter number three numbers for the spartans olivia robb taking it in herself looking to get a shot on net patience doesn't get through and it's kicked aside by schreier kept in though by sterling sterling working her way in by herself and it's going to be a spartan's corner one of the keynote key things i noticed her on that offensive push was anna macarini once again sprinting down the field wide open and it was unfortunate no one was able to notice her but what could have happened if they were able to pass it to her it's a quick turnover so the hurricanes look to try to find that answering goal you can see uh on the sidelines tara pq with a bag of ice for one of her legs so another developing story for the spartans been a physical game so far for both teams and freshly in the game it's anna macarini mcarini pass forward run down though and clearing attempt not much on it macarini keeps it in play and that one's gonna roll just out so for macareen it didn't seem like she lost a whole lot of explosiveness on that opportunity definitely not um which freestyle metal is going to be a key factor in either adding to this lead or keeping this lead on at one but either way within a macaroni back and still having her explosiveness is going to be able to uh allow islam to definitely rob throws one towards the front there's a bad turnover shot they score and how about that it's santa macareni with her second goal of the game a lapsing concentration by amherst and the spartans extend their lead two-nothing there's not i the positive freestyle meta was that they were able to intercept the pass and get this goal but besides that e song meadow was just at the right spot at the right time he's slow middle goal she's still hobbling so you can tell absolutely that injury's still bothering her a little bit the problem was was with amherst they weren't ready you could tell that they were still in that transition phase they were there's a lot going on with that amherst needs to fix i mean that was one key part and i mean and a macaroni proving that she knows what she's doing trying to run it down there's a decent cross knocked down amherst picks it up lifted forward knocked down again but it's cleared out by nevins and here come numbers again olivia robb two on one has helped to her left rob moving on in all by herself stops lifts it through and it trickles just past the outside post a good effort by schreier and it's able to keep it out with three minutes left you can hear the crowd in anticipation but amherst coming up big on the transition defense something they weren't able to do on that most recent goal by macareni absolutely i think i was you said it for me but what i was going to say was with the um fraction of the tenths allowed in these games with how well these songwriters are playing almost sounds like we have full capacity going on with how excited these fans are getting for the east side of being up two nothing rolled back for lorac pass gets all the way through macarena's got it on her stick a shot kicked away she didn't get much on and schreier was able to clear it out [Music] the rock and it's called back so putting it in play here sweeting sweden gets it right back with the whistle blows and now they will give it to the other 26 isabella rock less than two minutes to go in the quarter a two nothing lead for the spartans [Music] pass gets past taylor weiss [Music] whacked forward but nobody there waiting for it see song meadow defense sent out by bowmere pass chop through and the whistle blows once more minute 15 to go in the corner [Music] ball wasn't put in so they're gonna bring it all the way back pass is knocked down and goes out of play and it'll stay with amherst sent forward macaroni anticipates it but it hops past her stick that'll give you amherst another opportunity 40 seconds left boy would that be big if they can cut the lead in half going into the fourth chilling nudges it too far forward on that self pass and goes over the end line and this will take off a good amount of the remaining time in the quarter east long meadow might just look to end this quarter with this two nothing lead that they extended i wouldn't be surprised ten seconds now still not put in play just yet it's finally bunted forward amherst is waiting for it two seconds and one a late whack at it but that will be it the end of three quarters anna macareni's second goal of the game extends the east law metal lead to two-nothing gage it's clear that her return meant a whole lot for the spartans team as they were able to pad that lead but this game is still far from over amherst has certainly not given up like they seemingly have based on the first three games with the big blowout losses they've suffered so this is a team that knows that they're still in the game what do they have to do better to close the gap well the goal that was scored by anna macarini was a mistake by amherst in every way shape or form bad pass bad communication it led to a interception of the interception right in front of the net which led to the easy goal for anna macarini so that being said they need to get more communication on the field and on top of it they need to be able to somehow some way be able to get through the season meadow defense that has been able to stop him almost every time at about the 20 25 yard line another minute before the start of this fourth quarter spartans 15 minutes away from win number one on the season certainly have been competitive in a lot of these games so they've been building towards that first victory and remember last year gage didn't have a single victory so this would be a huge win for esau meadow absolutely this would be a huge win and then if or when they go to play amherst away if they end up doing so it's going to be another opportunity for islam meadow to not only get one more win than what they had last season but also double that and get two wins and completely sweep this opponent that game is on the schedule i believe in a couple of weeks from now towards the end of the spartans 2020 season it's been five different teams they play once at home and once on the road this one's a little unique because usually it's back-to-back games but it's gonna be back-to-back home games actually for the spartans against two different teams one here against amherst and the one on thursday against their bitter rival law metal lancers this piece of momentum they can take into that game if they can hang on for the final 15 minutes as fourth quarter is underway ball nudged forward and over there to make the play is macarini macareni pushing forward but stick knocks that one away crossfield pass settled and thrown forward by cage didn't get much on it cage gets it right back monica cage has mahoney wither pass ahead for mahoney but it's going to be by to the far side post nathan smartly watches that one go past one key thing that helped uh east song or yeah is not be able to let up a goal was coach reed being able to yell to marissa that there was someone behind her which was which if nah marissa never noticed or coach reed never yelled it uh that could have been a nice cross pass and possibly a goal that ball goes through everybody and forces wilkinson to take evasive action her pass forward finds schilling chilling ahead for fiander but it's whacked out by sterling nudged free a great defensive play by taft but coming back with it are the hurricanes taft ends up bumping 13 20 left in this one maria canezhi the sophomore fires that one doesn't get through and macarini comes up with it macarini ends up self passing that one she's got taft with her to help maccarini on the forehand pass lead forward for weiss but it's broken up weiss fighting back hard but she ends up playing the body a little bit too much sterling retrieves the pass turns up field with it weiss on the far side ahead for macareni but wilkinson's able to head her off wilkinson takes advantage of the open space fans on that pass attempt but drags it back smartly he's able to loft it to the far side chilling theander finds cage monica cage looks to center it but nobody home and it is cleared all the way out it's a foot racing stumbling was tapped now it's chilling for amherst dragged out a good play by mahoney mahoney trying to cut towards the goal working one-on-one on bowmere but marissa beaumont with a nice defensive play and it's whacked all the way out waiting for it is talia weiss what it's a three on one here with weiss looking up field that pass is going to be knocked down in wilkinson in the right place to make that play a good hustle defensive play by kenosha to get back and help out her defensive partner and we got a foul called against the spartans that went on nevins lily sterling 11 minutes remaining still two nothing lead for the spartans both goals in this one scored by anna macareni one in the second and one in the third sterling cranks one towards goal and it's gonna miss wide tryer saw that one the whole way and just another ferocious slap shot there from the point by sterling grace wilkinson will put it in for the hurricanes substitution nate is brought in on the defensive end is lorac rock immediately making an impact sending it forward wilkinson comes away with the ball and lofts it just over the stick of lorac money honey trying to dig that one out but lorac comes free with it and lifts it forward for dowd caitlyn dowd can't get past wilkinson wilkinson drags it back towards the center of the field knees back to wilkinson wilkinson working far side for schilling [Music] chilling ahead waiting for it is alvarado mendozo but it's picked off sterling overruns it briefly but he's able to gather it back in forward and that finds caitlyn dow dowd looking up field stick handling through weaving centering pass a beautiful one fighting through all alone it's a goal a beautiful pass there from caitlyn dowd and eventually finds the back of the net that goal is going to be credited for olivia robb great ball movement from the spartans and it is now three nothing east long meadow absolutely i think they got a little risky with the pass right into this right into the middle of the entire pile of defenseman for amherst but uh nice uh stick handles to go around the goalie and uh three nothing late for a song meadow and they'll look to just take this and hopefully hopefully they're missing uh mine is to extend it but right now unless amherst finds a way to come back from three nothing this looks like east long widow has it all in their pocket meanwhile on the sidelines it looks like taft is getting worked on by the training staff so it's been a physical game for east long meadow but it's paying off on the scoreboard right now three nothing they lead eight and a half to go we got a substitution here is coming off is beaumier she will be replaced by weiss amherst looking to avoid their fifth loss in the season although things are looking pretty bleak right now but at this point they're trying to make it so that they don't go four straight games without tallying a goal um it is believed that we think yeah um we believe marissa got a penalty because right now it's a five on six huh so it's a two minute penalty will give the sparta or i'm sorry give the hurricanes an opportunity and i don't think bowmer can really believe it so short-handed are the spartans for say about the next minute 40.
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so we'll see if amherst can't take advantage of the opportunity quickly rob with the strong stick and spartans looking for short-handed chance rob working in all by herself rob all the way to the net it's knocked away kept in though loose in front trying to drive it on net was doubt she can't kept alive though rob with a shot on that kick save made rebound is loose back out to down her shot doesn't get through it's dragged out back to the point rob too many maroon shirts she couldn't get anything through six and a half to play now working all by herself is gabby mahoney mahoney is fouled by the rock whistles blown several times and marissa's backing you'll stay with the hurricanes gonna be brought all the way back to the 40. and finally put in play put a good stick there from weiss weiss chips it through good second effort gets it all the way back in on the amorous defense and it's fought through by olivia robb rob trying to get a breakaway rob boxed out of the play smartly knee comes back to try to make a play but ends up fouling weiss [Music] bowmer's back on the field so the spartans are in fact back out at full strength she rips one on nets knocked down good positioning and taken out by monica cage cage with five minutes remaining fires that one down the far side of the field back to play it is the rock twice surrounded by maroon shirts it's turned over to macaroni macaroni fans and catches kaneshny up high on the shoulder looks like she's okay [Music] wilkinson will put in play i'll send knesney to the bench a couple of substitutions made that's jenna schilling checking back in she started this game for amherst and quickly that's turned over no it's looks like it glanced off macaroni's or excuse me ron karate's foot before she made a play on it 355 remaining still three nothing spartans looking to read as macareni she couldn't quite get there in time that lob pass gets through and it goes off of a foot so it'll go back to amherst looking to work quickly up field weiss good hand-eye coordination to loft that one to open space but it's quickly picked up by cage monica cage moving on in centering pass goes just wide right there was mahoney with a chance to put home the hurricane's first goal of the game but instead it will stay three nothing lofted ahead wilkinson out to play it drops back nevins will clear it out gets past midfield before going out of bounds clock continues to run shillings pass gets through cage moves back together she gets some help from schilling chilling down low it just goes right over the stick of cage that was a great chance but again just unable to take advantage of it are the hurricanes it'll be spartan's possession 207 left bowmere walk whacks it forward but didn't get a whole lot on it weiss wasting no time moving up field weiss's pass is knocked down second effort gets through to wilkinson minute 45 the whistle blows sterling looking to check back in late in this one here she comes she replaces the rock minute 20 remaining spartans are cruising to their first victory of the season in well over a year weiss her pass is stepped in front of there is sterling sterling good possession of the ball but it's turned over less than a minute to go now 47 seconds left on the clock he'll stay with islam meadow ahead for weiss weiss stepping on in weiss's shot in front macarena goes off of her but it looked like the whistle had blown before regardless is going to be wide so amherst has it they hustle to put it back and play with 25 seconds left [Music] wilkinson waits and ahead finds gabby mahoney mahoney fighting through ten seconds left two on one mahoney has someone wide open can't get the pass through whistle blows three seconds left and that will do it these songs spartans pick up their first victory of the season they knock off the amherst hurricanes by a final of three nothing behind a two-goal performance from anna mccarini gage a statement victory for the spartans finally getting in the win column this season how much of this is a momentum booster going into thursday's matchup against longmeadow well i think this is going to be a huge momentum booster what helped to get this win was that they were able to tie their previous game which allowed them to sit there and say okay we have the opportunity now we can try and steal it from a team that struggled but struggled against very good very good opponents now with them getting the statement win and also a shutout this will now this will now help them boost their morale but hopefully not too much to the point where they can say all right we know what it's like to win we know what we need to do now we need to continue that and push into the next game with that momentum so for all of us here at lcat for our producer jamie rook final score from east long meadow the spartans three the amherst hurricanes nothing thank you for tuning in and we will be back on the air on thursday as east long meadow will take on the lancers of longmeadow right here at east lawn meadow high school thanks for tuning in folks have a good rest of your night
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students who tested positive for covid uh we took action very quickly to make sure that we quarantined those staff members and coaches who may have been in contact with these students although we don't know for sure but as a precautionary method we do quarantine those staff members we went a step further just to ensure the safety of the high school and yesterday i told principal pinto that we will be going all remote for the next two weeks so all high school students right now are all remote until they return on november 2nd and during that time all sports are suspended uh this way it gives everybody a chance to more or less quarantine and get healthy and hopefully when we return on november 2nd we can get back to uh the program that we had prior elementary school is running very well our elementary students students in cohort a and cohort b are attending school daily every day morning and afternoon and our middle school program is also running very well we are being very aggressive in terms of assessing students so there are days when we are sending students home if they show a symptom as per guidelines from the bergen county health department but in most of those cases i would say percent of those it turns out to be that they are not covered positive but to ensure the safety again of our staff and students we are being very proactive um on october 6th we had a staff in service a half day for our uh pre-k through six staff members uh we gave staff the opportunity to work on their parent visitation uh presentations which i'm gonna talk about in a couple of minutes uh so that day went very very well just to note that the last couple of weeks uh we celebrated um mandated weeks of a week of respect from october 5th to october 9th and uh this week we are um participating in school violence awareness week uh throughout the district so we have programs for students um our guidance counselors have done a good job in finding some remote programs for students to look at staff members are talking about this within the classroom and i'm happy to report that things are going very well our grab and go lunch as you know that all of our students both in person and remote receive a grab and go lunch every day those students who are remote were receiving um a five-day supply at the high school we moved that to school three starting today so beginning today and every wednesday uh following uh students who are all remote can visit school three between four and six pm to pick up a five-day supply of breakfast and lunch today was our first day we had a pretty good turnout we just felt by moving it to school three which is more of a center location of the town we would get more participation and we did use school three as a site from last march all the way through august and it turned out very well in terms of participation so i did send out a notification on our school app and uh i did a swift reach notifying parents so if parents are listening tonight get the word out that on wednesdays between four and six at school three parents and or students can pick up uh breakfast and and lunch uh i had mentioned parent night because of the uh restrictions that are put upon us by covid uh this year our parents night our parent nights are going to be pre-recorded and i looked at a couple of them today and i have to say our staff really did a great job so the way it's going to work is that on tuesday october 27th parents can visit our website at seven o'clock at night click on their school and then click on their child's teacher and they will get a um not a video presentation but a slideshow with a voice over from the classroom teacher outlining the procedures that they have in their classroom things that they would normally talk about if parents were in person so i'm going to send out a reminder to parents both the swift reach and through the app but um since we're speaking about it now uh that'll occur this tuesday october 27th at 7 p.m and it'll stay up there so if parents are not able to view it that night it'll be up on the website so they can go to that site and they can look at their child's teacher if their child has supplemental classes such as title 1 esl there's also a slideshow and voice over from those teachers also so this is the first year that we're doing that and based on what i've seen so far um i think it's going to be very very successful and i think it'll give parents a lot of information okay i'll stop here at this point uh any questions from the public uh committee reports i just want to touch on uh facilities uh last week where we had a boiler uh a meeting as you know number three and number five school uh upgrades i believe all our buildings now have uh pretty much in the last 10 years brand new boilers and that's kudos to the administration for good financial planning taxpayers anything on tax levy so pretty much wrapped up the the boiler project just some loose ends and inspections but everything is moving around as well if need be we'll have another meeting at the end of november but it doesn't look like that today the facility and finance committees met at the high school uh with uh lou alfano and pinto and lan associates to look at some possible capital improvement uh projects you know the the high school uh gym section was uh built in 1963 and hasn't been upgraded and myself and that dr campbell had a good uh visit there i got to say that custodians do a great job keeping buildings spotless and clean so we looked at some possible capital improvement projects uh once we get a feasibility study back from lan associates we'll uh share that with the entire board uh tomorrow uh we're going to have a pre-construction meeting in reference to the retaining wall project that the borough is assisting us with at the high school uh on the east side of the field and that'll be here tomorrow 1 30 in this room so anybody on the facility uh committee is more than welcome to attend and that wraps up my report okay thank you mr capano anyone else any committee reports um i was going to just mention the fact you can you can okay so um just a follow-up to last week's meeting as you know the governor uh gave some directives out a few weeks ago about winter sports um right now he has said that beginning i believe it's december 2nd or 3rd that we can participate schools can if they choose participate in winter sports which would be basketball uh wrestling indoor track that will also that also covers high school and middle school i know i had given a flyer out to um the board last week about um some of the recommendations from njsia but i also sent out um mr profito who's our athletic director he kind of outlines some of the do's and don'ts uh for the winter season um i just wanted to know if any any of the board members had any questions about or any apprehension about uh moving forward with with winter sports what about middle school sports for the winter two children in middle school and my daughter and have a basketball player you know brother but i i guess that you know what the board is going to do rely on your feedback department of education's feedback i know some of the some of the apprehension is that we're moving now to indoor sports and i know there's some concern but um in speaking to mr porfido he feels that if we go through the protocol of assessing students uh taking temperatures uh possibility no spectators at all uh it would limit the number of people that we might have in the middle school gym uh one of the drawbacks i'm i'm speaking about middle school or or the high school gym one of the drawbacks for middle school as i had mentioned before is uh possibly getting other schools to uh participate so that we can have um competition for the students but as someone mentioned uh last time we can always do some type of intramural program for the students so at this point one of the things that uh students that haven't had physicals yet have to move forward with that so at this time i am going to make the recommendation based on what we know at this point that we would move forward with middle school and high school sports in doing that we would have to appoint the coaches at our november meeting which is not a problem because they still have plenty of time uh to get ready after we make the appointments for december 2nd or 3rd if anything changes as far as within the district or if anything changes in the county or in the state or if there's additional directives from the governor then we would make adjustments accordingly but you know we we have to proceed with caution as we do every day when kids come into the school and i know that sports is a little bit different because there's contact but it is activities for our kids which i think is important i don't really know yet at this point what the wreck department plans to do for the winter but this would provide activities for students other than the academics i know they have co-curricular activities such as newspaper student council mock trial things like this but athletics is in a different category and we do have a lot of students that just participate in athletics and not in other activities and vice versa so i think it is important for not only for their social well-being but it's good for their mental well-being also one is about wrestling my one concern about any sport is wrestling because of really close physical contact i can argue that they have contact in most sports but rest when they're actually like touching each other up close and personal are there any special guidelines because that would be my biggest area of concern they haven't come out with all the guidelines yet uh one of the things that i did ask mr porfiro was whether are there any districts in new jersey because i know there are in new york where even during the athletic competition they're wearing masks um i i don't think that's that's a mandate in new jersey but i believe there are districts in new york where i just happened to see it on the news one night a soccer game and all everyone had mass on now i don't know if that's something that health-wise would be smart for kids to have a mask on while they are wrestling but i do plan on meeting with mr porfido and the coaches who will be participating in in winter sports about their concerns and recommendations my other question is as far as positive uh situations you have said two football players to my recollection whenever we've had a positive case he's only been in football you were called seeing positive cases in any other sport for us not across the state or anything but for us the only time i ever call them coming we did have a positive case if you remember in august in football in football but anything other than football we did have a student in school three at the very beginning of the year a pre-k student nothing that i know of in sports nothing so it seems like well i don't know that they got in the football i'm just saying it just seems like that's the closest contact sport that we have so far it's kind of nice to know that we didn't see any traffic boys or girls right yeah i know it's um again like you just mentioned uh we did have two football players but it doesn't necessarily mean that it was a result of the participation it could have been from home or outside or wherever also i think you could argue i understand your concern with wrestling because we think of people wrestling as being literally on top of each other but the time that they are on top of each other is far less than linemen in football are on top of each other lymon and football are in constant contact the whole game as opposed to wrestlers who someone can fill me in here they have two minutes and i'm i'm not trying to diminish that but i i think i'm just playing the devil's advocate here if those people can in football can be on the line on top of each other for you know a long amount of time then some wrestlers can be wrestling for three or four minutes and that's the only time just that one time right as opposed to again players who are back and forth the whole game in football i think that's why when we're taking into account the facility project anything you can do to help the air flow air exchange things like that is going to be beneficial or more because this is really not going away we may find a way to mitigate it hopefully soon but it's not going away so that kind of exchange and airflow would be a very positive thing to happen maybe setting a fan but you know i don't know we have a wrestling room that um we use for practice uh that's one of the things i plan on doing you know meeting with mr porfido and um mr hanlon who's our wrestling coach or uh just to get their suggestions about what they think or what we could possibly do to make it as safe as possible yeah of the big fans history air flow situation right okay anyone else before we look at the consent agenda so on the consent the judge consent agenda just a couple of things i want to point out on page two the third resolution paula alves who is uh was currently serving as our part-time title one teacher uh paul came to us last year she's done a nice job we are going to transfer her over to full-time elementary world language teacher um as a the reason for that transfer is as a resolution a little bit further down we have brenda maldonado who was our full-time world language teacher one of two uh decided to take an uh a paid well she's required to take a paid medical leave using her sick days through november 30th and then she's requested an unpaid leave uh for the remainder of the year so we needed to fill that position and we have and actually paula started about a week and a half ago and she's doing a nice job on page three at the top a resolution recommended by the superintendent to approve the termination effect of determin i'm sorry december 19th of employee number 5721 uh of the cliffside park board of education two down from there we are approving jamie anderson as a substitute school nurse at a per diem rate of 125 a day a little bit further down elizabeth layton who is currently on family leave as per the emergency family and medical leave act is just adjusting the dates of her leave so she will begin her unpaid leave effective october 26th through december 31st and um within the next couple of weeks make a decision regarding january moving forward uh underneath that we are accepting the retirement of ginny larashi title one coordinator at school sixth middle school she's that ginny actually sees our entire title one program or oversees the program also serves as a literacy coach uh genevieve has been with us a number of years uh excellent teacher and uh has taught in a couple of different grade levels before she moved in to this position uh ginny's going to be missed but um on behalf of the board i wish ginny the best and our retirement will begin uh january 1st uh page four uh we are just appointing uh co-curricular advisors that were open positions and now being filled uh advisers for grade nine we have co-advisors as you know and uh tiana salvia terra is the high school esl coordinator and then below that uh two teachers andrew romano jen martone matone who are uh teaching using a dual certificate uh we had inadvertently left them off when we listed the teachers that as per contract teach a sixth class or have a dual certificate so we're just uh following up on that um page five and six we are approving the revised uh moa that's an agreement between the board of education and the cliffside park police department and the fairview police department and that's a a mandated memorandum that is required by the department of education page seven this is our second reading of policies and procedures which i talked about last week so we are approving those and in most cases those are revised policies and on page eight uh we are approving the school safety and security plan annual review statement of assurance this is something that gets filed with the state each year uh i submitted the information and when the results are sent back to us then i share the results with the with the board members but right now it's just approving the fact that um the information was submitted mr founder you have anything in finance a couple of quick guys you know on page 12 park here's the joiner district and cliffside park the host district we uh transport palestine park kids on routes that go from our flip side routes we pick you back with palestinians park gives us some incremental revenue to upset some of our costs on page 14 you'll see the security grant application and show the submission of that application there's three components to this it's about 175 000 ram one component is combined with this is wall compliant that's panic buttons and all of the school but before panic button in each school that are targeted clark police department and there are two pa projects one at number five school and one at the high school that's the make up of that security grant and on page 15 is our each october we have to do a resolution for submission of our comprehensive maintenance plan that's function 261 that's what we call required maintenance things such as boilers roofs it's the general maintenance to keep the lights on in the building so we have a safe and healthy environment so each and every year we have to submit this to the camden state okay thank you very much any questions or comments from the board or the public on the consent agenda okay so at this time i'd like to take a motion to accept the agenda i'll make a motion yeah i have a second please i'll take your vote now please yes okay before i ask for the german any questions from the public okay our next um our next board meeting um we have a work session on november 11th which is going to be streamed to the public but on november 18th which is our regular board meeting is open to the public as per the guidelines from the department of education so at this time uh i would just like a motion to adjourn i may have a second place that's mr raincourt
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you good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call president kaler members of the board please let the record show that all board members are present tonight thank you very much we are going to have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance and i just want to keep in mind the colin karchner family this gentleman was instrumental in speaking to kids across the united states when it comes to social media and he passed away last night so please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers president kaler yes i also like to keep in our thoughts and prayers the 221 941 people who have died as of today from survivors 2.1 i move that we approve the agenda second any questions all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 dr foley superintendents report president kaler members of the board we have some upcoming events um for this month in the near future we've got several meetings that are our regularly scheduled meetings i'd like to draw attention to our november 20th will be our superintendent's visit i'm happy to share with you that we have just received confirmation that mayor anderson and vice mayor koprowski will be joining us on this visit so we're excited to have them come see the wonderful things that we have happening at our superintendent's visit at williamsfield high school which will be our first one this year that is very good news thank you all right board comments 4.1 any comments from the board i was like i just understand we had our first homecoming football games would administration likes to give us an update and share how things went that would be wonderful board member watovic yes we we are happy to share a few updates from this week i'm going to ask mr latzenhauser to come up to the mic so that he can share with you as the athletic director some of the athletic events he and i had the privilege of being able to attend both football games on friday evening and so we'd like to provide an update for you great thank you president president board member betovic yes we did host two football games on friday night as well as we hosted volleyball we had the williams field on wednesday night was the williamsfield versus higley volleyball game at higley high as well so we were able to host all three events and i want to give a shout out to our community because we're taking the masks very seriously what i was very very pleased about because i wonder just the same as you when we go who are they going to be following along and are they going to be respectful and yes for the most part they are we've had a few that we've had to go up and remind and ask to put on their masks and we haven't had had to remove anyone yet but that will be a possibility if they're not following along and complying um i i think when you and for those of you who were there on the friday nights the general feeling from our community was they were very very happy and thankful that they were able to attend an event on our campus and there was some sense of normalcy about how it was made any changes from the arizona athletic association or anything in the future as things as we start doing these events i mean so we we just had a meeting today david hines the director of the aia had a meeting with all the of the athletic directors and basically outlined that we're going to continue with the status quo and what we're doing through the football season they reminded us that for the winter sports they still the districts still need to meet the metrics in order to be able to start the winter sports and so that decision day is going to be november 5th with the idea that practice would start on november 9th we went through the different tournaments that are going to go on at the end of the season and how aia is going to do that for football they're going to use the same program we're using go fan for ticketing so it's going to be paperless ticketing limiting of events the number of people who are at the events and those are outlined by basically the capacity of the sites that are going to be hosting them because of the condition of our stadiums the ai is asked that william both williamsfield and higley high be host for smaller level uh 1a2a or 3a football games if the need arises and so we're preparing to do those as well i think this is a really tenuous time um because as you guys read in the paper and we read that there are programs whether they have had multiple kids that have had covet on the teams where they've had to shut down teams for weeks in quarantine we're continuing for to monitor ours very closely and are prepared if the need be out of caution that we will close our our teams and quarantine them and do at the direction of the county health and what we feel is good for caution that is an ongoing honestly daily conversation we're having with uh jillian fulton the district nurse our athletic directors the coaches are heavily involved and i think the hard part is there these kids are so invested in what they're doing and we don't want the acts of just a few to ruin the many and so if there's anything that i could publicly say is please be cognizant aware of what we do on the weekends when you're not in a supervised event from us because those actions have direct implications on all of the hard work that our athletes have put forward to have these seasons right now is you know we don't want to go into a situation where everything gets close completely but just to reiterate i'm very pleased with how our our management team took very seriously the requirement of masks and the ticketing and the management and at the same time providing an experience where parents didn't feel like they were completely removed from the atmosphere of the event okay thank you thank you mr lotzenheiser appreciate that president taylor yes this is rhys um i too was able to attend both football games friday night and i agree i i mean everyone um seemed to be following the rules and everyone seemed to be glad to be there so um thank you for continuously making sure that everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing i also want to give a shout out to dr foley so on saturday we had our um board evaluation which we do annually and um the commitment that dr foley has shown to our district just this quick we met on saturday had our evaluation had a lot of great discussion and it was at that meeting we talked about the superintendent visits and seeing who else in the community may want to be invited to these events to see and showcase our district schools we just talked about it on saturday dr foley just announced today it's wednesday that we do have town of gilbert officials coming to this visit so i i appreciate your commitment and diligence to not just our district and our schools our town to invite our our town representatives to see what we have sometimes giggly is kind of the forgotten child within gilbert and a lot of times people don't understand there's gilbert public schools and higley unified and we're all in the same town so i i mean just that quick thank you i i appreciate taking that feedback and those suggestions and turning it around so um i i really appreciate that and then just a quick reminder as we we've just we've come back from fall break and we're trying to make sure everyone's safe and we know a lot of people were traveling i just want a reminder that the maricopa county community or public public health defines an outbreak of two or more cases so if someone is hearing there's an outbreak somewhere whether it's within our district whether it's in another district that literally could mean two cases and they call it an outbreak so i just want to put some perspective on that that if the news is reporting that there's some outbreak um haven't heard anything about our district but we're going to go over it a little bit later we have our dashboard but please i'm just asking people keep that in mind that they do define that as two or more cases but it could be as little as two cases on that campus that they could classify as an outbreak so um but everyone's doing a fabulous job so i just wanted to put that out there thank you thank you mrs reese and on that same note i know that um dr foley and i are going to a queen creek chamber of commerce event that we already signed up for as well so we're going to do what we do what we said right we're going to do what we said and also on that same note november 5th is the veterans the gilbert veterans day celebration and they're doing it at the new park this year and they're doing it an evening so that's also coming up if anybody can um attend so okay president kayla yes mr clever we mentioned a lot of dates in november but there's one really important one it's november 3rd is coming up so i think we're all scared i mean if anybody hasn't voted yet please please vote and all the way down the ticket no no um no offices are too small or too unimportant to vote for so get your ballots in if you live in maricopa county and you have a paper ballot you can sign up on the county recorder and they will email you or text you when they have received your ballot and then they will also do the same when they have counted your ballot and so you can feel comfortable and confident in our democracy great reminder thank you okay we're going to move on to 6.0 consent agenda items i move that we approve consent agenda item 6.1 to 6.10.
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okay good afternoon everyone i am kelly larschevec and i'm one of the school counselors here at arhs this panel is on diversity on campus ways to dig deep into the student experience on campus i'm going to let folks introduce themselves and i will leave the screen in just a moment i'll be moderating comments and if you have questions please don't hesitate to ask them we very much welcome you know a dialogue here all right thank you so much and thank you to the panelists for all being here we're really happy to see you all and actually um i'm gonna let whoever would like to go first um kind of jump in and introduce themselves and you can just go right through each one of you all right well i'm happy to get us started hi everyone welcome to our session my name is nikki chambers my pronouns are she and hers i am associate director of admission and coordinator of multicultural recruitment at smith college hi everyone my name's holly kiel i'm associate director of admissions at bennington college in vermont my pronouns are she hers and they theirs um i'm really excited to be here with you all hi everyone my name is uria and i'm an assistant director of admission at mount holyoke college as well as the coordinator for multicultural recruitment i used she and her and i'm very excited with you all this afternoon hi everyone good afternoon my name is elia mercer i'm one of the admissions counselors here at westfield state university a little fun fact i actually am an alum of westfield with the class of 2017 and i'm very happy to talk about it hi everyone i'm melissa tomkiewicz i'm an admission counselor at mcla mass college of liberal arts my pronouns are she her and i'm really excited to to join you all today welcome to everyone so each each panelist will give a short kind of discussion or a short description of things that they feel are important to know to start the conversation um once we do that then we will also open up to some questions okay um so i'm happy to get us started um so diversity at smith um we um really approach the conversation from thinking about diversity in all of its aspects as being kind of really necessary to the educational experience um we firmly believe that without having people from varying backgrounds and identities that no one can be in their optimal space for learning so i think it's that ethos that really drives um what we do while also trying to make sure we amplify marginalized voices um so starting with um i like to start by kind of talking about how students acclimate to campus um and so for students of color we have a bridge program which is our pre-orientation program for students of color um that's application based but fun fact everybody who applies gets in um and there are opportunities for students to really build community before we get before the rest of the students come on campus so we have opportunities for students to find mentors and friends and supports on campus and the student leader to student ratio was about um one to five so it's really just building small community um before you get to campus and really dive into the orientation experience on campus um i think that our bridge program really provides students with just this life um with this four years long appreciation for the things that we do um and for students to be able to build communities so students meet um students at bridge and we'll have those friends for all four years um for campus life something else we have on campus for our students is affinity housing so there are two houses on campus for students who want to opt into that um we have a house called park annex and park annex is for students of color um and then parsons annex which is for students who are black identifying both of those housing options are optional um and they are available to students who want to have the community of being surrounded in a living space with students who look like them and they identify with them racially we also have 11 cultural organizations we have um the asian students organization black students alliance the chinese students organization the south asian student organization indigenous students and allies organization international students organization um the korean students organization the latin american students organization the multi-ethnic interracial group at smith college um the south africa smith african and caribbean students organization and the vietnamese student organization and the reason i list all 11 of those organizations is because all 11 organizations come together under one umbrella called the unity orgs and our unity orgs are really created to um have each organization really have support systems in place so that they can put on programming and um and hold cultural space on campus we have uh two cultural physical spaces on campus we have our unity house which is really the hub for all of those student organizations that i just mentioned um and we also have the miwanki cultural center which was named after the first female physician in kenya in kenya dr moenke who's class of 1963.
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hello everyone and to uh those tuning in my name is ed lubin i'm one of the interns working at amherst regional high school and i want to welcome welcome you all to this portion of the college roundtable series um i'm very excited about this one um as we have heard from mission for a couple different topics but with this session we're actually going to hear from some of our stu former students uh from amers regional high school our lovely panelists uh our alumni that um for for most i think um went through the college planning process and uh you know have a lot of rich experience and insight to share about that as well as you know how they've transitioned to college and beyond so i'm going to introduce them in a second i just want to remind people that for the most part the audience is going to be on mute however if you have any questions that you want to pose to our panelists feel free to um type a question into the live chat uh we will try to sprinkle those in throughout the discussion and uh leave some time at the end uh if we can for some uh more questions so with that in mind i'm gonna get out of get out of the way and i'm going to start introducing uh our panelists for today so i'm going to start off with acadia hi um i'm a katie i use she here pronouns and i right technical difficulties here oh there we go all right um i'm acadia i use she her pronouns and i'm at faster college all right sorry about that all right take it away um yeah so um does anyone have any certain questions if not i can just sort of talk about my experience um and how i approach the college admissions process so um i'll start and then if there's any chats i see i'll adjust them so i applied completely regular decision um to all of my schools um i started out by touring in my 11th grade year my first tour was at mount holyoke college because i knew that i wanted to have a liberal arts college experience i still don't know what my major is going to be um so i wanted to really have that whole like holistic kind of be able to explore my options as i went through college so i toured mount holyoke i really liked it and decided that i would continue to tour these seven sisters schools of course i understand that not everyone has had the opportunity to tour yet um and i can and so i definitely understand the limitations of this time that being said i would recommend using websites to kind of explore your options and see if you like the way the campus looks um see if you can get in touch with any people who are currently there or not um so i applied all regular decisions to all of my schools um and i it took me a while to make my decision once it came out as i could not really tour my schools when coverage happened um but eventually i realized that my best fit was here at boston college because it was the perfect distance from my home it had all the fields of study i was interested in um and also they had constant communication about what the coveted situation was and about other things like financial aid and such um so that is my college story um i hope that other people um can relate or if you have any questions feel free feel free to just throw it in the chat all right thank you all right next up is uh elliott all right can you hear me right i hope that's the yes all right so my name is elliott um i'm a i use the he him pronouns and i'm a freshman at cornell university i'm currently studying computer science maybe with a future minor in economics i'm not sure um yeah that's a little introduction to myself as for a quick summary of my college application process i just started by looking through the the fisk's guide to colleges i you know earmarked all the pages that sounded interesting um and then slowly narrowed down my list into the the schools that i thought i'd most enjoy spending time at um cornell being one of those schools at that point i went through the whole essay writing process all the tests and such um and then a few months later ended up here so yeah all right thanks elliot and i think next up is uh evan hi i'm evan i go by the hickories oh wait can you hear me yeah oh okay hi i'm evan um i go by the he series and i'm a first year at tufts university um i'm thinking about studying environmental engineering but maybe chemical engineering or maybe not i don't know um i haven't decided yet um so like what my approach to the college process i so like i knew the size of the school that i wanted to go to like i didn't want to go to a big school um but i wanted to be uh like an engineer so um that sort of narrowed down the choices a lot to um sort of smaller liberal arts fields with an engineering school and so that's sort of how i landed on tufts i actually applied to tufts ed2 so um i don't know if i don't think every school has that but it's basically like a later early decision round that's binding um yeah and so now i'm here all right thanks bud all right i think next up we have a hearty hi everyone um my name is rt and i i'm back okay hi everyone um my name's rt i go by she her pronouns i don't know if you heard this before um but i am at trinity college um in hartford connecticut um the college process started for me um summer of sophomore year just because my friends parents thought it would be fun to like tour colleges together you know explore the cities or towns they were located in which made the beginning of the process much less stressful i would say starting early is a way to kind of make the most of each experience at each college you look at um and then you know through my junior year it was sort of trying to narrow down but just also thinking about you know what i'm interested in where i want to be how close to home um i knew that for me financial aid would play a big piece in where i went i um summer of junior year applied to a couple diversity weekends or they have different names for each college um but their programs where um the college you go to kind of highlights like you know this is what we do about diversity like we're passionate about these things and that was really helpful for me because as a person of color i needed to make sure that the school i was going to cared about diversity and was actively continuing to work to um make a more inclusive space as the college um community grows um and i think that kind of helped me narrow down my choices um i did some tutoring help in terms of the sats and stuff but i actually only ended up taking or submitting my scores um to umass that was the only school and the rest were test optional um yeah okay i could go on but um so then you know senior year was applications i tried quest bridge but i didn't get in so then i applied through the common app um i can talk about all these programs if people have questions um and then i i also did regular decision for all my schools um and yeah i could go on but that's it for now can't wait for your questions all right thank you i think we got mulan yeah so my name is here i go by he him pronouns um i'm currently a freshman at princeton university uh and i'm considering majoring in economics um my college process was a bit extended i started touring colleges in the spring of my sophomore year um and i continued to do that through the fall of my senior year i took standardized testing like rt said i went to event like she did i went to a bunch of diversity weekends um and i applied to princeton early because i thought it was a really good fit for me um and i applied a few more places regular decision and then ended up deciding on princeton all right thank you very we are very lucky to have you all uh today as we get into this talk so uh this talk is um divided into three areas um and we're going to kick it off by uh talking about the college search uh the first last one of the first aspects of the college planning process and um a question um that i want to pose to you all but uh i'll begin with acadia is you know what characteristics were you looking for in a college while trying to build your list of possible choices okay um that's a super great question so personally for me i knew i needed a small school um i wasn't really into like big schools i wanted a school that had like a very rich history with um preferably like you know like a lot of traditions um and like a strong um like alumni network that i could access um because that was really important to me so i did so i was really big into um historically women's colleges um master college where i'm currently attending is co-ed but it is um historically a women's school so um i kicked off the search with mount holyoke like i mentioned um i toured smith um and then from there i kind of continued with the seven sisters path i toured barnard um wellesley although i did not end up applying the wellesley um and pretty much everywhere else so i applied to five of the seven sisters radcliffe does not exist anymore and i did not want to apply to wellesley so um that's where i went and then kind of from there i just extended it to a broader liberal arts perspective just so that i would have more options um so i also applied to wesleyan um brandeis as well um so i would say something that you should know what you want is like approximately what size you're going for um my sister my younger sister is kind of starting to begin her college search and she knows that she wants a bigger school than i did um and think about what kind of culture you want your school to have so um vassar does not have a very large sports culture it is more it while it does have sports it is d3 um and the sports are super cool but it's not a it's not a big sports school it's not what it's known for um it has a very rich arts culture we have an art museum on campus that is very beautiful and i'm really into art i'm really into theater so it has all of those really rich departments as well so that's you thank you yeah uh are you ready you have some thoughts you want to share sure so um can you just repeat the question one more time sorry or i can just try to remember um okay so in my college search i think it was really important for me like i said before um to feel included on campus and um not the odd one out um i think many people can relate to that but i think specifically i'm talking about being a person of color um it was really important to be around more people who look like me um and a school that would offer discussion um and certain events to promote um you know multicultural affairs and um just more engaging and inclusive um you know courses and clubs like i'm saying so um in addition to that i don't know if you guys can hear my birds but i have a tree right near me anyway um in addition to that i was really passionate i am really passionate about study abroad so i think all the schools that i toured um you know in their generic info sessions they talk about their amazing study abroad programs but for me i was kind of kind of diving more deeply okay where do they go what kind of what would those programs look like could i maybe do in the summer if i wanted to stay a whole year on campus um stuff like that acadia mentioned the alumni network which is really important i think um in your college searches you have to make sure that your schools are setting you up for um success in the future so whether that's like a job or you know well yes a job of any kind in terms of research or um you know business something like that so that you're not you know going to college and then you're like feeling lost as soon as you graduate um and then for me dancing and singing is really important as well um i wanted to try some sports even if they're recreational because i think in high school we just don't really have the time to maybe try all the things we want to do so for me like rec sports really important and dancing and singing um making sure that i can do the things that make me happy i think that's really important when you choose your school instead of thinking about the name um how prestigious it is if it's somewhere that would make you happy if they have programs that are valuable to you then go after that because it's up to you and it's your four years so you have to make the most of it um and like acadia said i think the liberal arts experience is really valuable i love to learn so i really have no idea what i'm gonna end up majoring in um and so i'm kind of just taking the courses for a ride and seeing where i end up i don't have to decide until sophomore spring i think so i'm really taking advantage of that um yeah yeah thank you all right oh and you said you had a few words to share yeah so echoing what rt and acadia said a bit um focusing on what's most important to you is not going to be the same thing that is important to most others so if school size really matters like look at that if certain programs are really important like i knew that i wouldn't really want to go into like applied sciences that much but math is more important and history is more important and so i was looking more at schools that could support me in those fields and so even if other people are interested in a different school that doesn't mean that it's the right school for you so really trust yourself and trust what schools have done a good job in showing that they can have a good program and they can support you throughout your time in college all right thanks mom elliot go for it all right so my answer is going to be similar to what a lot of other people said but just more tailored to my interests so i knew that i was interested in studying at a larger school mainly just because of the resources often available at larger universities and because i knew i wanted to study computer science i was particularly interested in schools which had strong computer science departments and many opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in research but i also wanted to make sure that you know not everything not all my experience would be defined by academics so i was looking at what extracurriculars were offered at schools um i'm not interested in playing sports at college but lots of um clubs and extracurricular activities were important for me to consider um and then someone uh deborah ferreira asked what the benefit of applying early is um so i i did apply earlier and i think a couple of other people on the panel applied early as well um and so applying early sends a message to a school that um in my case i applied early decision uh which meant that it's a binding contract if i was accepted i would have to go and withdraw my applications from other schools and applying early sends the admissions department of the school that you apply to the message that you know that this is the school that is your number one choice um you're interested in going there and also because you send your application in earlier than other students it demonstrates that you you know you have your acts together you've already prepared your materials on time and then also just from like a stress benefit you end up getting your decision back often much sooner than people who apply regular decisions so it can make the uh the spring of your senior year much less or the winter and spring of your senior year much much less stressful thank you elliot yes now i want to change gears um some of you may or may not have alluded to this but you know in thinking about a college search the next step is um oh we have one more person that wants to talk all right evan oh okay um i guess i'll just add uh i definitely like share a lot of the same sentiments as um what people have already said but for me like the biggest decision was i knew i wanted to um be an engineering major but i also didn't want to um be at a school that was really big and so that narrowed the that like uh knowing what i wanted to major in really helped me narrow uh narrow like my choices and choose um you know the right school for me and so um obviously like obviously you don't have to know what you want to major in and it's totally fine if you don't but if you do um that's like a really good place to start if you're if you're factoring in both the size of the school that you want to go to and um what you want to major in all right thank you yeah sorry about that um got a little excited there but yeah i think as we continue thinking about uh colleges going through the application process which i imagine is probably one of the hardest aspects of the college planning process so um yeah we're going to spend some time talking about that and i'm going to pose this question um an elliott uh to start us off what was the hardest part uh about the application process for you what obstacles did you experience and uh how are you able to overcome them um let's see i mean i think the hardest part of the application process for me just came down to um probably writing the s the application essays both the personal statement essays and the um like the specific essays that demonstrate interest in each school you apply to um not because they're like particularly challenging assignments but just because you know it's a it's a large time investment and it at the time it feels like so much rests on the how well you write these and how well they portray your character that um i know i spent a ton of time just like editing and you know revising these um perhaps more than i should have but yeah that was that was the most difficult part of the application process for me elliot i think katia had um some thoughts that you'd like to share yeah um i was just hoping so i know that not everyone has access to the same resources at home um personally i did not have wi-fi at my house for them for the first part of my application process um it's something that i had always had growing up um and it actually ended up being a really not that i i think that it was good but i ended up writing my college essay about it and i did get into college so but um in terms of that there becomes this issue of equity and um i would really recommend obviously it's a little different because most people have internet out because of remote school but i would definitely say because of that it made me utilize my resources way way more um i was often in the guidance office talking my guidance counselor about how i can um put my best self forward um and she also really really helped me with time management which was something that had been very very difficult for me previously so i would definitely say in order to make this process easier on yourself um utilize those resources especially in the counseling office or with miss puppy gray um so yes i would say time management was very hard as well as just resources in general all right thank you okay um mohan you said you had a few words that you want to share yeah so for me i think one of the hardest sorry i so okay so uh one of the hardest things for me was at least like the stress and the busyness of that semester because i was trying to do all of my applications at the same time that i was obviously going through all my school work and doing sports and clubs and all of that stuff and so it led to less time to really spend and um so it forced me to really think about what i needed to do and what was most important and prioritizing and so i think one of the hardest pieces is knowing when to stop and when to keep going on an application and really using the resources available like others have said um talking to trusted adults in your life talking to the people around you making sure you're not getting behind but making sure you're not overworking yourself because you can easily burn out and from early applications to regulate applications um that's a few months period and you could get really tired during that time so pacing yourself and making sure you're staying on top of everything you need to do all right thank you oh and and they already go for it yeah i think all of what mohan just touched on is so key um i think that as someone who i kind of was doing the whole college process alone i'm not really sure who the audience is but i think it's important to talk about my experience so like my mom is a single mom so i try to do as much as i can um on my own to not you know stress her out even further um and i think that created some stress in terms of like um i just could not answer the financial questions on my own um and i think that um that was kind of a point of stress like getting that done is the final piece um and it felt like that was one area where other people couldn't really help me with that you know that was my family's kind of financial situation um i think that also the financial piece also really um put me in a bind because i was not sure if you know applying early decision would mean getting more money um to touch on someone's question quest bridge is a program for low-income um high-achieving students who um you go through a few rounds of applications um to the program and then to the colleges if you're if you're selected as a questbridge scholar then you apply schools and if a school takes you then you go there completely for free um and then i can i'm happy to give my email and share more information about any of the stuff that i'm saying later but um i was not selected even like in the first step as a scholar so i applied um through the common app like i said and i didn't apply um to any school um early decision i just could not make up my mind and i would i was feeling like if i chose a school early then i might you know like regret my decision and that was too stressful with me so i applied to all my schools regular um and got in with fantastic financial aid i am on a very good academic scholarship here um and that's honestly why i chose trinity um i think another point of like stress was the test but as i said before um almost all but one of my schools that i applied to were test optional so um i just want to remind people that um colleges are changing and you're not judged on a number any or just a number um as much anymore you it's the whole person like ellie was saying with the essay um which can be a point of stress i would say um because i was doing a lot of things on my own the resources like miss coffee gray like um miss moochie ramos my friends who were also going through the process or who had been through the process um were especially helpful um yeah i think just really utilizing the resources you have um and like mohan said sticking to a structure and not letting yourself get too behind but also knowing when and how to take breaks because it can be so hard and feel never-ending but you will get through it and it's really rewarding when you do so just kind of pacing and making the most of it honestly i think i learned so much about myself um during this process and i'm really grateful for that so you guys can do it thank you uh evan did you have a few words about uh what was the hardest part about this application process for you uh yeah although um the hardest part was definitely um the essays for me uh i'm like really bad at writing and so i definitely leaned on like my dad helped me out a lot on my essays and i tried to like show as many people as possible so um i would just say like listen um definitely get as many people to read your essays as you can uh all their feedback you don't i don't you don't have to listen to all their feedback but definitely consider it because it's valuable information and um yeah i'm definitely someone who like doesn't like to be told that i'm wrong and so it's it's like hard at least for me it was like hard to um like keep changing your essay when you think that it's good enough but i think it's definitely good and definitely listen to as many people as you can okay all right thank you evan um as a follow-up question uh to this now that you all have gone through this process of applying in some of the stages to it um what is one thing you wish that you that you did differently if you had to go back it can be any portion any uh portion of the process but um i'll start with you mohamed what is uh one thing you wish you did differently uh if you had to go back to doing the uh application process again um well i would try to if i was talking to myself like a year ago um i would try to remind myself that there are a lot of good colleges out there and there's not going to be one perfect school and so focusing more on having a range of options is going to be a good idea and you'd be happy like there are tons of schools where you can certainly thrive and so um i ended up being pretty lucky through the admissions process um and it's a lot of luck like there's no promises but just try to show your best self to the colleges and it's gonna work out as long as you have a good range of school that you're looking at all right thank you i think you know looking at what the uh panelists have talked about you know it's evident that um the students and families out there that there is a lot to consider um going through this process of getting filling out the comment app for the css profile depending on which universities you're applying for and um you know trying to get everything in place in order to take full advantage of the opportunities um that different colleges have to offer so yeah i think there's there are um obstacles in that process but um as our panelists have kind of alluded to overcome these obstacles with particularly with the supports provided to you um particularly at the at this high school so there we go so the last part of this process after you've applied got your college applications in um and received offers you know and even making the final choice you know you are on your way to starting uh your first semester in college and this can be a very arduous transition uh for everyone i know it was for me and i know it was the case for our panelists here so i wanted to ask i think it will start with um a rd and another view others of you can jump in after is what have been some of the successes and challenges in uh adjusting uh to college particularly um the remote learning aspect of the uh college that you're in right now yeah sure um okay lots to say um i think that as everyone has experience we are really thrown into um online learning and um as a senior that was a really interesting um position to be in because i think a lot of my classmates it was kind of more like like you know this doesn't really matter um it definitely did but it also sort of didn't you know what i'm saying all right i'm gonna keep it professional for the parents for me during quarantine um doing my work was kind of something that got me through i know i know yeah i am i am a nerd but that's fine um i think um but what i'm trying to say is that our teachers at the high school were thrown into remote learning and like really there was no preparation like they had no idea and i think they really made the most of what they could do and i'm sure and i think i've heard that it's it's going pretty well um i would say for me um it's helpful that my most brand professors either know how to use zoom pretty well and so it makes it engaging with different activities we can do online um and some don't and that's fine because you know we're kind of all in it together i am fortunately lucky enough to have two purses for whoa two classes in person um and two remote i think it's really hard for me to focus and mean um kind of maintain the same engagement that i would if it were in person um and i'm sure people can relate to that i think making relationships with classmates in terms of studying is something that i really valued in high school and i think it's kind of hard to adjust to kind of navigating those things on my own um and yeah well okay i'll switch back to successes um i think making the most in terms of like staying true to what makes you happy during this time i think for me um it's been crucial that my friends from home have maintained connections um they're on my walls um but we also you know talk on the phone and everything um and i think making new friends or making new connections with your professors is really valuable um this semester is like none other um i think it only gets better from here um i would say for challenges i guess i'm kind of already talking about them um remote learning you just it's not the same um you know you can't make the same connections i lose focus um i think it feels pretty isolating um to not have the same kind of like community um that i was used to um but i don't know i think just day by day as i'm sure most of the students can relate to and the parents um is all you can do um i think really utilizing your professors they want to help you um they're teaching for a reason um i think and yeah my professors have just been so helpful and i email them very frequently about questions um yeah i don't know i think i'm getting a little off track but there are certainly many challenges but i think looking towards the positives and the little successes in your day whether it's you know completing one task or trying something new in terms of zoom you you know you spoke more than once or you spoke at all or you know you asked a question kind of thing it's the little steps that really make your learning worthwhile i think it's easy for us to tune out during these times and kind of be like it doesn't matter because it's online it doesn't it's not the same but i think professors are really trying teachers are really trying and i think taking advantage um as best you can will actually keep you more engaged um but yes i could go on thank you all right okay yeah go for it all right awesome um yeah so what i was gonna say about adjusting to college um something that's really really hard um i think for a lot of people is you have this really strong sense of imposter syndrome especially if you're in a marginalized group of some sort so for me i felt very confident that i didn't deserve to be here as much as some other people and i had a really low self-esteem about that and then i realized that all of my friends were feeling exactly the same way and that that was not the case um and we all ended up here in the same place there's something that fosters on each of us that we thought was special um and that you deserve to be here regardless um on like a similar note i also what arty said about doing what makes you happy i had this idea of who i was supposed to be in college i was supposed to do this i was supposed to be very driven i was supposed to be an overachiever i was supposed to be taking stem classes my first semester um i have dropped my stem class it was not something that i found um very personally helpful or engaging to me um not that i don't think people should take some classes absolutely take some classes i do love stem but this specific class was really um it's not that it was necessarily academically challenging but i found myself getting really like bored and i was just having a hard time focusing in class um and i realized that it had been because i had this idea for myself of who i was supposed to be and i didn't want to be that person anymore i wanted to be who i really wanted to be so um i think that's important is kind of recognizing that you're going to change and you're going to shift and there's going to be different things that make you happy than you expected um and that you really don't have to be who your high school self thought you were going to be right thank you okay uh and evan yeah so adjusting to college has definitely been like a mixed bag for me there's definitely some things that are easier or maybe not easier but more interesting when you're in college um obviously living by yourself is pretty interesting experience um i think it's kind of fun uh but it's definitely um the difficulties for me at least has been adjusting to the amount of work that i have and like and the conceptual difficulty of the homework that i have um i don't i don't know what i was expecting when i went into it but um i definitely wasn't prepared to like be to do homework on a friday night but like at some point at some points like you just have to get it done um so um just like the amount of assignments that you have that i have at least um and how they overlap between classes um it's definitely forced me to adjust uh from like the way i was in high school it's forced me to definitely be more organized um plan out my time well especially because um you don't have or i don't have that many live classes to go to and um i'm mostly on like a lecture like a recorded lecture schedule and so making sure that for me at least making sure that i'm um staying on top of my recorded lectures because like i don't i don't even have to leave my room to watch them uh yeah so the biggest thing for me is probably just um adjusting to uh really being organized and staying on top of things that like not do the next day but sort of making progress making progress on uh everything at the same time if that makes any sense thank you heaven right i think we have a few words from elliot all right so evan kind of mentioned this briefly um but i found a a great positive of colleges just the the access that you have to so many interesting classes professors and activities um it's it's really amazing you can there are so many opportunities to like just delve into little interests and like follow your curiosity and that's been really enjoyable um but like evan uh and already said it's been it's been very difficult to connect with professors especially on the uh with the online format of classes um obviously when you're i'm fortunate enough to be on campus so i'm living in close proximity with people so it's easy to make make friends with them but it's been especially hard to connect to professors with online lectures and no in-person office hours but when i have made the effort to get to know people i've found that to be really positive just like in high school it's it's always a more enjoyable experience um at school when you're close close at least friendly with your professors and you get to know them more and what they're what they're interested in all right thank you hello again i'm mohan you are out um so my experience has been a little bit different i'm still living in the amherst because princeton decided to go fully online um and so i can't speak as much to the community aspect but i can speak to the classes and the differences between my classes now and my classes in high school and so naturally i'm taking less classes but they're more specific and um i was given the opportunity to take classes that i'd be really interested in so one of the drawbacks will always be the fact that you're going to get more work because you're older and they expect more of you but um you can also take classes that you really like and those classes can lead to be your major or you could have a career in those subjects and so um if you're gonna have to work more enjoy the work you're doing and take a broad range figure out what you want to do and then go from there and hopefully that'll be a good experience yeah thank you thank you to our panelists for going through this explaining some of your experiences um i know transitioning to college for the first time can be daunting particularly like and having new experiences and connecting with people and it can also be an exciting experience at the same time so i appreciate everyone's feedback so with a few minutes left to go um i'd like to uh turn us to our q a time where we will be looking into the live chats and seeing if anyone has any questions uh we're going to do it a little bit differently this time so i asked there are panelists um i'll give them a moment to take a look at the live chat and see if there are any questions that they would like to answer all right you already go for it okay sorry i was muted um okay so yeah back to quest bridge um i'm happy to give my email i don't know if i should do that now i'll just i'm assuming we'll do it later um just quickly returning to the benefit of applying early there are certainly many benefits of applying early in terms of scholarship in terms of like if you know and like elliott said and like elliott did um showing the school that he's dedicated and he's ready um for the last question i applied to a lot of scholarships thanks to miss cuppy gray and her wonderful scholarship book i don't know how long that took her to put together but what a queen i could go on and on about miss cuffy gray but that's for another time please use her she has she's so incredibly intelligent as and has so many reeses for you guys i really would not have gone through my senior year without her so um she's there for you um any idea of where to apply for scholarships yeah so miss coffee gray will give the seniors in there usually springtime um a book of scholarships through the high school that are in the amherst community and then broader broader scholarships and then there are also plenty of scholarships you can look um just like with a google search you know like they're national international and then um local scholarships so i spent um in addition to doing the online work of my senior spring um i applied to so many scholarships because um as a low-income student i really had no idea what my financial aid packages would look like how i would pay for school um so these were really my you know free money as miss coffee grace says like how could you not take that up so um i applied to the ones that she gave us through the high school um local amherst ones greater um kind of new england massachusetts ones um there are so many out there and i actually ended up using um quite a few of the essays i had already written um there was very little new work i had to do i don't know if that's going to be the same for everyone but just because i went through um the process of applying to the diversity weekends and then applying to college which had you know their own supplementals um yeah i i felt kind of silly when i was doing it i was like why you know i'm applying to so many of these you know like oh i probably won't get that many like um this feels silly but i was so surprised i won quite a few and i you know i got a new computer because of my scholarships i i have a large sum of money that will certainly last me um both freshman semesters and who knows maybe um even past that um yeah i you got to apply to scholarships i think one thing for me was like oh no you know it's it's senior fall is it also scholarship time and one um thing that was really you know de-stressed me was that that was kind of the springtime so like application is fall and then scholarships are spring um so there's time to kind of stretch it out that's not necessarily true there are some scholarships that are due in the fall i missed those but then you know i was completely fine um yeah that's it for now thank you we already all right i think one is fielding a question regarding scholarships yeah so um i already had a bunch of good points there but uh one of them was that the scholarships are really helpful um i did not apply to as many but i applied to the boule scholarship which is a program uh national and run out of springfield um and i was able to get that scholarship which is for young black men going to college um and so that has been helpful and also these scholarships can help build connections and um as those previously said uh there are a lot of essays you have to write if you apply to the diversity weekend that's like one round and then the college applications that's another round and then scholarships there are a lot of essays but they'll have a decent amount of overlap so keep track of those because they can be greatly useful to just submit or adapt and that can save you a lot of time um and a benefit of applying early i just want to touch on that um for me i applied restrictive early action which meant i could apply to one private school and then public school as well um and i think it's very helpful because for me i if i was applying regular i wouldn't really know what options i had and so i would have probably had to apply to 10 or 15 schools maybe um which is a lot of time and a lot of stress um if you have a school that you like and they have early action then definitely go for it if they have early decisions then think about it because that can be a stressor off of something that you don't have to do in the future and also the chances are slightly higher for some schools all right thank you so much right and elliot i think you mentioned that you had a question you wanted to answer yeah just to add on to what um arty and mohan said about scholarships i think i wouldn't i wouldn't worry about this um there as already said there's miss coffee great provides a super comprehensive list of opportunities um for local and some national scholarships and anyone will be able to look through that list and find different awards that will apply to them that they consider applying for um also already mentioned that she was able to reuse a lot of her college essays in her when she was writing her um scholarships i had a very similar situation i think after you've finished your personal statement and your like interest essays you have a lot of really good material about yourself and i i certainly found it very easy to repurpose that to try to get some resources to help pay for college um yeah i mean when it comes to scholarships you have you know really nothing to lose especially when it's relatively easy compared to applying for colleges to apply for them and you really have so much to gain because as i'm sure you all know college is often prohibitively expensive in this country um but fortunately we also have a lot of opportunities thanks to miss coffee gray which are easily presented to us and that we can you know do our best to go attend some of them and also i want to mention the the community foundation of western mass i don't know if that's on the list but that's a really good option that will automatically apply for apply for a bunch of local scholarships for you and then someone else asked what's something that you would want a student in the application process to know that you didn't know when you went through the process so i'll kind of like twist this this question a little bit to talk about the the pandemic um obviously the the covid19 pandemic has changed the our experiences of school but one advantage that high schoolers have right now is that they're they're aware of it before they end up making uh you you're all aware of it before you'll make your final decision um and i would encourage you to research um how the schools that you're interested in are have responded to the pandemic um and what what policies they have in place to ensure the the safety of their students um and just see how they're approaching education in this in this time because i know um it's there's not a standard right now um every school is approaching this in a slightly different way um and hopefully you know hopefully next fall looks a lot different than this fall but i think it's best to assume that you know the pandemic will still have an effect on your uh college experience at least the beginning of your college experience and you should you should plan accordingly and try to understand what you're what you're getting into here thank you elliot and um thank you everyone uh for joining us today i really uh on behalf of the amherst regional high school community i want to thank our panelists for taking the time and the energy to really give thoughtful uh responses and insight to our students and families as they venture into uh the process that you all have completed um and are continuing uh to strive through i also want to thank those who are tuning in for listening and um yeah enjoy the rest of your day much appreciated
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay it usually takes a couple minutes for folks to roll in um so as folks arrive we're just going to give it a couple minutes at some point i'll start to see a little eyeball icon that tells me how many people are watching and once we have a solid group probably after about um like three minutes i will hand it off to you all so are we all going to go around and like introduce ourselves first and then get into our little spiels and do certain people want to cover certain topics i think that that would be good just so folks know we are live now okay do we want to just go in alpha order since it seems to be separated that way no it's not let's just introduction's enough what i think works all right and i can already see seven people have logged in hi everyone we're just taking a couple minutes while things get started to um help a couple other folks log in but we'll get started in just a moment i hope everyone has had a chance to go get outside for at least a couple minutes on this beautiful day i don't know if it's beautiful everywhere but here in amherst it is gorgeous outside it's like a nice like 70 degrees and the sun is shining with like a nice cool fall breeze i was personally jam-packed today but like right before all of this happened i just finished two back-to-back meets with students and i went outside for a total of four minutes sat on the bench outside and did a little meditation and that was nice i if we're gonna talk about our little afternoon walks um i live in philadelphia which is near bryn mawr um and m night shyamalan films all his movies and shows like in the philly area and three blocks for me they've turned the entire block into a winter wonderland for his new show servant and so there was snow for like an entire block and like christmas decorations and wreaths and it was really really cool i've lived in the city for a few years since the first time like something like that has happened that's awesome it's gonna give it like 20 more seconds and that the three minute mark we'll we'll get started oh we lost someone all right so um hello to our viewers students and parents i assume um uh i'm miss gary if we haven't met yet i'm the guidance office secretary here at the high school those of you who are familiar with the high school can see i'm at the high school you can see by our beautiful windows behind me and yeah so we are hanging out talking about test optional and test blind admissions today with the with all the new um things happening in our world today um that is one of the things more and more colleges are working towards so i'm going to hand it over to these amazing college admission panelists to talk a little bit about the project i will be here i will not be streaming um i'm a room moderator so as questions come up i'll be in the chat and can pop in if needed i'm gonna hand it over to these folks awesome well i'm jocelyn i'm an admissions counselor from nc state university um we're located in raleigh north carolina hi everyone thanks so much for tuning in uh my name is jack baer i'm an assistant director of admissions at the university of chicago which to the surprise of no one is in chicago illinois hey everybody my name is hannah brockhart i use she her pronouns i'm an associate director of admission at bryn mawr college which is located in suburban philadelphia in case you were here in time to hear me tell my philly story just a moment ago um i'm excited to chat with everybody today hi everyone my name is courtney sear i am senior associate dean of admission at hofstra university which is located on long island just about half an hour outside of new york city but i am actually located up in massachusetts so i'm a regional representative so i am up on the north shore of massachusetts not too far from you guys who are tuning in today good afternoon everyone my name is ray vaughan i'm a senior assistant director of admissions and coordinator of multicultural recruitment at muhlenberg college located in allentown pennsylvania um we are pennsylvania's third largest city we're an hour north of philadelphia an hour and a half south of new york city and exactly four and a half hours away from your high school um so if you ever come to millenberg and you're craving a cheesesteak like i said an hour north of philly if you wanna ever wanna go hang out in new york we're an hour and a half away from new york um and if you ever come to campus and you wanna get away from campus for a little bit 15 minutes away from campus is downtown allentown fantastic uh yeah fantastic so um we're all gonna kind of uh take turns kind of presenting on a number of things that will hopefully address this question of you know now that many institutions have adopted test optional or test blind policies what does holistic admissions look like and how can you best position yourself kind of in the admissions process so before we're kind of even going forward it's probably helpful just to kind of define this term holistic admissions um and if anyone has attended probably any type of admissions visit uh admissions session or program you've probably heard this term before um but essentially holistic admissions means um that um offices will take everything an admissions reader will take everything that you submit in your application so including you know your actual application your transcript your letters of recommendation your essays any supplemental material you may submit um and really we take everything into account and really kind of create an image of you as both a scholar and as a community member and then based upon those images we really kind of render an admissions decision um that makes the most sense for you as an applicant and also makes the most sense for us as an institution with the many priorities that we're always trying to we're always trying to manage um so it's it's a very intentional process it's a really kind of um rigorous um rigorous process you know oftentimes many admissions officers will touch every piece of your application multiple times just because we want to ensure that you know we are once again rendering an emission decision that makes the most sense for all parties involved and what's really nice about holistic admissions is that it is kind of custom built for kind of the times that we're living in it's really context is is king and is paramount in our process and we're always trying to contextualize um the information that students present to us within kind of their environment and within their specific circumstances so um you know even in non-coveted years we're very much kind of um all trained to kind of understand what students what what students can bring to the bring to our campuses and kind of what they've kind of the environment in which they've spent their time in high school so we are just quite going to kind of continue to take that into account this year um so you know we do we fully understand that covet has really kind of upended basically every facet of students families lives and certainly even in our lives in admission we've kind of all been forced to kind of critically think about our policies um and so we we fully understand that so many things have been disrupted you know um classes have been moved virtually um you know in some instances greeting has been uh grading scales have been changed um extracurriculars have likely all but stopped um so we are fully aware of kind of the uh the many obstacles that students are are kind of facing and we're fully prepared and ready to kind of take all of that into account into the admissions process um the one piece that i didn't mention that we know has certainly been impacted is testing we know many of you have spent uh you know years thinking about tests like the act the sat the sat subject test and you spent kind of probably many hours many weeks preparing for them um and we know the hurdles to taking a test right now are just incredible we know testing sites are being uh closed uh closed down um students are if they've had a test they're having problems taking uh maybe taking an additional time to get a higher score that they think they can get so um we know that um you know students are really kind of struggling to get to get a score in the first place for a score that they really think is representative of their their intellectual ability so um i i don't mean to speak on behalf of all colleges or even on behalf of all of my colleagues who are in this panel but i think one of the first things to note is that for those schools that have adopted test blind um and test optional policies which i'll kind of talk about in a little bit um you are not disadvantaged if you choose not to submit testing um and i know you've likely heard that from your guidance counselors your school counselors um maybe other people but we are going to fully support and endorse that message um you know we don't want you to um you know have to drive to another state or have you know put yourself in an uncomfortable situation um just to take a test so um that's why many colleges and universities have adopted these policies because we know that um you know a sometimes tests are always a good indication of who you'll be in the classroom um and then beyond that you know once again there's just incredible hurdles to taking tests this year so um please kind of hopefully that can be a helpful lens as we kind of go through this next hour together um before i kind of turn it over i'll just kind of define test optional and test blind policies because they're a little bit different um test optional policies a test optional policy essentially says that a student can choose to submit testing as part of their application to a specific institution um but there it is not required so it's not a required piece like a transcript or two teachers a lot of recommendation at uchicago or or two two supplemental essays these things that we need to have in order to render an admissions decision um so it's completely up to you whether you um you know you have a score and you'd like to submit it or not um test blind um policies are a little bit different so those are institutions that um have policies that say um if you choose to even if you choose to submit testing um they will not take it into account so um essentially they've removed it as a as an application uh metric um from all applicants files so um that's it just kind of functions a little bit differently than a test optional policy um but many some schools are adopting that as well so um in absence of testing um you know once again you won't be disadvantaged but there are other pieces to your application that will be kind of helpful indicators of who you'll be in the classroom and as a community member and those things just become really important um they were important before and they remain important now so those things include transcripts uh letters of recommendation your essays your extracurriculars as well as supplemental materials so um i'll turn it over to my uh colleagues to kind of um hopefully unpack each one of those and and kind of hopefully give you guys guidance on how you can um kind of position yourself really favorably in those pieces of the application go ahead raven i saw you on me thank you for that um and for the students you know i'm happy to have the opportunity to chat with you today and i'd like to thank your high school for organizing this and allowing myself and other members of the admissions world to come and talk to you about the college search process um as my colleague from uchicago mentioned you know test optional um is not something that you should be concerned about or you know not having access to the sat or ict there have been a number of schools who have who have adopted the test optional approach for years now some schools are um joining the party rather recently as a result as a result of kovid uh muellenberg specifically we've been test optional for 25 years now and we typically admit uh we have an applicant pool of about a quarter of students that are proud of muhlenberg test optionally and then we actually enroll close to under 30 percent of students who apply to millenberg testosterone as matriculants that information is out there for you so if you have concerns about you know applying to schools that say hey we're test optional we're test blind or um some of the verb is just flying around um look up the schools they're they're required to report these statistics to you so um you know the data's out there the information is out there that's not something that you should be concerned about or anything like that and then um i know for muhlenberg specifically due to some of the restraints that or the restrictions that students have had um for the sat or act um starting this year um some of the different merit opportunities that we've had that required to submit test scores we've removed that requirement and now um for some of the more competitive opportunities by simply submitting an application those are going to be the things that you're going to be able to do to make yourself eligible for merit scholarships or some of our more competitive merit opportunities i know a number of schools are also moving to policies like that um just because again students haven't had the opportunity to look at the sat or act or rather take the essay to your act a number of times to either improve your score have a score flat out some of the ways that colleges are kind of finding ways to work around students not having their test scores is through the demonstrated interest piece we're having an opportunity to chat with you so at muhlenberg specifically we offer an opportunity and we encourage students through each application cycle to come and meet with us uh interview with us everything is obviously gonna be virtual this year so unfortunately you're going to be on zoom for another 45 minutes or so um but you know really get to know the colleges that you're applying to just as much as we as you want to get to know us through the virtual information sessions you've been sitting in on the pamphlets that you get in the mail probably every other day at this point um we eager we just as eagerly want to get to know you um especially at a place like mielenberg where you know we strive off having a strong community on our campus and the only way we can do that is by getting a sense of the students that we're admitting to our class each year so um whether you don't have test scores or you want to have supplemental pieces added to your application those are going to be all the things that we consider as we're looking at your application holistically so each year i have students who send me youtube links to their youtube channels or ebay stores or things like that um that's part of the holistic review we're going to look at anything and everything that you want us to consider as part of your application so then that way we're able to get a better sense of who you are um and a better understanding of some of the different things that you're going to bring to our campus um that we typically wouldn't get how we just said we're going to look at the transcript we're going to look at test scores and recommendations and make an admissions decision based off that um part of the holistic approach is looking at everything that the student has to bring to the table and you know if you had a dip in your sophomore year maybe those are some of the things that you want to discuss in your interview with somebody on our business staff or um just simply send us an email and say hey do the covet i had to pick up another job because i had to pick up a job because unfortunately mom got laid off her dad got laid off we understand that these are experiences that you know our students are dealing with then it would be it wouldn't be in our favor to not be understanding of these different circumstances so by you letting us know and making us aware of these different things are ways that you can not only help yourself as you're going through the admissions process but also notify us of some of the different things that you maybe have experienced and why we might see peaks and flows um in your your transcript as we're looking at your your transcript to review your your academic credentials and things like that i want to echo what rayvon and jack have both said about not only holistic admissions but you know testing and dealing with covet i think the most important thing to remember is that colleges are in this with you you know we're dealing with the same struggles it's just kind of the opposite side of the coin and i think that again i don't want to speak on behalf of everyone but i'm assuming everyone at least at this panel um their institutions are incredibly understanding um and are using this holistic process to not only get to know the students but to really understand where you're coming from um bryn mawr has been testosterone we've been test optional for about four or five years um and it's something that has worked really well for us and for our students um you know even before coronavirus there's a lot of research out there that shows that testing isn't always a great indicator of your ability ability to succeed at the college level there are a lot of other variables that are linked to high sat and act scores that don't necessarily measure aptitude or intelligence and so by using a holistic review process we really are able to get a better sense of who you are as a student and i know that all of our schools are very concerned with community and building community and making sure that you are a good fit for our institutions i want to take a little bit of a deeper dive into some of these um other application components that we've all mentioned i want to start with the transcript because again this is speaking from bryn mawr's perspective the transcript is the biggest part of our application review regardless of whether or not you're submitting testing anyway so if you do submit testing that's fine it's the last thing that we review and it really holds the lowest amount of weight in our review process because like i've said research shows it's not the most reliable form for us to figure out what whether or not you're going to do well at bryn mawr and so when we look at a transcript bryn mawr specifically you know we're looking for a few things um we want to see students who have engaged in rigor so if your school offers ap classes or honors track or anything like that taking advantage of those classes engaging in a well-rounded curriculum you know i know senior year can be hard because you're done with all your main requirements and you want to take a lot of fun electives which is great um but at higher selective schools it's really important to see students that are engaging in math science and foreign language for all four years um it's not a requirement like those aren't minimums but it's a preference that we like to see um and then raven kind of alluded to this but you know being able to see students succeed across four years or if you do have dips or challenges finding ways to address them so whether that's through an interview the additional information section on the common app or coalition application or even through a teacher recommendation or guidance counselor recommendation you know things happen in life um we don't it's really hard to be a straight a student for all four years and that's obviously not the norm especially during times like this i also know of lots of schools that are going past fail for a semester or uh they're letting students you know rearrange their schedules later into the semester again that's totally fine the more information you give us the better it is so we can get a full picture of uh the circumstances you're in or the specific environment you're in um so i don't want to take up all ever all the time so i would say transcripts are a huge part of the review but definitely not the only part of the review and i'll leave it to my colleagues to kind of fill in the blanks oh i can go all right so um i will say just kind of to add on to what everybody is saying um we're not expecting you to submit scores we definitely don't want you to go out of your way and put yourself in an uncomfortable situation and if you don't already have those test scores but like if you already have them you can submit them if you choose to it's kind of what we're all trying to say but um for nc state specifically um i know i i kind of as everybody's talking and realizing sometimes holistic can mean different things for different universities so i would definitely encourage you to look on the university's website to see what holistic means to them and what um exactly they're looking for um because some things might be different just for example with nc state we're not looking for letters of recommendation that's not something we consider so just keep that in mind not all schools are requiring the same things but one thing that is different with nc state is that we are looking for interest in the major that you're applying to so not all schools are like this but nc state does admit students directly into the major that they are applying to and so you start right right into those classes right during your freshman year here at nc state so that's one of the many factors that's just i'm throwing out an example of course we're looking at your academics and your extracurriculars your essay and all of that but just wanted to throw that out there that some might have some schools might have something additional like your interest in the major or they might have letters of recommendation or demonstrated interest in the school so definitely i encourage you to look on the university website to make sure and see what it is that the university that you're applying to is looking for in the applicant um but yeah that's all i wanted to add and i echo everything that everybody said so far hofstra uh we've been test optional for five years as well so i thought we had longevity until i heard from rayvon which is awesome so we're really happy that that more schools are coming on board and seeing that this is a really good thing for students even outside of code i think this is going to be a lasting kind of thing in our realm so we're hoping we're hoping for that we also take a holistic review on applications of course i know we all do but something that i really wanted to delve into that i think bravon and jocelyn you both mentioned is demonstrated interest in the age of covid usually the way that you show demonstrated interest is by coming on a tour you know coming to meet me at your high school and this year you can't do those things so i have a lot of students reaching out to me and saying okay i want to show you that i'm interested but how do i do that this year so i think that's important to talk about as well kind of what we're looking at on our end you know for a student showing that they're interested in our in our institutions again every school does this very differently so you're going to want to reach out and ask but at least at hofstra any little touch point that you make with us counts as demonstrated interest on our end so that could be that you email me to ask some questions about campus you may want to set up a phone call right um it could be that you come to one of my zoom visits at your high school or you're attending this event right now this could count right um it could be that you're coming on a virtual tour or something like that as well so make sure that you're searching everybody's website seeing what they have to offer take advantage of those virtual tours fill out those inquiry forms it all counts toward that demonstrated interest in the same way that it would have if you were visiting campus in the past uh this year is definitely different when it comes to demonstrated interest at least on our end uh so we are looking more so at you know what students are reaching out to me do they care to talk to me about hofstra rather than are they making the drive to come see campus you know so it's a little bit different this year than it used to be um and i think the same thing goes for extracurriculars i know your resumes probably look a little bit weird for this year for lack of a better word a lot of students have their their soccer schedules being cancelled because of covid and they're not able to be in the school production because of it um so this year i'm seeing i'm seeing some kind of fun things on student resumes you know like during quarantine i learned how to bake cupcakes and i'm the best cupcake baker in massachusetts right now you know so you can brag about those hobbies those fun things as well just bring your personality to the application you know we want to learn more about you how your student leader if you care about your community what you're going to bring to our community that's what really really matters as part of that holistic review so yes your high school stuff is the most important but outside of that show us who you are as a person and what you're going to bring to our institution and bring to our campus as well it looks like it looks like we just have one question and i don't know if anyone here can actually it says for schools that are recently test optional how has your admissions process changed again brynner's been doing this for five years so nothing has changed for us really this year but i don't know if anybody else wants to add their experience sure so it seems like everyone has some a number of years under their belt it seems here which is fantastic um chicago this is our third admission cycle being test optional so we're not entirely new to it um though we're newish i guess you could say um but to kind of echo what hannah said and you'll probably get a similar response from other schools um our admissions process hasn't really changed um so um you know if students choose to not submit testing um just as they could have done in years past they won't be disadvantaged um in our process so um things will things won't really change i can touch on that a little bit because actually nc state this is our first year being test optional so we are definitely new to it um but like everyone is saying it's not going to change our like admissions process at all or review process at all um because it is holistic so we have in the year years past always looked at many different factors like we've been talking about so we are looking at the academics major interests extracurriculars your background your essay all of that and so if you have scores or if you don't it doesn't really make a difference on our end because we are looking at all the other factors um so yeah it's new to us just like it is new to all of you students um but we're all going to learn together and just really quick i'm going to chime in for the students literally and i don't know what other what's what uh crms you what the other schools are using but at mueller we use slate i don't know what you all use um but for the students literally when you when we're reading the application we take maybe all of two seconds to look at the test scores and it's literally just to add this the reading and the math section and it spits out a number for us in some cases in other cases we have to manually okay this is this this is that and added together on our own um you know that's not something that most schools spend a tremendous amount of time on um and i just really quickly want to dispel the notion that you know by you applying testosterone or by school being test optional that does not you know make it any less rigorous or anything like that colleges are understanding of the fact that you know covid is is impacting you all is the ability to take exams so um i'm the regional representative or rather i travel travel uh to new england for my recruitment travel each year and in conversations with counselors um i had a conversation with a counselor in early september this was back when we were under the mandatory 14-day quarantine period uh he has a test taken side up in vermont and he had students that were driving up from new jersey pennsylvania new york to take the s.a.t and he ultimately had to shut the shut the test taking site down and you know that that's a to college is just like that's ridiculous like there there's there's no need for you to drive five or six hours to take an exam on a random saturday morning so you know i i say that to just let you know that again just because you're applying to a school that's test optional or you know a school has a test optional policy that does not make it any less rigorous than some of the schools that aren't um test option or anything like that um given kovit everyone is understanding um of the different circumstances that you all are dealing with um and that's again just not something that i want to be in the front work of your your college search process so this school's test options so they're less rigorous you'll be afforded some of the same opportunities if not the same opportunities at any school that you're going to be applying to whether they're test lapses or not to echo that i can take that one step further as well we've we've studied our test optional applicants over the past five years to see kind of how they do on our campus and we've actually found that our test optional students retain so retention means they come back year after year they retain at a better rate than our test sending students and many of them are performing even better in their classes than our test sending students did so it's to the point where we know that test optional students are just as hardworking if not harder working than our test sending students um so it's certainly not an indicator of rigor or anything like that feel free to put questions in the in the comments section uh it seems that uh there's there uh it seems like a great place if you have questions for you to pose them to us uh and i think it's really nice that we're all kind of representative of many different types of institutions um so i'm hopefully comforting that you're kind of hearing the same language and the same kind of perspectives um uh looks like we have a question um uh i'm uh i uh so uh looks like it's coming from sylvia i'm a junior and i don't know what testing will be like next year if all the schools i apply to are test optional should i still take the sat i don't know if i actually have a right answer i don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this um you know if you have a an entire list of just test optional institutions which if um institutions kind of continue on with the policies that they've adopted this year to next year which could be probable um uh you know it's it's completely up to you um you know if you if you want to give it a go and you have the ability to take a test um you know you can certainly do that um you know and i think what's really nice is that you know for those students who choose not to submit and this is specific to chicago but for those students who choose to not submit testing you know once again you're not disadvantaged in our process but if you do submit testing and it is kind of within range of what typically admitted students um well we'll have submitted in years past it does have the opera it does have the kind of ability to in some ways significantly impact your admissions decision favorably um so you know it's really kind of up to you um you won't be disadvantaged but if you feel as though you perhaps could uh you know uh get a score that you think is really strong and reflective of your ability in the classroom um it can really kind of be so supportive of you and your candidacy so um i don't think there's once again there's not a right or wrong answer but definitely something to think about and also enter into conversation with about um with you know with your with your school counselors and your family yeah just just to kind of piggyback off that sylvia i don't know where you are in your college search process if you have a list or your kind of have a skeleton list um the school that you're considering look to see what their test taking policies are so if you find that you know there are schools that you're looking at that still require you to submit test scores maybe it might be your benefit to take the sat if it's possible um no one knows at this point in time you know next spring or hopefully in january everything might be back to normal hopefully so we might be able to return to a normal life but in the event that we're crossing our fingers in the event that we're not able to do that you could predict that some colleges will continue on the test option route um but then there are other col there are some colleges that also tie merit decisions to access to the sat or act and having those test scores made available so if you find that you're looking at a school that still requires you to submit an sat or an act in order to be eligible for merit scholarships maybe it might be to your benefit to take the sat again if it's available um like i said with muellberg we made adjustments to our honors programs since students don't have opportunities to take the sat or act but that's not something that all schools may be in the position to do so um again you just want to look at the different schools that you're applying to and get a sense of what their test taking policies and approaches before making any decision on whether or not you should take the sat or you shouldn't take the sat and then it looks like we have another question in the chat they're actually flown in right now um well other parts of the application have more weight um you may have already spoken to this um we all i think just in listening everybody talk uh we all agree that we look at applications holistically um so for starters your transcript is going to be something that we all look at rather heavily just because we want to make sure that we're admitting you to our institutions and you're able to do the work and your transcript is going to give us some insight into your ability to do the work out each of our academically reverse institutions so you we want to make sure that that's something that we're paying attention to and then we're also going to look at uh in most of our cases i think nc states that they don't require recommendations um but we're going to look at recommendations activities so on and so forth um youtube links if you want to send it to us part of the holistic approach is looking at anything the student has to bring to the table and if anybody wants to chime in that was so eloquently put i don't know if we can even add to that it looks like we have another question from grant uh do your schools have a formula that you use to weigh different parts of the application or does it vary from application application um i think this is school specific um for muhlenberg we do recalculate the gpa and as my colleague hannah said we do look to see that over the course of your four-year college trajectory that you are taking uh five course subjects each academic year so math the science english history and a foreign language um if you get to your senior year and you're like ray bonnie you just don't like math you can totally drop a math class and our hope and expectations that you're then going to pick up a fifth course that is going to kind of tie into whatever it is you're thinking about majoring in we don't want to see you in your senior year picking up another gym class or um knitting or whatever it is the the different classes you all might be taking but um part of our process that we look at differently is just the the gpa because because we do recalculate it and that should just allow us to get a core uh view of your your transcript taking out the classes that aren't going to give us real insight into how you're going to perform academically at our institution yeah and also you know i can speak from the chicago perspective and i know this is probably the case at other institutions as well but um you know everything is you know the transcript is most important certainly um you know in our in our applicant pool um you know typically you chicago receives around 35 000 applications each year and we're typically admitting around 2000 students um and you know in that applicant pool about 80 of our students are perfectly academically admissible so they have testing within range of what we would typically admit we have no doubt that they could be very successful in our core curriculum at uchicago and kind of you know um you know thrive intellectually on in the college um so in in that kind of context um everything else does become really important because it really does help us to suss out those students who are really who have knowledge of us who are excited about us and then also who are really great fits for us um so in kind of in in that pool um you know then things become really important things like letters of recommendation which we do require um things like our supplemental our our essays um chicago has one we we require students to complete the personal essay in the common application of the coalition application and then in addition to that we have two supplemental essays that we ask students to complete so those um those pieces are really helpful in helping the admissions officers um or help the candidate rather kind of elevate themselves above just other seemingly really competitive strong strong applicants i think oh sorry go go for courtney i always like to remind students too that we at least at hofstra we're looking at your application on its own we're never looking at you know student x's essay versus student wise essaying comparing the two of them next to each other we're looking at your application on its own meaning that some things on your app may carry more weight on yours than student-wise carries on theirs you know maybe you're stronger in leadership kind of realms whereas the other student might be more strong in academics right so we're looking at you within the realm of your application not necessarily comparing students against each other in that way i was going to say something very similar so i think we can just move on to the next uh question which says the uc system has explicitly said that the sat and act is biased our college admissions office is making statements about how they view standardized tests or is covet primarily driving this change um i would say bryn mawr has not made any sort of official statement about how we feel about the s.a.t and ect a few years ago when we did make the move to be test optional i think a lot of that was grounded in the research that shows that the s8 and act aren't necessarily a good indicator of student success and that there is a lot of other variables especially around socioeconomic status of the student you know a lot of factors that are out of the students control when it comes to testing i think that's where our decision was really grounded again we did not make a statement similar to what you see did but um we definitely had this push before covid and i think covet has really just amplified the disparities in our country and you know internationally for folks not only access to testing but you know ability to do well on these tests yeah i wasn't alive when mielenberg all right i wasn't going through the college search process rather excuse me when muhlenberg was going through their transition to being test optional like i said earlier we've been test option for 25 years now so i think by our recognition of the you know being test option for that long while we haven't recently made a statement or anything like that i think just our approach with test optional kind of says for itself that we understand the discrepancies that waking up on a random saturday morning um to take a an exam at a random high school probably i know when i took my s.a.t i'm from the bronx new york originally and the school that i had to go to was actually on the opposite side of the bronx um so we we understand that there are a number of different things that factor into a student's ability to score um in a certain percentile on the sat so that's one of the reasons why we've had the approach that we've had um as far as being test optional for as long as we've been test optional so while we haven't made an official statement what's kind of implied doesn't always need to be said i guess yeah and i can say for nc state since this is kind of a little bit newer for us we have not made an official statement either i do believe a lot of the reason that we have gone test optional is because of covid and because we know so many students haven't been able to go out and take those exams um so we just wanted to be more accessible for students this also is a decision that's made by the unc system and so we are a public school in north carolina so we don't get to make all of our own decisions since we're kind of a part of a greater organization within the unc system and so they decided that we were gonna go test optional um maybe a little bit later than we wanted them to um but you know that's ultimately up to them um and so they made the decision to go test optional for this upcoming application cycle and that's all that they've given us so far they haven't told us if we're going to continue being test optional in the future so like they were mentioning before definitely look into the university website and see if they are going to resume requiring test scores or if they're going to stay test optional because i can say for nc state i don't know i know that we're test optional for 2021 um applicants but i don't know any further than that so definitely check in with the university to see if they are going to continue with that test optional policy put those questions in the chat everyone out there any other questions just to be clear the questions don't have to be specific to the sat or act you can ask us questions about what are the perks of doing an interview um what are the perks or what are some ways we can engage with your school you have five wonderful admissions experts here that you know can give you information specific to their institutions but also some of the institutions that you might be thinking about applying to um i'm pretty sure i know i didn't go to mueller as an undergrad so you not only have the employment experience but you also have the undergraduate experience that each of us can bring to the table so no questions are off the table feel free to ask i'll just kind of i i think kind of this um well while while you're all kind of brainstorming those fantastic questions um i know i think kind of also opportunity while we've talked about you know many different types of things that you can you can and you should be submitting as part of your application um i think um also and i think rayvon kind of talked about this nicely but i'd just like to emphasize that it can be really helpful um is kind of all of these supplemental materials that you can be submitting as part of your application um so you know when we think about supplemental materials important from the outset really kind of emphasize that these are almost all optional almost all always they're optional so and you know most of the time as especially in covid um you know when schools when institutions say something is optional it is really truly optional so um you know please always you know uh take that into account but supplemental materials um can there's there's kind of a beautiful variety of what you can submit um you know at uchicago we encourage students to submit things like uh business proposals or abstracts or research that they've engaged with or any number of things music supplements art supplements um uchicago offers its students the opportunity to submit a two-minute optional video which is actually in lieu of admission interviews which we stopped offering around two years ago largely from from from an access standpoint it was just interviews are not incredibly uh accessible for many students so that's why we kind of give students the opportunity to kind of submit a two-minute optional video um but that can be a great way that students can kind of show us in real time something that we might already know um something that you know the the uh something that we don't know yet that the student thinks is really important in their application and i've had students you know submit really kind of interesting interesting videos um you know i've had students you know submit full-fledged uh music videos which have been both incredibly uh impressive and overwhelming in their enthusiasm for the university of chicago i've had a student who was one of eight siblings and he had in his two minute video he invited he uh introduced me to all seven of his siblings which was delightful um so um you know get creative in this year where perhaps you are anxious about not submitting a test think about those other things that you know we don't explicitly ask for but we all really kind of give you most institutions give you the opportunity to kind of to kind of submit um uh in your application um there was uh specific question you should congratulate i can just answer really quickly um how does you chicago attract demonstrated interest good question um we do we don't unfortunately track demonstrated interest so any touch point you have with the university um whether that be attending an information session taking a campus tour um coming here today it's really kind of for your own exploration of the college so um we don't we don't take it into consideration um but please take advantage of them hopefully taking advantage of both in person and when we offer in-person and virtual opportunities um will give you a better sense of the university um of chicago as well as every other school you're probably interested in um there's a question um anyone anyone want to add to that i don't know if anyone has anything to add no cool uh question um is a passing ap score going to give me direct credit for the equivalent class so this is a great question this is largely very institution specific um so every university college has a different kind of equivalency or conversion chart for ap classes or ib classes um so i would just encourage you to look at the specific schools to which you're applying um and they'll they tend to be pretty kind of clear with what classes will transfer um you know what score you need on the ap um ap exam for those classes or for you to get course credit for it um but at us chicago typically we we award credit um we we do give uh course credit for ap classes um and typically um with some small exception students will typically need a five on the exam but once again depends upon the institution i would like to add to this because i know that the original theme of this presentation was about being test optional or test blind um i don't know if this is the case for everybody else here but at bryn mawr being test optional means that you can also be test flexible so if you don't want to submit your sat or at act scores but you do want to submit ap scores because you're proud of them or you feel like they really represent you as a student you can submit ap scores instead of an sat score or in addition to an sat score it's totally up to you i always say that i see applications where a student submits literally every standardized test they've ever taken and then i see students who have like here's my a push score like just the one um and that's fine you know i will look at it and i'll review it but it's totally up to you so regardless of how we award credit you might still want to submit it just as a test score in general all right so we are we just have about two minutes left so i just want to thank our panelists for being here and giving us such great insight into the college admissions process especially in this age of so much test optional test blind newness i think we had a great range of folks here from you know test optional for 25 years to test optional for the first time um i think you know you all have been fantastic and i want to reach out to the students and the parents and say if you have further questions about sats test scores anything at arhs feel free to reach out to me miss garrity or to mscuffygray if you have questions for our panelists if you're interested in learning more about their college more about their expectations for test scores um or just are interested in doing demonstrated interests definitely reach out to me i have everyone's contact info i definitely keep an eye out on those like college visits in naviance and attend ones that you are interested in any last thoughts from any of our panelists just wanted oh god you beat me today um just want to share with the the students and the families that are on the call um don't let the call search process stress you out i can speak for all my colleagues on the call we're not here to stress you out you know enjoy your senior year enjoy you know everything that being a high school student uh entails and enjoy the college search process while it's a little unusual this year there are ways that you can still engage with the different colleges that you're looking at um i know i knew it feels like we're doing a virtual session every night right now um and i'm sure my colleagues on the call as well are doing virtual sessions and finding ways to you know meet you where you are so engage with us interact with us as frequently as you'd like um and we're here to help you know so if there's anything that we can do to be of service to you all um since you all keep the food on our table and our lights on in our apartments and food in our cats and dogs bellies um feel free to reach out to us let us know we can do to help all right well i'm going to end our broadcast but um it was great to see you all and have a great lovely rest of your day
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hello hello everyone um welcome to our college essay panel we're so excited to have a chance to hear from from some great experts um you should be able to for people tuning in um we'll give you some time to kind of roll in um and then we're just gonna kind of get started this is very exciting um and also this is our first time at the rodeo using this platform so everyone's doing great um feeling very professional we okay i see we've got six people joining us welcome welcome please feel free to drop your chats your comments in the chat um and without further ado i'm gonna introduce our first speaker tom um and we'll have a chance to hear from everyone today and then we'll do questions at the end but feel free to drop questions in as we're going thanks hey thank you thanks for having me everyone my name is tom roberts i'm an admissions counselor at the new school in new york city i'm just going to share my screen here and all right just making sure i can actually do that all right it might not be working super well for me so um we will just kind of do this um spoken word style um so again i'm tom roberts um i work at the new school um so i just wanted to give some insight into what colleges are looking for in the essay and supplements within the context of performing in visual arts colleges we have a lot of students coming to us looking to do things like art and design um playing an instrument being an actor or a playwright something along those lines and so we get a lot of questions about you know from students who are working so hard on preparing auditions portfolios things like that like what is the importance of the college essay and so our admissions committees at programs like ours and other institutions that are similar do value the creative components of the application but they also want to see your writing ability as well and that essay helps them to get to know you understand what is important to you um learn more about your passions kind of the context for why you may be interested in pursuing a creative field like for performing arts or in design and it kind of helps us also to see see what makes you unique um and and really that kind of just ties into also how important the college essay is so for us specifically we do have a holistic application review process so um we kind of evaluate all the admissions credentials um all together and so it's not like we're making an admissions decision um just based off of someone's portfolio alone or just based off of that audition we are looking at all the other application credentials including the essay and often that essay does give us a lot of great context for why you're doing what you're doing or you want to continue doing what you're doing while you're maybe pursuing this creative field through a very serious four-year degree so yeah and some things that we like students to think about um some of my colleagues and i are kind of interested in essay writing i myself uh really enjoyed writing when i was in college pursuing my bfa and i find myself helping friends uh do things like writing grant applications residency applications so i often look at essays from creative professionals who were writing kind of for part of their job as creative professionals and so some things that we like students to think about is how the essay is sort of a way to show us who you are and so when you're thinking about that in the context of our admissions committee we're looking at your writing style how you adhere to essay limitations on how you approach showing us who you are creatively uh creating like a concrete theme or topic of your essay so some colleagues and i kind of created a short workshop so i just have a few notes from kind of a snapshot of that normally we'd spend like an hour going over these kinds of things but i know my time is a little short but just some things to think about when coming up with ways to brainstorm your topic um we definitely recommend uh thinking about maybe things like who are people who have made a significant impact on your life and maybe your creative pursuit um thinking about what you're passionate about um and why are you passionate about that thing you're applying to college or for doing something like performing arts or visual arts and so our admissions committee is going to know that you're passionate about it but what makes you passionate about it perhaps you could also tie in things like important events or moments in your life um i was working with someone who applied to our fashion design program and the specific collection from designer raf simmons totally changed their perspective of how fashion designers could make fashion and that was a really interesting thing that they introduced in their essay because it kind of showed us the shift that they had in their perspective on making fashion why they wanted to pursue that seriously um some things to to you know obvious tips and tricks um you know helping getting someone to help you proofread and edit your essay and then also helping others proofread and edit their essays can be a really great tool to kind of improve your own writing you know if you've ever taught someone maybe you are a creative person yourself and you've like mentored a music student and the instrument that you're an expert in that can kind of help you become better at that instrument it really works the same way with exercising your betting muscles and then just some things to avoid uh specifically for us you know writing it all is often something that we see students do kind of talking about how like ever since they were a kid and kind of giving us when they started drawing when they were three years old to where they are now in high school creating a portfolio we don't necessarily need that early early early story you know maybe there's something funny that you share a sentence about and then you kind of pivot to where you're at now but that's something we see students do that we'd like to see them maybe avoid or give us a little bit more insight into where they are now um and then lastly just you know thinking about once you've written your college essay um you know some students might think this is the last time i have to write like this um and the last thing i wanted to share is that you will still be writing a lot um you will have to be writing for your degree program creating critical analysis of art music and performance history often in design and music history classes you'll be writing cover letters for internships and jobs application as essays for residency programs post grad programs grants and scholarship opportunities maybe you're drafting your own artist statements or press releases for music you're putting out there um so you'll definitely still be writing so try to look at this process as kind of like training for what you will be continuing to do um after you get into your degree program pursue your degree like i said i help my friends out with that kind of thing uh post-graduate uh so um but yeah looking forward to hearing from you your questions and giving some other insights from my colleagues thanks again nicole hello everyone my name is noah grozetsky i'm one of the assistant directors of admission at kenyon college in gambier ohio this is usually such a delightful time of year for all of us in the admissions industry not just to um visit with our prospective students and prospective families but also seeing fellow admissions professionals on the road with that being said i'm very glad that we can all uh be here whatever here means um together via the the miracle of modern technology um and i definitely look forward to uh conversing uh together um with respect to uh to the personal um essay aspect of the application um to sort of practice our conversation together um i definitely like to know that all of us who work in admissions find a lot of joy through the opportunity that we have to be in touch with young people during a time in their lives when uh whether they know it or not they are engaging in a lot of high-intensity soul-searching right thinking about who they are who they aspire to be as well as which environments are going to be most conducive uh to becoming the sort of person that they aspire to be um and finding the intellectual and personal growth that they're looking for um and with all that in mind i think that what i like most about the personal essay portion of the the application is that it really exemplifies the the humanness and the individuality of the college search which um at its best is uh guided by a desire to be true to who you are um and seek out a place where uh for all the ways in which you will be challenged for all the ways in which you will grow for the ways in which you will surprise yourself um you will also may feel at home um through that process um i love all the brainstorming tips topic brainstorming tips that uh that tom had to share um i think one of the things that is is that once both very challenging but also very liberating when it comes to to the personal essay is the fact that there are an innumerable number of subjects uh that could be the topic of an essay that complements the rest of an application very well um and perhaps even boosts the the overall strength of the application um it could be it could be an object it could be a person uh it could be a fictional character an experience a quote a relationship a favorite book favorite movie a favorite tv show it could be something quirky it could be something uh very every day um anything in any one of those categories has the potential to be uh the topic of an essay that complements the rest of a given application very very well um it's very much not the case that uh essays about a meaningful relationship are automatically given this grade and essays about you know a favorite song are given this grade um that's because ultimately what we on the admissions committee are looking for in an essay um as tom alluded to is an illustration of uh the student's identity uh through the topic that they choose so if you're brainstorming topics i recommend all students ask themselves not necessarily is this a cool topic is this an interesting topic but rather is this a topic through which i would be able to communicate an important part of who i am as an individual in writing um so let's say you know through playing video games you've learned lessons that really inform how you think about life and how you process the world around you that might be a very good topic if classical music is something about which you are passionate if it's a passion that you share with a parent and it's been a cornerstone of a relationship with that parent classical music might be a very good topic your essay one of the most significant keys i think to um once you have your topic actually writing an essay that that complements the rest of your application particularly well is making sure that it is clear that your topic is a vehicle for communicating a feature of your identity um instead of on the other hand being uh the sole focus of your essay such that the admissions committee doesn't actually end up learning a whole lot about who you are um it sounds like a very subtle distinction um but as you continue to reread and to rewrite um that is something that i would be particularly sensitive to um for instance if the topic of your essay is is yoga um ask yourself is this an essay about yoga or is this an essay in which i am using yoga as a means to communicate a central part of my identity because again that's ultimately what we are looking for while we are reading essays our hope is not to learn more about whichever topic you ended up choosing um but it is to learn more about who you are um through the written word and and through the topic um that that you choose um again look forward to being in conversation with you all on this afternoon through the modern miracle of technology and with that i will pass the mic off to katie all right hello speaking of modern miraculogy i um i was having some trouble with my microphone so i hope you can all hear and see me okay um thank you so much for having me and granny alcala today i'm an assistant director of admission at grinnell also a graduate of grinnell i worked as a writing mentor all through college and the essay is by far my favorite part of the application just a little bit about grinnell so we're a selective small liberal arts college that is very writing intensive so i always tell students whether you major in english or biological chemistry you will graduate a stronger writer um and to echo what my colleagues have already said that is such a life skill it's one of those transferable skills that you'll need wherever you go um i find it something that students often either really love or they have a lot of appreciation about um but i would you know just encourage you to dive in follow those great tips that my colleagues shared a few other things that um i really look for in s are often gifted are uh think about what activities get you in flow i find that a lot of students feel a little stuck at the beginning of that brainstorming process so i'm a psych major such a nerd out about this a little bit but it's not familiar with the concept of flow it's those experiences when you lose track of time and you get fully immersed in what you're doing and you kind of lose your ego but then you come out with a stronger sense of connection maybe for you that's a chemistry experiment or playing soccer or cello or even a really road trip i love a good transportation essay but that can often be a good place to start if you feel like you haven't defined your quote-unquote passion just being mindful and paying attention to those moments where you feel like you're fully immersed and engaged in what you are doing another thing i often look for in essays is of this student's system maybe a more thoughtful or provocative way to put this is who are you when no one is around to offer praise or criticism and what matters to you so i like to see that through and as i said we really look at the essay as a vehicle so you want to pick the topic that allows you to express those you know values and character system it's something that um oftentimes really helps to do a bunch of pre-writing before trying to just self-reflect really before you construct an essay and put that out shoot that out into the world of a college admissions committee you really want to be clear on what's important to you and what will round out your application as well some tips that i think are maybe a little more technical would be first of all just start writing embrace crappy first drafts a writer i love says that with a little more profanity but i think often times you write your way into your topic and even if it comes out kind of gerberish at the beginning keep writing and then read it until you hit on something that feels like truth i think teenagers have really good bs detectors that feel part in my language if you read your essay when it's done or when it's partially done and you feel like that sense of okay i think i'm saying what they want to hear that's not your topic uh you want to write something that you not only have on it technical article level but something that you feel like the reader would know um something about you as a person that they couldn't tell from your resume or just from looking at you when they finish i will view with is i often find that it's really um you can pick up a lot of insights by reading your completed essay from the bottom up often students will they just said right their way down to their point so you totally don't have to follow like that traditional five paragraph essay model but if you have the whole theme of your essay and you've gotten to it in paragraph number five or four or six um oftentimes reading it backwards can help you make sense of what the organization and the flow of your writing looks like to a reader so that's all i have thank you again for posting this amherst poem and i look forward to your questions all right well thank you tom noe and katie for some really wonderful points of wisdom i'm going to try and share new and different i always hate meetings where we just say the same thing over and over so i'm going to try and share new and different so i think the first thing i would share is always have a so what i think this was already touched on a little bit but as you're sharing any information why are you sharing it with me why is this important um you get to choose why it's important but being explicit i think that's certainly okay of what this activity is and why it's important to you and what it speaks about you tell me the so what um being authentic and being genuine if you're funny be funny if maybe you're not the person who's got the best jokes don't force it maybe that might not come off the most authentic for supplemental essays quite often supplemental essays are asking you why would you like to study at this college or what about this college or university excites you do your research google use the admissions website there's a ton of online published information if you write about boston university's nursing program and how excited you are to study nursing at bu i will know you did not do your research we do not have a nursing program so if you name drop a program that a college or university doesn't have that's not going to be a great look so you want to make sure you do your research our admissions websites have so much information whether about professors or student life academics dorms traditions you can use this to your advantage it will make your application stand out when you do your research um proofread proofread proofread um i can't tell you how many times that all my colleagues and i have read something where you like they're very excited about going to collage not college but collage usually something that's kind of more artistic related i'm not kidding you it's a simple mistake but you need to proofread because it's the incorrect words spelt correctly words not going to pick that up for you or your spell check's not going to correct that um so you want to make sure you can address that by reading it out loud having a friend read it having somebody who cares about you read it somebody who's not your best friend read it um you're going to get some really good honest feedback there i already see there's a ton of great questions coming through the comments so rather than me just go on and on i'll actually just kind of pass it off so we can get into q a because i think anything beyond that i'll just get repetitious awesome thanks everybody um i'm just coming on real quick to say all of our panelists are magically transcending time and space right now in one uh digital ether and i'm gonna hop out but let folks kind of work through the questions in the chat there's some really great things in there already um but as more questions come up um we'll just keep going does that sound good for everybody cool all right thanks all right do we want to start towards the top of the chat maybe work our way down oh my god there's questions already that's great sounds like a plan sounds like a plan [Music] um so the the question with respect to holistic admission i can i can take the lead on that and y'all can jump in to fill in all the things that i miss i'm sure i will miss a lot um yeah with respect to um you know how much that yeah how much weight the essay has i mean i think that um for most most institutions um you know the the the high school transcript is going to be the piece that's going to carry the single most way because that is the list and gold best indicator of how prepared that student is um to to handle the academic rate of the institution to which um they are applying um and i think by and large most applications um you know the final you know rating or grade that um admissions companies arrive at um is not going to be you know radically far off um from transcript the transcript usually ends up guiding the final rating um but at the same time the final rating very rarely um is just that same rating of the transcript i mean the other pieces of the application um very much affect the final rating um but i would definitely think of it as you know the yeah the transcript is you know the piece that most often will will guide the rating to begin with um and then the the other pieces the essay the letters of support the co-curricular activities um those are going to you know move the rating um up up or down um after that so uh yeah i would definitely say that they're it's yeah it's definitely hard to put a number on it in terms of how much weight um the sa and the other pieces have um i would say that they the final rating of the application is definitely going to to reflect the the strength of the transcript to a certain degree um but at the same time the final rating will not um be radically different from uh from the transcript which i think for which i hope for most students is a liberating notion when it comes to the essay knowing that um you know if your your transcript is already very very strong um you know an essay that is not going to you know radically bring down uh your rating um for as far as the application goes so um again sort of um building off of what um my fellow admissions colleagues have shared already um using the essay as an opportunity to really engage in self-exploration and introduce yourself into the to the admissions committee in a way um to present yourself in a way that can only be communicated through the written word um in a way that's you know showing a side of yourself that isn't necessarily reflected through other pieces of your application um that is a fantastic approach and often you know yields essays that end up confirming the rest of the application uh very well i was just going to kind of tie this into a ladder question i know someone also asked about suggestions for esl students and i do want to touch on that too but someone also asked about how we weigh supplemental essays against the common app essay and just specifically where i work um we don't require the common application essay so we do our main essay is like an essay that's institution specific why you're interested in coming to our institution um so for us we're definitely looking more at that supplemental essay that's specific to us if you've chosen to include the common app essay that's awesome we'd love to see like another example of you writing um but it's not that's not specific specifically going to really changed that overall admissions rating that that noah was talking about so that's just for us but but yeah and sticking out that point of writing tips for an esl student um i think these are writing tips that i would share really with any student it's make sure you give yourself the appropriate time make sure you know that your first version isn't your best version um and when you need help this is the best time to ask for help the students i think in university and college usually do the best are the ones who seek out the most help so use your resources whether that's your english teachers or your college counselors folks who are here to support you they're excited so make the time make sure you provide appropriate time asking the day before your application is due i would say that's an inappropriate amount of time you want to make sure that they can give their full attention so asking the night before something is due that's probably not appropriate uh but maybe you know like three weeks out four weeks out so they can schedule like enough time to really review and consider and chat with you i think that will help so use your resources and use your resources appropriately that's i think i i think i caught a couple questions in the chat with respect to to word count um so just on that subject um yes that is correct that the yeah the the common app essay the maximum word count is 650.
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all right all right all right all right hi everyone awesome hi i'm schuyler beckerman i'm the assistant director of admissions at lasell university hey everyone my name is chris weistepeck i'm the executive director for admissions outreach and recruitment for enrollment management as well as the athletic liaison at western new england university awesome awesome all right guys so i have a i have a short presentation so i'm just gonna share my screen real quick alrighty all right guys so the recruitment process so just to start off um the recruitment process is it's a it's a game without a doubt so with that being said i have a a small analogy so it's grades and test scores so without a doubt you need to obviously do well in school um you know coaches out there they want to see good grades they don't want to see you know vlogs test scores or low grades make sure you're doing well in the classroom that's that's the most important thing next obviously you know if you want to play in college sports also you have to be good so ability and then next honestly the biggest thing for me um is motivation how bad do you want to um play in college how how much you're willing to work in the classroom work on the field and then also work to get that exposure so when it comes to reaching out to coaches getting highlight film working in the weight room there's all that stuff goes together next you want to find the school that is the best fit for you don't play that name game so don't just try to go after division one schools try to find the school that is the best fit for yourself when it comes to your major a school that's going to challenge you a place where you're going to play um you know you don't want to go to a school where that you won't play till your senior year you want to try to have that opportunity to be able to you know play on the field next um you know i'll talk a little bit about this in the presentation try to get highlight film of you compiled um definitely try to start that maybe your sophomore to junior year definitely your junior is probably one of your most important years so definitely try to get high highlight film of you play next whatever school that you're interested in you know fill out the recruiting form most schools have recruiting forms on their athletics website so recruit you know fill out that recruiting form and then lastly reach out to the coaches all the coaches information is on on the athletics website um their phone numbers are on there too send a nice email and also make sure you're sending a good email you're not sending like a one sentence send a nice email make sure the grammar is right you know put your highlight film on there reach out to coaches that being said know your options there is so many different options for you when it comes to division one division two division three there's naia there's junior college there's so many different um there's there's so many different places where you can play i i thoroughly believe there is a school for everyone out there and you know you know i know a lot of people they want to play at the highest level they want to play division one but you know what sometimes that's not always the the best choice or or the best for you you want to make the best choice that is you know when it comes to your education are you going to get that playing time so know your options there's nothing wrong with going to playing division two playing division three going to junior college for two years and then transferring to another school so definitely know your options with that being said your junior year is probably your most important year um when it comes to in the classroom and on the on the field um when it comes to your grades this is probably your your heaviest emphasis uh in your classes and when we're as a admissions counselor i i like to really look at your junior year because like i said it is one of the most important years the same time this is where you're probably going to start getting recruited to do colleges so definitely you know that junior year you want to really work hard you're you know you're probably gonna have a lot of late nights when it comes to doing homework practicing you know hitting the weight room doing things like that it's gonna be a long year but definitely you know that junior is so important next uh make sure you know you're cleared with the clearinghouse and know just know that know the rules know your recruiting rules and what what coaches are allowed to do as well also you know register for sats i know this year's a weird year with with test taking but you know make sure you take your sets most multiple times try to take it two or three times if you can um i was a person that i struggle with test taking and i i took it four times um when i was in high school so definitely you know take them as many times as you can um you know that sat is definitely important when it comes to getting into schools another important question to ask yourself is you know what college level should you play at talk to your coaches um you know be honest with yourself you know like i said you know everyone wants to play the division one level everyone wants to play professionally but unfortunately that's not the case for everyone but you are still good enough to play in college without a doubt there's nothing wrong with playing division two division three you're still a good player you know so definitely you know be honest with yourself when it comes to your ability and your junior year is a big year for you know start start your college research start trying to figure out what you want to do um with with your career or after sports um these are all things that are questions that you have to ask yourself so definitely you know get your parents involved talk to your guidance counselors those guidance counselors are here to help you go to your guidance counselors as much as possible they're going to help you through the whole process obviously your coaches and and any other professionals out there out there to help you another point i'd like to make um you know a lot of families might think you know their coaches are supposed to get you recruited or or or coach is supposed to come out come out to you know recruit you sometimes you have to recruit yourself especially in that division two division three level um you know coach you know coaches are not always full-time they're part-time and it's hard for coaches to come out and see you like i said i was talking about that highlight film get a good highlight film compiled together if you can um send out as many emails as you can whatever school that you're interested in send out emails to coaches let them know that you're interested first and then they can you know recruit you so you have to really work hard in the recruitment process next you know go visit you know go make unofficial visits to the school you know go do a campus tour maybe you know if you're not able to meet with a coach that's fine go see what the school is all about before um you know going there because you don't want to just go to the school just for sports and that's something you know it's really important you want to go there first for your major do you like the school the location there's so many things you need to ask yourself before it comes to sports obviously sports is something that's very important to you but you want to make sure that the school is a right fit and then seniors you know you know you're going to be doing um official visits if you're being recruited keep getting contact with coaches keep in contact with all the coaches that you're being recruited with like i said that highlight and and and the highlight video is very important keep that updated and if you're still you know still looking for someone to play you know keep that highlight film updated and keep reaching out to coaches guys that's pretty much it for me my name is skyler beckerman uh like i said i'm the assistant director of admissions at lasell if you have any other questions um please you know you can reach out to me anytime thanks skyler uh so what i want to do for all of you i'm going to expand and leave even more with schuyler did um because i know both of us actually work at institutions at the division three level but some of you may be sitting here have aspirations for the division one or division two and and there's differences when you look at the level competition but even the recruitment aspect and just to give a little background i've been working with the the athletic department for close to 10 years um i help them out with all their recruiting um recruiting events for prospect days uh to game day visits um we do pre read evaluation so i help assist them with that make sure we have that that partnership between admissions and athletics so a lot of times people actually think i work in the athletic department because i spend a lot of time in there um but i also have a lot of colleagues who work for division one and division two institutions and learning a lot more about the aspect of those institutions and what they do on the recruitment level for athletes is definitely going to be a lot different than division three so one of the differences when you're looking at division one division two institution is much of the recruitment is going to be done during sophomore junior year all right so if you're looking at like a major sport like a football basket you want to get that highlight tape together and everything else so i just want to make sure everyone's okay also i just had a little wheelie turns and i'm like oh boy something must be happening um so that's one of the big differences the other thing is with division one and division two you do have to go through the ncaa eligibility center so because you have to meet the minimum nca requirements in order for you to participate at that institution and then the next step would be to talk to that admissions office and figure out if you do meet the requirements and this is where that partnership really comes into play between athletics and admissions whereas the division three level you do not have to go through the eligibility center now as schuyler mentioned as a junior i would definitely recommend filling it out either way all right whether you think you're going division two division three or even division one it definitely doesn't hurt to fill it out keep in mind if you are looking at an naia school you do not have to go through the eligibility center it's a whole totally different organization in itself um so i would definitely recommend at least filling out but keep in mind when it comes to a division three institution you basically have to meet the requirements for that particular college or university now the other thing you got to think of too is scholarship money all right division one and division two institutions are able to award athletic scholarships whereas division three cannot now i do know during my years and i've been doing this for 16 years that i've gotten so many families who will come up to me saying well there's a way you can do it there's a way you can work it in the financial aid or the merit scholarship and the answer that is no no division three institution can award any type of athletic money um and flat out so any any school that is doing it is actually breaking nca rules um whereas division one division two and this is and i'm glad skylar touched on this with the number one if you guys didn't remember it's the grades because the first thing that any coach will do is go to admissions office and tell me what type of merit money they're going to get now if you're not familiar with merit scholarships this is based on your academic performance every single school has it lasalle has it western new england has it um they want to know that first and here's the reason why and this is me being transparent i always like to let students and families know uh how exactly it works behind the scenes so the reason why coaches like to look at that first because they can save that athletic money and then they can use it for someone else so they can build that team and that's why doing well inside the classroom is extremely important the last thing a coach wants to do is worry about you inside the classroom all right if you're coming in and you're a little bit on the lower end that's more work for them to do they want to make sure they have someone in there who's responsible who show off and who's doing the work the other thing is there's a lot of tidbits that i've learned over the years from our our coaches as well as from uh some of the division one coaches i know pretty well it's interesting some of the things and and i know lasalle probably does the same thing but students you got to be aware of what you're doing not only at your athletic events if you're doing any showcases because your character is going to play a huge role in the decision a lot of coaches usually will take the concept saying you know what i don't care how good you are if you're going to be really rude to our students our faculty or even your mom and dad i know a couple coaches who said i based the character on how they treat your mom and dad all right i know there's some parents here and probably nudging their kids saying i told you so um so they look at all that because they really want to make sure they bring someone who's a leader who's a team player you may not be the best person on the team but they want to make sure that you have skills that you can develop and that you can take control and you can be that leader on and off the field or on and off the court inside the classroom that's what they truly look like and i've heard stories of how some of the coaches went to go watch a particular player and why everyone's in a huddle this player's off to the side and they were like why are they not part of the team and that's what coaches really were looking for now because skylar mentioned a lot of good points like if you have a highlight tape make sure you send that into the coaches because honestly that's the especially now that's the only way coaches are going to be able to determine whether you're recruitable all right now with with this highlight film you don't want to make it lengthy they don't want to watch a 10 minute film of you all right if they're going to do that they're going to watch you actually play but if you get less than a two minute clip and um it's got i think i i think you played baseball at the cell so i'm going to give you that as an example like depending on what position you play like if you're a pitcher they're going to want to see speed they want to see your uh form if you're a position player they're going to want to see how you're hitting is that what you're feeling you're throwing you're running you're speeding like they're going to look at everything through this highlight film that's what they really want to grasp they want to see like all right is this someone that is going to be um really instrumental to our team the other thing you have to give me one you guys could be the best player at amherst or you could be one of the top players but then if a particular institutions like i'm sorry we're not interested it's because you're not a terrible player it's because you also have to look at it maybe that position is full i can tell you right now like if we have anyone that's coming to look at western women for men's soccer we cannot take another goalie okay same thing for football i can't take another quarterback so the position could just be full because these coaches usually have a plan of how many students are usually looking to bring in per year by position one year week they could bring in 10 athletes another year they could bring in four it varies year by year but the biggest thing you want to make sure you do is get in communication with the coach fill out the recruited questionnaire send in your highlight tape and then they take it from there utilize the admissions office utilize skyler utilize myself send us your highlight film and we can forward on to the coaches because we both have really good relationships with the coaches and i i joke around in fact while skyler was presenting the mental cross coach was just trying to call me so we have that good relationship where we know if they get an email from us they potentially could open that up right away so you want to make sure you get that film together now if some of you guys are sitting down like i better see i never got that film try to do some practice drills get something but also keep in mind when it comes to division three it's all open tryouts for division one division two it's very difficult to be a walk-on i don't want to say you can't do it i just know it's very very challenging and that's the other thing you want to make sure you're realistic i can't tell and i know skylar probably got this too where i can't tell you how many times i would get a student that comes up to me saying i want to play for umass amherst football team and they look and they're like 100 pounds wet all right you got to be realistic i don't know if that potentially could happen and especially if you're a senior coming up thinking you have aspirations to play like their recruiting has already been completed they're already looking at following years because they already fill that roster they already got those commitments so you really want to make sure that you're realistic in that as well so um if anyone has any questions please make sure you put in the chat uh skyler and i would be more than happy to help you out um the other thing i want to want to do too is uh um so at the division three level how much influence do the coach all right this is actually a really really good question the coaches basically let us know who they're interested in all right and when they let us know where they're interested in this is where we try to spend a little bit more time but i can tell you the coaches are not the ones that will make that decision all right and i'm going to give you a story and i love telling stories so i was in one high school and i had a a student he was in my visit and he was he was being rude he was interrupting and i said what's going on he said well i don't need to listen to all this because the baseball coach already told me i'm getting in i said that's funny because i'm the one that makes that decision all right so they won't have an influence so much per se saying all right this is a student i want i don't care what their grades are we want to make sure we can get them accepted in the end the coaches realize they all they want to find someone that's going to retain they want to find someone that's going to be successful at the institution um follow up with a lot of the admissions offices or with your coaches and see whatever institution you're looking at as far as whether or not they do pre-evaluations or what they call pre-reads um because this might give a student and the coach a good idea where someone stands for admissions because the last thing you want to do is go through the whole process with the coaches the coaches love you you love the coach you love the institution and then also you get that letter you're saying denied and you can potentially set up goals with each institution and like i said every single school is going to be different and you're going to hear that it's all going to be like it depends it's different um but like i said they won't have the direct influence saying all right this is a student i'm interested in i want to make sure we get them accepted it's more uh saying all right we know you're interested in that student let's do what we ever can to to admit the student in some cases it doesn't work out unfortunately and that's where uh take skylar's advice as far as look at the community college because many of them do have athletic programs where you can become recruited again i do know i get a lot of the questions about post graduate years what they also call pg years for a student academic-wise to be honest i would not look at a pg er that's just my personal opinion i'm not saying it's going to be the right or wrong answer but i really feel pga years you can develop more as an athlete if you have the grades but if you're a little bit lower end you're better off going to community college doing the athletics to build up those academics so not only you have a better chance to be admitted but you also can have a better chance to be recruited and potentially play um but that was a very very good question mike thank you so much and scott i don't know if there's anything else you want to add at the moment you covered it so it's it's definitely one of the like skylar said it's like a game i mean it's for the coaches it's they're evaluating so many different athletes uh so many so many different positions and they know what need in order for them to become successful and that's what you also have to be patient don't be afraid to flat out ask the coach where do i stand in your recruiting process i mean yeah yeah i'm just going to say that ask these questions to the coach when you when you know when you send in when you meet with the coach ask these questions write them down before you go in the meeting with a coach ask how many how many players are on the roster how many they're trying to keep how many are at a certain position you know these are these are all things you need to know because you want to play obviously that's like that's the goal you want to play so i mean you don't want to go to a school where you're not you're either not going to play you're not going to play your scene a year you you want to play that's that's the main priority here obviously yeah no which is honestly which is so true um and i was actually just thinking of something i was just going to branch out oh yeah yeah so another thing um and i know some parents on on here as well students make sure you're having that conversation the coaches want to hear from you now admissions is different i mean skyler and i are willing to listen to anyone whether it's a parent grandparent brother sister we're looking to listen to anyone but when it comes to recruiting the coaches are trying to recruit you the last thing we'll do is talk to mom and talk to dad all the time and not hear from little johnny um they really want to make sure they hear from the student because communication is key community especially times like now like communication gotta stay in communication with the coach even after if they said that hey we have a roster spot for you uh we're really interested and then often two three months go by and you have no communication with the coaches they're probably gonna go start looking somewhere else because you didn't acknowledge and it's not so much acknowledging saying yes i'm verbally committing it's not that it's just saying i'm still interested i'm still trying to make up my mind because for a lot of division three institutions the coaches know they're not gonna pressure you to make that decision because ultimately may 1st is when you're supposed to let us know that you're going to be attending all right so it's just making sure you really truly stay in communication with that coach let them know that you are still interested and to be honest and i know there's some colleges and universities out there that do this where the coaches like well you need to let me know by february 1st whether you're coming and technically they're not supposed to be doing that but they're really trying to form their team and and you can give a verbal commitment but i can tell you a verbal commitment to a coach is going to be different than a verbal commitment to us in admissions because we we look at a verbal commitment like all right great but we know the commitment really happens when you put down that tuition deposit that's what skyler and i both know like all right you're coming so because things can change i mean we have four players that all suddenly got recruited by division two school so it changes on and off and then and you never know any other questions skyrim and i love to talk oh yeah especially with sports oh yeah yeah we're both sports lovers uh so that comes out so any other questions so there's no new questions coming in on the chat i'm just i'm looking at that now um but if you guys have anything else you want to just keep chatting about we've got until about uh 4 45 5 o'clock somewhere in there is when we're going to wrap up so feel free to fill the time if you want or we can wrap up yeah no one of the other things too now if you guys are still looking at um we had another question at the division [Music] you want to answer yeah um how professional is it you know sometimes it could just be a just a video just take your iphone out and you know i'm a baseball guy i played baseball in college so like you know if you play shortstop just get some grounders you know you know use your iphone i know with football they use you use um they use huddle they're always videotaping for football so i know football always has film um but whatever sport you're playing you know it could be easy as an iphone you know um i'm typically not like i don't maybe don't put music on there maybe it just it just needs to be a little bit of film so they can see kind of see what you got yeah you don't have to you don't have to show but and honestly there's a lot of vendors out there that are charging a lot of money to put it together skyler's right like you can nowadays you can easily get film with your iphone use the imovie app and and shorten it up and everything else and you can easily send that um and like i said you just want to make sure it's quick because the coaches i mean i i've even helped out the coaches where i got filmed and i looked at it and i'm like two ten minutes they'll probably look at this for like a minute minute and a half and then they're done they're not going to wash the whole tape there's so many that they have to go through i mean they're that recruiting process and and so forth so yeah it doesn't have to be very professional it doesn't if you want to make it like a movie or whatever yeah go feel free to i don't know if it's going to be really necessary another great question and whoever's here actually if you want to put in the chat we're kind of curious to see what sport if this is if you're a student like what sport do you play or if this is mom and dad on here um what sport does your your son or daughter play more curiosity than anything and this is a typical zoom i have actually had crickets on my facebook okay so that's that's that's that's tough obviously you won't be able to get that that in game video but like i said even if it's you know if you go out to a field or or you play you know play basketball if you get into a gym just a short video maybe shoot shoot some hoops take get some swings in the cage whatever you can you know get just get some video if you can for right now and make sure you uh provide your coaches uh information whether it's club or whether it's the high school um one thing i've learned with a lot of these coaches is that man do they know everyone um and how they get a lot of their students they they usually use their network and and uh i know one of our our swim coach has a network in california so she does a lot of recruitment in california for swimmers um because she knows she knows people out there and so especially around new england um i know like for baseball a lot of the legion ball and everything else like our coach the sales coach they're gonna know um definitely perfect woman's will cross all right so uh so yeah so that scarlet's completely right just go out there um do some drills like your normal bills just so the coaches have a better better way just to evaluate the one thing is it's this is definitely a very very difficult time and it's not only as hard for you as athletes but it's hard for the coaches and this isn't going to be a year where i think the coaches are going to be taking a risk on a lot of athletes based on what they hear from the coach and what they like the minimum fill them they might see or maybe they saw you play as a sophomore or beginning of junior year and they basically have to fill to do the evaluation based on that um but the one thing is is just keep an open mind just if for some reason you like i think uh scarlet said like pick the school first for the academics do not pick sport the last thing you want to do is transfer around i can't tell you how many times i have had students come in and say yeah i want to play football and they had nursing in mind as a major and i said we don't have nursing they come to the institution they say yeah i'm transferring because you don't have nursing i'm like all right so you came here for the sport um you really need to figure out the academics because god forbid if you get hurt like what if injury i mean one of our best football players had two knee surgeries and his career was done after two years but he picked us because one of the programs and he knew that was his first priority um so you always want to make sure you find that fit first as far as the academics financially is also another another when we when we say find the best fit it's academically athletically socially and financially now that may be different for each of you i know mom and dads are like yeah financial but then you have some of you that know athletics is number one this is where you need to talk as a family because you have to be realistic of the total cost that you want to make sure like yes this is the coach i like to play i get along with the team um i love the academics i feel the career wise this is going to get me where i need to go i'm a western new england grad so i i haven't left um i think schuyler i think you're a lasalle grad right yeah we loved our institution so much that we hey so um but definitely that's like the one of the most important factors is just make sure you get that feeling make sure the academics because even at the division three level athletics is going to be so much different than the high school level you're going to have more work to put involved um there's a lot more strength training a lot more condition that starts over the summer i'm sure when skyler went in he had to do a whole summer workout routine before he even started college and the coaches expect that and that's the other thing like even being recruited and the coach says like all right we're gonna have a roster you still have to earn a spot on the team i've heard students because they came in like yeah i already have a spot they didn't do any of the workout routines and there they are with the conditioning their last and i mean you you still got to earn your spot you still got to prove the coach that you are a leader on and off the field and that you're willing to do whatever you can to put that work in and then once you're there it doesn't mean you're going to be on the team all four years either i've seen kids get recruited their freshman year didn't put the work in and they got they get cut here you know you have to put you have to put the work in now and you put out the work in while you're there um one of one of the biggest advice that i would give um to a high school uh student who wants to play in college is start hitting the gym now because that's that's when you get to college you might be the strongest person on your team now when you get to college everyone's everyone is just as strong or stronger in you so that's that's usually my biggest advice for for an athlete coming in is make sure make sure you're coming in really you're really in shape yeah that's actually an excellent point to be honest thanks for brian i didn't play soccer because i plus i looked at the team they were too good so yeah i'm not riding the bench for for four years so any other questions before we wrap up deirdre i don't know if you have any other questions so you sneak in there pop up in there all right so i think we're gonna wrap up now college thank you for taking your time and sharing a lot of valuable information with all of our viewers um it's really great appreciate it and if people want to have more questions to get in touch with you you should just go to your web uh the college website easy enough to track you down or do you want to share from your website yeah is there a way i can chat i don't think i can put anything in the chat no you should be able to um actually maybe i don't know if you can chat that might just be for me if you want to send me your email address where it says private chat on the far right hand side i can copy and paste that into the chat there you go there we go i feel it feel free to contact schuyler myself scholar will put his in there as well um feel free to contact us because i mean we have that relationship with the athletic staff but we also can help you and guide you through the process i mean the whole point of this process is supposed to be easy you're supposed to have fun and i think what's happening is a lot of colleges that a lot of people think of like the very selective schools and like this is very stressful this is overwhelming it's not supposed to be like that and skyler and our job is basically to help you through this process we want to make it easy and our goal as admissions counselors is to figure out how do we emit you right that's our goal like we're trying to really figure that out and and demonstrated interest does help it doesn't necessarily help as far as like oh it's definitely going to get you in but at least it lets us know that you're interested and i'm sure skylar goes to bat with his students i mean he has a travel territory i'm in charge of all the amherst uh students and i've worked with a lot of them in the past and and deirdre i've worked with for years um and they know that that we really truly want to help you our goal is not to figure out how now you always figure out how do we get you in and we see a student that gets excited about the institution and excited about all the possibilities that they feel the fifth and like all right let's figure this out let's let's try to get you in so 40 more appreciate it all right so i think we're gonna wrap it up now but again thank you for your time i know you guys are busy especially this time of year and thank you for having us yeah thank you so much have a good one our students will be heading to your institutions in the near future hope so thank you all right guys have a good one
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form so fingers crossed okay we are all here i don't know if there's any way to tell who's watching um i should have asked that i'm just gonna actually go ask it right now um tell you what if there is somebody watching could you post a comment so that we know you're there all right we can see you in the chat so at least grace is here hi grace um i'll introduce myself and the speakers then and yeah we're on time um so for anybody in the audience who doesn't know me um i am uh one of the teachers here at amherst i teach in the social studies department and i'm welcoming uh five guests from various admission programs uh who are going to talk to us about transcripts and essays and recommendations and tell us what selective college admissions are evaluating um so we have i'm going in alphabetical order uh nathania francois from bates college um and one not here uh naftali uh lara from northwestern university and mouse from springfield college mary pura from simmons university and matt truck from american international college um so i'm gonna take myself off the screen you guys get a little bit bigger and i'll be watching the chat and letting you know if there's any questions that seem like worth interrupting so in alphabetical order nathania you'll go first awesome hi everyone my name is nathaniel francois and yes i work at bates college i've been with bates for about three years now i'm on my third year but i've been in admission for about six years i'm on my sixth year um and so hello oh this is really cool i guess we get to see everybody now sorry um so my job yes is to let you know what selective colleges are looking um when we're looking at applications as it relates to the transcript recommendations and essays and and and all that fun stuff um and so for for bates college and i could only speak for bates college um looking at the transcript i think what is very crucial is understanding that you know all of our students are unique and they come from many different backgrounds all right and so what we're what we want to do is really highlight your your uniqueness and really um be 100 positive that admitting you would mean that you'd be successfully um academically successful socially successful at bates and all other things professionally personally all of those components as well but when looking at the transcripts for us it's not just one student that we want to admit we don't want to admit the same student because again you're all unique unique from many different backgrounds so for us it's really looking at what your high school offers you and so with every transcript we get a high school profile and that high school profile will tell us what is offered at your high school and so with that you know we understand that not every high school has aps not every high school has honors but we take that into consideration right um and so my question to you is um based off of what your high school is offering you how are you stretching the rigor because that's what we're asking when we're looking at your application documents um and so with the transcript it tells the story it it flows um it could go up and down it could have an um an upward trend um sometimes it may have a downward trend um there are also pieces in the application process where you're able to explain um and give us a little bit more information behind what is going on if there are things that are just not traditional for you so please feel free to use that um and then with the recommendations we're looking for three recommendations and it's really um thoughtful to really highlight your academic strength your social strength your your personal strengths your characteristic things like that so be mindful of who you ask to submit a letter of recommendation for you and i would highly recommend that you have a conversation with them there are many times that i have had students ask me well i took this course uh in ninth grade and i haven't had this teacher in two or three years so um should i have them submit a letter of recommendation because i had a really great time in that class i had got an amazing grade yes you can but i would recommend having a conversation with with that um with that teacher um and then other things in terms of recommendations depends i know a lot of students ask well can i submit a letter of recommendation from my or my mentor you could certainly do that um be very mindful what um each school is asking because i know for bates we ask for and then one from your your your school counselor um if you want to submit more than that i believe it's common for the common act to not expect um more than three so what i would uh advise is that you email the school and you they have a general most schools have a general admission email or you could email your admission representative within the area um but highly recommend doing that and submitting or having the recommender submit the recommendation through that so you could totally submit more than three recommendations it's okay don't feel like uh well my limited three one that's that you could submit more than that um and then um i'm blanking out on the third piece what was it was it the essay okay great i see some head knots i'm just gonna roll with it um with the essay that is probably my my favorite part of the whole entire application um and i get really excited i get really emotional sometimes i cry um but with you i'd say it's a glimpse into who who you are um it lets me see your soul um and i think the question that i would i would ask you is out of everything else that you're already saying what more can you tell me about who you are that i i don't know based off of your transcripts or recommendations some of the activities that you did right what are what are some things that you want to share about who you are as a person so those are some of the things that i'm looking for in an essay and it could be very basic um um it could be very traditional um and i i'm gonna end with one of my favorite favorites um from a student a few years back um and it talked about having family dinners every sunday and that was literally the topic of the essay family dinners every sunday and for that student um you know it was it was very it was very basic you know she talked about the placement of um seats uh where everybody sat every sunday what they were eating uh the process of making the food it was very descriptive which i love because i love food and i felt like i was at the dinner table eating um and i was very hungry at that moment um because you're reading applications all day an essay so you're hungry so i was really hungry so it was kind of like okay well i'm drooling at this point um but the essay switched for me and um that's when i realized this is who the student is and this is who the student wants to go to college and come out be in this amazing person based off of her family values um and so she talked about pulling out her cell phone and her brother and then just being on technology right teenagers um so i guess her parents got really upset and said can you please put that away like it's family time it's time for us to have dinner and and for her she said well that was a moment where she realized that this is her family this is a family value right having time for each other having a happy time to talk to each other check on one one another and she said this is what she wanted to bring to college right she wanted to be in a college environment where she's able to actually um meet with people and and and it'd be a very small small school it'll be somewhere where she could you know um go to dinner or go to go to the the commons which is our dining commons um and and have dinner with not just students but also faculty and staff and and feel a community within her um her her institution and so for that she she said i also want to graduate and that's something i want to pass on to my to my children it's something i want to take with me for the rest of my life so for me it felt very personal but it came from a very basic topic and i i grew to love this essay and i i talk about it all the time just because it's it's just it's such a random topic but it meant so much for this student to share um a little bit of of who she could see herself being um in the future so that's that's that's my my uh transcript recommendation essay advice in terms of what we're looking for but again i could only speak for bates college so that is what we're looking for when we're looking at the application [Music] um i forget what we're going in but i can go next um so hello everyone my name is of talia lara you see her pronouns and i'm an assistant director in the office of undergraduate admissions at northwestern um so in terms of rex essays and transcripts i want to start off by saying that northwestern has something called a holistic review process this is basically a very fancy word for saying that context is everything we're going to be looking at you in the context of your specific school like um my colleague before she mentioned that your transcript is telling a story and we'll be looking at that school profile to really understand how you took advantage of the opportunities and the rigor that were available at your school and how you succeeded in them so especially now considering everything that's happened all the craziness in 2020 um northwestern has decided to go test optional and since we're not going to have those test scores again it's your personal choice we're really not going to hold it against you decide not to put them um if you don't have them or if you have them and you feel like they don't really indicate or a good reflection of your academic ability that's fine we still have those transcripts to really tell us how you've been doing in high school how you've been challenging yourself how you've succeeded in those courses um we really want a very diverse community so we're looking for students who are going to be successful at northwestern it is academically rigorous but we also understand that everyone's coming from different backgrounds and this is where those rec letters and those essays really come into play so in terms of letters of recommendation we have one required from a high school counselor and another required from a teacher who teaches a core academic subject so that is math science social science english um you are more than welcome to get additional recommendation letters um whether it's like pastor like i was mentioned before or i don't know a coordinator for your volunteer group or something else like that definitely totally doable i will say that i read everything as the reader for your application i'm going to read it from start to finish so i really want you to take into consideration that you're being very strategic about who you're asking for those letters of recommendation if you want to let me know that you're good at math i'm going to see your grades on your transcript and one recommendation letter from math teachers enough i don't need 10 to understand that you're good at math i kind of already got it um with that first letter of recommendation and from your grades i also really want to highlight that you want to one really be thankful for the people who are writing your love recommendations um it's a lot of time and there are a lot of students who are asking them so yes go and have a conversation with them so that they not only understand who you were in the classroom but also about where your interests are going right now what you intend to study um kind of like your thought process and also send them a thank you note they're taking the time to write very beautiful recommendation letters and you should definitely be thankful because they're a part of making your application whole now for the essays this is like the one place that you can really craft your own story you can't change your transcript that's three plus years in the making uh your activities list you can add on other ones but they're not going to show that continuity and your letters of record are read by you so like the essay is the one place where you really are able to use to use your voice and i really want to emphasize that i don't want you to tell me what you think i want to hear i really want it's a very cliche advice but it really is your own genuine voice and i really um like was mentioned before i want to highlight that i want to get to know you as much as i possibly can so i'm going to use an example theater let's say you are very invested in theater i'm going to see that on your activities list we'll see that you're involved in multiple productions and multiple groups and have multiple roles i'll see maybe you submit a lot of recommendations from your theater director also going to talk more about that if you want to speak more about your involvement in theater in your essay you can totally do so however like my colleague mentioned it's totally okay if you talk about something random like you're look for grilled cheese and connected to something bigger um i just really want to get to know you as much as i can since i'm not able to have like a conversation with you and this also brings me to the supplemental essay a lot of schools are going to have something along the lines of why this school so we have something called wine earth western if i am taking the time to read the entirety of your application i also want to know that you are taking the time to research my school i want to know that you have gone on our website that you've taken advantage of our virtual content to learn more information that whether it's from events like this where you're hearing from me or from our students or for my other colleagues in my office really taking advantage of that to understand why it is that you're interested in applying to northwestern additionally if i am able to like erase northwestern's name and put into different schools and it still sounds okay that means it's not specific enough this is where doing your research really comes into play we want specifics is there a specific course that you're really interested in taking a specific professor you'd love to do research with a specific program or a specific student organization that you really want to be a part of and this year we altered our supplemental essay question because we understand it's a two-way street not only is it what northwestern can give to you but how do you also envision yourself contributing being like i mentioned we are going to try to enroll a very diverse class with different interests perspectives and backgrounds we have eight thousand undergraduates from over 95 countries and all 50 states so we want to enroll people who are going to who want to be at northwestern who are going to contribute to the community and make it to be continue as inclusive and as welcoming as it is so not only is it what we can give to you but recognizing that mutual relationship how you envision yourself contributing to the northwestern experience and community are you doing i'm gonna go back to that theater example let's say you are involved in theater in high school do you can um expect to continue doing theater at northwestern through one of our student organizations um or do you if you're in sports are you going to be um i don't know contribute continuing in a varsity or an intramural or a club sport do you want to be a captain um these different ways of really engaging not only the opportunities are available at a school but how they align with your interests and what you want to do but i'm going to leave it there and pass it on to whoever is next very happy to once we have the time for a q a section to talk more about all these different topics awesome hi everyone my name is nikki levine i'm the director of undergraduate admissions at springfield college and i work with all students from amherst regional high school so if you're applying to springfield i'll be the counselor reviewing your application at springfield college um at springfield we also really value a holistic review application pro um a holistic review of the application it really ties into our mission statement and our humanities philosophy of wanting a really well-rounded student who's balanced in spirit mind and body and who's interested in pursuing a career in leadership and service to others that's been our mission statement since day one as an institution so we're still looking for that type of student at springfield so definitely we're looking at everything in your application i also read everything that comes through from your list of activities to your essay to your letters of recommendation to your transcript we also really want to focus on making sure we're accepting students who are going to be successful at springfield um and who are challenging themselves appropriately in high school so again we're also looking at your school profile to see what's being offered to you and how you're taking advantage of the different opportunities that you have within the curriculum that's being um that's available to you at amherst regional we do have a handful of programs at springfield and i know we typically have some students from amherst regional who are interested in our more limited enrollment programs so physical therapy physician assistant occupational therapy and athletic training those programs in particular we're definitely looking for students who are taking advantage of those more rigorous courses who are continuing their math and science sequence through their senior year um instead of taking just you know math through algebra two or three years of a lab science which are our standard admissions requirements um so we definitely want to see students in those programs that are you know stepping beyond what's um required for admission at springfield and continuing to challenge themselves we also really value the letter of recommendation we require just one um to apply to springfield college and that can be from your school counselor or teacher i always recommend to students though submit two or three or more letters of recommendation i'm going to read every single one some of those limited enrollment programs do require additional letters of recommendation from either a science teacher or health care professional um so if you are applying to one of those programs you're definitely going to need to submit more than one but a couple different letters of recommendation give us a few different viewpoints of who you are so if you have a coach or um a mentor or a supervisor who you'd like to ask for a letter of recommendation in addition to your teacher or school counselor that is a okay with us we're happy to take a look at those letters i agree your essay is your voice in your application so you should use your essay to tell your story i always tell students think of what would be helpful for us to know in your application that's not evident to us through your letters of recommendation through your co-curricular experiences or a story that's really really important to you so we're a common application school there's seven different common application topics including one that's a really open-ended topic so feel free to pick the prompt that you connect the most with um because unless i'm meeting with you one-on-one through a virtual interview um or school visit or something of that sort your essay is really how i'm getting to know who you are because as was mentioned previously everything else in your application is really submitted from your teachers your letters of recommendations are from other individuals not yourself your transcript is showing your academics snapshot over four years but it's not telling your personal story so we really like to get to know who you are through that essay we also have a y springfield college essay um and same thing that was mentioned before we really want students to share with us why they're passionate about springfield what they can bring to our institution to make springfield college an even better place so definitely make sure that you're taking time on that question and for those limited enrollment programs we also have supplement application questions specific to those programs what our faculty are looking for in those responses and our admissions office is your demonstrated interest in those majors physical therapy physician assistant occupational therapy and athletic training are such competitive programs at springfield we want to make sure that we are accepting students who not only know that they want to be a pa for example um but know that they want to be a pa at springfield college so in those supplement essays show us that you've done the work you know you know that you this you is definitely the field that you want to go into um and how you've come to that conclusion that's really really important to us um i do also want to note that springfield college is completely test optional for fall 2021 we did move test optional for the majority of our programs for spring 2020 uh or i'm sorry for fall 2020 um but this year we recognize that has been a really big barrier and challenge for students and we want to eliminate that challenge so even our programs that we're still requiring test scores physical therapy physician assistant occupational therapy and athletic training and our education programs we are waiving that test score requirement for this current year i'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the next person i i think it's me okay hi everyone my name is mary pierre you share her pronouns um and i am one of the reps from simmons university uh simmons is a small liberal arts women-centered institution in the fenway area of boston um how do we define women-centered um we define that as meaning a school that historic is historically a women's college accepting trans and non-binary students um so that's how we define it and a major component of how we personally review applications as many of my colleagues have said is that holistic review process and we're also looking for attributes of leadership now leadership doesn't necessarily have to mean you were captain of the volleyball team or lead in a school play of course it could mean that but also um do you display passion in what you do as you display in your application what do you like to do what are your goals um what is it what is a skill that you've really honed over the years um that you've really spent time to work on so we're looking for all those central components um someone who has demonstrated those leadership skills and who has the potential and the drive to get there so that's a major component as well and i'm actually going to share my screen because i do work better with visuals so i'm just going to do that briefly if that works now can people see my my screen okay great um so um in terms of sort of the overall application of what we're looking at um you know for transcripts uh you know especially um when it comes to high school transcripts we are going to be looking for all those components we want to see that you've been um of course taking those core courses um but also that you've been challenging yourself have you taken courses that are maybe outside of um out of your comfort zone um if it's available to you in your school have you been taking the opportunity to do those aps or take those honors courses those are all components to consider and especially when it comes to our more focused programs like the nursing program which people apply to directly in our physical therapy program we are going to be looking a little bit more at those math and science courses we want to see that you've been getting in those prerequisites so have you been taking courses like statistics and biology in chemistry um so all of that we're really going to be looking at so especially within those specialized programs that you will be able to really jump right into the curriculum your first year so we will be looking at that in general now in terms of letters of recommendation we're pretty simple at least one teacher one counselor recommendation we do accept up to three so you can throw in another teacher recommendation there i also recommend personally for students that are targeting those nursing and physical therapy programs maybe you do really want to ask your science or your math teacher or both uh to write your recommendations so that they can really speak to the quality of your work how you've improved um especially let's say there's one class that maybe was not as successful as another and and you really want them to provide that perspective of how much you may have improved in that course um so those are all really components um to consider um and as my colleagues have mentioned um whoever you asked to do your recommendation letter um making sure you you take a moment to pull them aside chat with them um and tell them about yourself a little bit more um if there's more about you that you think they should know that's essential to their recommendation as well um so for us uh this year like um you know many institutions this year we are going test optional which we were not in the past so this um i'm really excited about as well and this will apply to all programs so nursing physical therapy everything you do not need to send us your test scores um you absolutely can if you would like but certainly not necessary but if you do end up sending us those test scores we will review them based on sort of our review criteria of that but of course my favorite is the college essay um and forgive me with my spongebob references i always find there's like a spongebob episode or scene that applies to everything in life um so i applied to the college essay and i agree with what everyone's already said um so you know i just want to reiterate um this essay is a reflection of you we want to learn about you and not what you think that we might want to hear um so in terms of language talk to us the way you would talk to someone use your own voice um and don't feel like you have to go into a thesaurus and dig out language that you think would apply to the college um you know so again you're giving voice to your application we want to know basically essentially can you answer the prompt clearly and analytically when you go on the common application you're going to see a bunch of different options and from all those choices you can really apply anything from your life to it that makes it relevant uh but just making sure that you know when you do make your essay um that you go back to that prompt and you ask yourself did did i answer that question clearly um and not only did i answer that but did i tell the school something about myself um again it's all it you know it can be something um that's your that you're passionate about um but in the end it has to reflect you um and of course it also reflects your potential so of course we're not going to expect college level writing because then you have because you haven't gotten to college yet um we just want to see your best work um that it shows that you spent the time to really think about um you know how you're going to approach this essay um and and you know really wanting to show a polished result in the ends um and so you know finally just for this is more of a simmons thing we do have interviews as a component of the application process this is completely optional but if simmons specifically is a place you really you know would like to see yourself at interviews can only serve to help you more um we we keep it super chill um it's just the chance for us to put a face to the application um so by the time i'm sitting here and looking at your transcripts and your wrecks and your essay i can also reflect um upon our meeting together um so this is all really meant meant to help you in this process levi next hi everyone and everyone is asking such great questions right now in the chat and i really cannot wait to get to that portion to answer them all but um first and foremost my name is matt sykes i'm an undergraduate admissions counselor at american international college located in springfield we're a small liberal or liberal arts private institution and first and foremost i just want to thank you all for being here you all are doing the first step towards making a great application is you're doing your research you're asking the questions you are you know doing research on these schools that are putting that information out there so you can make the best application that you possibly can so i just want to agree with um you know and echo the sentiment of my colleagues that american are not an international college my goodness sorry um we have a very holistic approach as well um one of our mottos here is you are more than a number and that's been as true as long as i can remember um we do try to get to know you as a person and try to get to know you um and what you can offer to the institution what we can offer to you and not just the numbers not just the gpa and not just anything like that so when reviewing the application process for me personally of course the official transcript is extremely important it's probably the most important aspect of an application so everyone can see your gpa or your prerequisites and that kind of thing but um we do like to see it as a big picture uh process and like my colleagues i read everything from top to bottom all the time so of course the transcript is important and getting those prereqs in are important but it's not everything um and i i think my colleagues would echo that sentiment as well it's you know um having meeting those requirements are great but learning who you are as a student is i believe much more important and i would jump straight to the essay here because i believe we've kind of touched on everything regarding the transcripts in this meeting but um you know a personal essay really does give you a better view of who you are as a person and as a student and why you are going into the fields that you want to go into so natalia is that theater arts example what i would like to know in your personal essay is yeah you're interested in theater arts i can see that on your transcript i can see that in your letters of recommendation and see it in your extracurriculars that's great but what i would love to know is why why are you interested in theater arts why are you so passionate about this and and how can you bring that passion to the institution and how can we help you you know expand that passion and bring that out into the world where our main focus is getting you into the college and then getting you out we want we want you to you know move past our institution learn the things you need to learn have the experiences you want to experience and then bring that out to the world so our essays are you know very similar in the sense that we really are just looking to see who you are as a student who you are as a person why you're pursuing the educational path that you are and i read them constantly and i would say they're they're extremely important especially to me and the other counselors at american international college because i've had students who you know like we spoke about earlier nursing programs they are that a lot of programs have prerequisites uh gpa requirements uh class requirements at aic our nursing program requires a 2.5 gpa and a chemistry grade of a c plus or better that's great but we're also looking for you know proficiency in science classes and math classes so it would help to see you know you have anatomy and physiology or statistics course or something along those lines but what i like to see in these essays are i've had students that have met the nursing requirement have met the chemistry requirement but may have not done so well in other science or statistic based classes or didn't take them at all so they didn't uh you know they didn't show off that rigor or that that um they weren't solely focused on that program now that could have been for many other reasons they could have had a difficult year that year or maybe they chose to go down the nursing path their senior year or junior year and they didn't get a chance to take that class the personal essay is important because you can explain those circumstances you can explain a gpa circumstance you can explain um you know how you fell into the path of wanting to go into nursing and i've had students who have met those requirements but didn't show that they took anatomy and physiology or statistics or something along those lines and i thought maybe maybe this pathway may not be right for them or maybe they won't excel in this pathway and i'll have a talk with that student but personal essays i've had students that have said no this is something happened in my life i'm so passionate about this i know i can do this this is something that i truly want to do and i fought for those students i've said you know what you belong to be here you deserve to be here because you truly want to be here i would much rather and i think i would say uh the same for uh most of my counselors here at american international college is that if we would much rather a student who is extremely passionate and devoted to the path that they want to go down and that may be missing uh you know anatomy and physiology or something along those lines then a student that just checks all the boxes and it's just kind of you know iffy about the program we really want you to bring that passion that dedication to the college and we really look at that that's one of the most important things for me in a in an application is a well thought out essay that explains explains who you are explains why you're doing this explains what you want to do with this that kind of thing at aic the essay is actually optional it's not required at all we don't have a required essay for your application all we do requires an official transcript but of course you kind of want to have as robust of an application as possible so um i would highly suggest no matter what school you're applying to whether it is required or not please an essay i think that would i think that's a great way to show who you are as a person and and everything that i stated before now moving on to the letters uh recommendation at aic those are also optional um not required at all but i would highly suggest it um like my colleague said earlier that i really would choose someone that knows you i wouldn't ask a teacher that you had you know one class with and you did fairly well you had a great time and you thought you you know hit it well off with this with this teacher i would say pick someone that really knows you that can speak to your character that can um you know it's maybe explain one of those circumstances that you would explain in a personal essay i've had teachers and counselors reach out to me from students to to kind of give an in-person kind of recommendation um that all works that's all great um but of course choose someone that really does know you because if it really is kind of a you know rubber stamped template kind of recommendation letter we do read it we we really do drill down on applications and really read everything from top to bottom because we do want to get that personal connection with you as a student instead of just a name on a transcript and if it is kind of a template you know this student was great you should admit a type of letter recommendation that's fine that's great but it doesn't give us a real glimpse into who you are and we do notice those things um for our application for sats and act scores we are completely test optional we always have been and i don't believe that we will be changing at any time in the foreseeable future so it's not just a pandemic type of thing we are sat optional but of course you can always self-report them you can choose to waive them or you can choose to send them in there is no it isn't a detriment i've had students not decide not to send in an sat or i've had students that who have decided to send it in and the scores weren't that great but i don't look at them and say oh well this student clearly can't do it um i we don't look at it that way we look at you as a well-rounded person and you know who you are as a as a student so it's not just about the number so of course you can always send it in all these things that are optional won't be a detriment to you if you don't send in but i would highly suggest that you do because we really do want to get to know you as a person not just a student and what you can offer to the institution like my colleagues said it's a two-way street we want to see what you can offer to us and what we can offer to you and then what you can offer to the world afterwards because that's what we're trying to create here is the the world's next you know business leaders leaders in nursing and health science and sciences and things like that so yeah i would i would say um that it's a big picture holistic approach um but we do look at the details and we do look at um who you are as a as a student and we want to create a relationship with you and we would hope that you as you are creating your application that you would aim to try and create a relationship with us as well okay are we going to just start answering questions or i should just yeah i can speak about um so how our admission process has changed at northwestern north i forgot to preface with this but northwestern is a private medium-sized university in evanston illinois so just three miles north of chicago um and in terms of being test optional like i mentioned before it's your personal choice and we're not going to hold it against you so let's say you do have some test scores and you're proud of them you're proud of the score that you got you are still able to self-report your scores northwestern so you have to pay that is what 20 inch dollars to send the official report and we still super score so if one of the very few people who was able to more than one setting of a standardized exam just to self-report them as is and our system will recalculate a higher score based on the highest sub scores and if you're not submitting tests a lot of our students are asking like are you really test optional like is it like a nudge um we are and that's again because we're going back to the holistic review process we don't have the task force but we still have so much more to look at and in terms of being able to look more at your academics this is where the transcript really comes into play um i don't know what they're calling it i'm just going to even test optional for about 40 plus years which is really cool but really good about um not having to change anything with our admission process but you know for students who do submit testing who sorry who decided not to um submit testing for us it's it's we always say um the the transcript will hold the most weight no matter what um so it's always going to be the transfer because it's four years of academic work versus what four hours of taking your s.a.t or acp so for us we value that revolt yeah i'll say for simmons uh that uh it is new for us being test optional so my colleagues and i at simmons are just super excited because we've been pushing for that um and then i'm hoping right i noticed there wasn't also a question earlier about you know will we remain so um i hope so um and that's something to check in with us later on in the year um so i think definitely the school is seeing this is the trial one year um but everyone in the office is definitely behind um making it a permanent part um so it will definitely be new for us going through the test optional route so we're really excited to do that um and so yes um like my colleagues have said we will be then looking uh maybe a bit more at that transcripts um and but overall looking at that application holistically which we've always done um and in terms of sort of the average gpa we do look around for um the transcript is scram transcript is around a 3.7 give or take um so we will be looking at all those components yeah so from springfield college we moved test optional for the majority of our programs as i mentioned last fall for fall 2020 students um so only those select programs were still requiring test scores um we're going to you know continue to monitor we're also crossing our fingers that hopefully for at least a few of those programs will continue to be test optional but we'll definitely have more information as we get closer to the fall 2020 cycle um but the same thing with springfield we've always placed even when we weren't test optional we placed the majority of our emphasis on the transcript because that's a more accurate snapshot of who you are as a student than one test that you took um you know one time or a couple times to to get the best possible um super score but um i've always said you know even when we weren't test optional or for those programs if we do continue to require test scores 75 of our emphasis is always on the transcript at at least and then the other percentage is on um the test scores so the transcript will look at a little bit more closely for those more competitive programs this year and i have a feeling we're going to look even more closely at those supplement questions um for those more competitive programs that we typically would require a test scores for this year as well um okay maybe we can just jump to this question for uh guys counselor recommendation letters do you recommend that the student get to know them well before writing the letter so i would say uh at aic yes i would and i i believe my colleagues would mirror that sentiment is that i really do believe that it's extremely important to have a good personal relationship with whoever's writing the uh recommendation letter um just because like i said um with a holistic big picture approach we really do care about you more than just your gpa and just your application and we really do want to get to know you as a person and you know having like i said those rubber stamp template recommendation letters um really don't you know convey your story to us at all we really do want to get to know you for who you are so um yeah i would absolutely recommend that you at least have a conversation or two a few conversations pick someone that really does know you as a person not just your academic achievements though that helps as well but definitely who you are as a person first yes i agree i um you know in terms of getting to know your your teachers or whether it's you know you set aside some time to um meet with them get to know them and because um you know we are living in a pretty virtual world right now um i'd i'd like to say that people are more available than ever um to meet with you um so setting up a zoom call setting up a phone call um just asking your teacher to just come aside and and meet with you um and so that's gonna be easier more than ever to do something like that um so so the natural introvert within myself you know kind of at first like oh i don't want to um but you know it's a necessary component um and your teacher of course um you know if they agree to write your recommendation they're going to write you a a good recommendation um they wants to help you um so just making sure that you know whether it's a teacher you know well or maybe a teacher you don't know so well um that they know um you know what your goals are what you hope to study um and especially especially when it comes to specific schools um you know why you want to go to these specific institutions yeah definitely echoing that if you have any juniors in the room definitely try to get started with getting to know your council right now it will really help once you get into the college application process um and if you're able to take advantage of the more flexible scheduling that we're experiencing now take advantage of that but i also want to highlight that we understand that well i'm not very familiar with um your school because my first time being a wreck with northwestern i will say that we understand that sometimes you just meet with your counselor once a year um and sometimes you aren't don't have the time or unable to develop that strong relationship so if you do feel a little bit worried about maybe not having a very strong counsel recommendation this is where your teacher recommendations and supplemental recommendations really come into play and i want to give one more tidbit for those teacher recommendations if you can choose for example if you got an a plus in a class um and you want that teacher to write your recommendation but like you never met with them and you were just stellar naturally and didn't get really enough time to interact um and if you have the option of for example you gotta be plus in the class but like you really worked your butt off and we're always meeting with that teacher to try to ensure that you are on track to do better and you were showing so much effort that teacher despite the fact that you got a b plus in it as opposed to an a plus is probably gonna be able to speak more about who you are academically and how driven you are as a student i'd also just like to add that you know don't be afraid to ask teachers or guidance counselors for recommendations they are they want to help you no matter what um so i know like we were speaking about earlier is you know the the inner introvert in me maybe doesn't want to go up to a teacher or a guidance counselor and ask for a recommendation letter or don't know how to go about starting that process please reach out to them i meet with guidance counselors every single week every single day almost and they really do want to help so i would say start that relationship as early as possible and they are very happy to open that door for you i could definitely start off with the next question i finally figured out how to get myself back on board sorry about that weirdness just to let you know we've got about five minutes left and i think this is probably a great great question for us to wrap up on um so whoever wants to take it please go ahead yeah i could i could tackle um it in my own way um but i think in terms of what sets you apart or doing things to set you apart i think i think there you have to really rely on the essay um because not everybody's going to have your essay um your story is going to be very different from anybody else's story the way you tell it it's going to be different um so i think that that is that is really what will make you to stand apart from others so really try to um work on that focus on that and and utilize utilize the resources that are available for you in your high school right your guidance counselor um your english teacher um we have there's a really cool website um you could go to if you type up essays that worked where you could read essays from previous students that have gone to many different colleges um and maybe that could help you get your creative juices flowing in terms of puppet choice uh the way that they went about it and how the essay flowed um just to get your mind going so maybe that's something that you could also do and then um really in terms of editing your paper i would or your essay i would i would highly recommend having a conversation with someone about that especially if they're not your english teacher um because i feel like if you have someone who's not your english teacher right all over your essay we lose your voice um and we want your voice because your voice is what will make you stand apart from everybody else that's that's my two cents i completely agree i think um oh sorry go ahead no no no go ahead i think the essay is a great piece that you're going to be able to tackle right now as a senior um the other thing i would say to take advantage of for schools to offer them is the interview springfield college also offers an optional interview opportunity and that's a great chance for you to sit down with us either virtually or we are offering socially distanced in-person interviews in our office for students who meet the massachusetts state travel guidelines so we are able to sit down with you and have a conversation and get to know you a little bit more you know we might talk about some things that come up in your application but oftentimes there are things that come up in the interview that wouldn't have been disclosed in the application otherwise that are really helpful for us to get to know who you are so the interview is also a great thing to look at to take advantage of i just want to add very quickly um grant this is a great question because i would say that um one other aspect that we haven't touched on to set yourselves apart is using us as a resource i do have students reach out to me to start forming that relationship with me as an admissions counselor and to ask questions and to get advice and we're more than happy to help as well if there is a college that you're interested in and you can find the admissions counselor for your territory or would be in charge of you know looking at your application for me i'm in charge of this area of western massachusetts so if you did intend to apply to aic i would be the one to review your application i would say get in touch with admissions counselor out of college and say hey what can i do what what more can i say what more can i do to set myself apart and of course we're not going to you know give the answer for you and write your essay for you but we can absolutely give you advice and um you know i've had students call me and i after the phone call said wow this student really does want to be here they really do care um they really do care about their their essay they care about their application so i would suggest using us as a resource as well not just your guidance counselor at your high school or your teacher but us at the colleges that you're interested in yeah i was going to say something similar yeah email me um you know i think all of us are you know all from the western mass territory we're going to be reading applications from this area so um you know make sure to ask questions what you know even if you feel like it's like a really small uh question you know don't be afraid to reach out i'll be happy to answer it um and especially i've found in the past that the students who've reached out to me whether it's been email or it's been setting up an individual appointment which you can do now virtually um or whether it's just calling me on the phone i i remember that student more students who were really engaged um throughout the whole process um so you know don't be afraid to work with us that's that i mean that's our job apart from reading your application um you know we want to be with you throughout that whole process and we want to help you craft that application to the best of your ability um so yeah use your resources um reach out we're always happy to chat great um thanks so much for for joining us uh it's been so helpful to have all of you especially to hear your sort of different perspectives from your different schools uh on behalf of the about 17 people that were joining us uh thanks to the students who put questions in in the chat um that's really what makes people want to join in so they know that you're listening um so on behalf of arhs this is exactly the perfect time for us to be wrapping up uh and those of you who were here from the student body there's of course the whole second group of panels to join in so thanks to everyone and i'm going to end our broadcast now thank you so much for having us
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okay hi everybody thank you so much for being here um for the financial aid process um we have it's about three o'clock we know that folks are going to be trickling in after their classes um so we know you know people are going to be moving around we're really glad you could make it we are going to start off i'm excited to introduce we have three panelists today um kristen stacy and michael who are joining us from different colleges and they'll say a little more once we get rolling um but i'm gonna promptly turn it over to kristen um kristen thank you so much for being here i'm going to add you to the stream um for folks watching you can do live comments and we will try to get your questions each person is going to have about three to five minutes to talk and then we'll go through some kind of common questions so yeah that's about it all right i'm gonna send kristin up thanks great well i'm kristen crosby and i am the regional representative for ohio wesleyan university i actually live in new england um and typically i would enjoy traveling around new england this fall and meeting with students in person but here we are so i'm just going to um quickly introduce some general um financial aid information and then i'm going to turn it over to my two colleagues who are definitely the experts but this first slide here i think is really important to keep in mind financial aid offices are here to help you they're your best source for information they're your free source for information sometimes people think maybe they're a little bit hands-off or they shouldn't contact them but the financial aid offices do want to work with you and are very helpful and can answer all of your questions they can even assist you with the application process as you are applying for financial aid they're the ones of course who determine your eligibility so they can answer those specific questions and as you're going through the application process they can also give you an idea about the balance of free aid that might be available to you employment options student loans and things like that and they're going to be your representatives for your time when you're in college as well so it's great to take advantage of developing that working relationship with your financial aid officer right from the very beginning [Music] just trying to advance my slides here uh so there are types of financial aid that go into financial aid packages and colleges and universities might have various ways of packaging a little bit differently but financial aid is offered in the form of scholarships and grants as well as loans and student employment so what you should know is that scholarships and grants are free they're a gift that does not have to be paid back unlike student loans those do have to be paid back after enrollment ends and my colleagues will talk about that in a minute a work study might also be part of your financial aid package and it allows students to earn some wages during college you may be able to set up a payment plan to put some of those wages towards paying off your tuition but typically student employment is more towards paying for personal expenses and books and things like that [Music] so just a couple things about how and when to apply for financial aid the fafsa this is something that pretty much all us institutions will utilize and the good news is that it's after october 1st so you can start working on the fafsa and the website is fafsa.ed.gov it is only for u.s citizens permanent residents and green card holders um but if you know if you meet any of those then fafsa is what you want to use some institutions also require the css profile it's about 400 maybe fewer universities and colleges that require the css profile this is something that you would use your college board login to access it the css profile is not free it costs 25 to complete it and 16 for each additional institution but you may be able to request a waiver and it is also available to access after october 1st um you can complete the fafsa on the my slide looks a little messed up but you can use the website they also have a mobile app and there are lots of benefits to completing it online because it has skip logic that allows you to skip unnecessary questions it gives you the option to use your irs data retrieval to import your tax information and it also has a lot of detailed instructions and help for common questions there's also the mobile application which is very convenient because you can check in on your phone um and then in terms of some tips and tricks tricks for the fafsa before i turn it over to my colleagues don't wait to file it some colleges and universities may consider you incomplete if they're waiting for your fafsa you will need a social security number to use that for your fsa id and you could use a website the mobile app there's even a pdf you can only list 10 institutions if you want to add more later that means that one is going to come off the list and it doesn't matter in what order you list your colleges we're not going to be seeing that you can save it and come back later so that's great news you don't have to fill it in in one sitting and as i mentioned you can use the irs retrieval process to retrieve your tax information and if there are divorced parents you're going to use the parent with whom the student lived most the previous year if your parents are remarried it's the household income that includes the step parent but it doesn't include the spouse's income and don't forget that when you sign the fafsa electronically you're going to use your fsa id um i think i'm going to turn it over to my colleagues now so i'm gonna un stop sharing wonderful hi everybody so uh hopefully you can hear me okay i always have some fun technical parts i've got three different microphones on my computer can't ever decide which one to use so let me know anybody if it's coming through funny so my name is michael iron i work in student financial services at smith college just across the way in northampton although i am not living there right now here in amherst and and so you know thanks so much for having me here today you know kristin thanks for that that kind of introduction a few things that i wanted to focus on uh you know one i want to talk a little bit about uh some of those forms so the forms are are very important so colleges will often have deadlines so it's important that we all keep our eyes out on those deadlines some colleges say if you miss the deadline you may miss the opportunity for that year or maybe multiple years to qualify for particularly their institutional aid often federal financial aid is available no matter when you apply for it no matter when you fill out the fafsa form but many colleges will use that fafsa and also the css profile for their institutional aid and their deadlines are usually pretty tough uh and so you want to keep an eye on those deadlines so definitely definitely watch those in addition to those two forums the fafsa on the profile colleges will sometimes have their own institutional application so check their websites and make sure you're completing that piece of it also and some colleges like smith will ask for copies of those tax returns uh that they're going to want to look at and so for students who are seniors now in high school applying for the fall of 2021 seems like a long ways away but it's coming up they'll actually be looking at the 2019 income information so that's what you'll be filling out in the fafsa and that css profile so so chris mentioned a couple things about the fafsa where where it's the custodial parent or the custodial households information that goes on there with the css profile it's a little bit broader form that will ask for both the custodial and then later on through a separate process the non-custodial information that information is never shared back and forth between households but but with colleges that want the css profile they want data from everybody and so we're going to look at it all so that's that's a big difference between those two forms in addition to that they'll ask a little bit different questions the profile is going to ask a little bit more detail they'll ask about your primary home whereas the fafsa you do not need to put the value and information about your primary home the the profile is a little bit different on how it looks at businesses also whereas the fafsa is a little a little you know a little easier on the business side if you're if your business is a small family-owned business you don't need to report the asset value of that business you need to report the income but not the asset value so there are a few differences that you'll find with those forms as you go along the way the other thing that i find uh is very important in the process is once you get that financial aid award from a college feel free and to reach out to the school i mean just as christian said contact the financial aid office they are your friends so so you know reach out to us and and ask some hard questions say how did you come up with this financial aid award how did you how did you calculate this what went into that calculation and make sure that they've really accounted for for everything in your circumstances particularly if your circumstances as a family may have changed income may have dropped or you had a really big expense of some sort colleges often want to know that so that we can look at ways and things that we can change that could uh could be beneficial to you so it does not hurt to reach out to schools and uh so definitely do that even after you've gotten a financial aid award speaking of financial aid award remember for all these forms they are the students forms they are not our forms as parents they are the students form so that social security number that's your student's social security number not my mine will go in there eventually as a parent but remember the initial student the initial social security number is the students and the financial aid award the financial aid application that all belongs to the student now you're just helping them out along the way so remember that that part as you go two more things i wanted to share one is to use something called a net price calculator and the net price calculator is an online calculator that every college in the us has to have on their website it's a great way for you as a parent or as a student to enter your data and get an estimate for that individual college or what financial aid might look like so definitely take advantage of that to begin to get an idea of what it may look like you want to be careful entering the data because there's no validation of that data whatever you enter that's what the result is going to give you but certainly a great tool and the the final thing i wanted to share really quickly uh that here in massachusetts there's an organization called the massachusetts education finance authority known as mifa many of you probably know about it already from from information from deidra or from others and it's a great organization that they have videos on their website that will walk through this process a little bit what we're doing today but in detail for each of those different forms and about financial aid in general so definitely take advantage of what's available there for that i will turn it back over to my friend stacy hi everybody thanks michael and kristen uh this is a lot of fun um for michael didn't mention but michael and i are our long time colleagues and actually parents of students at arhs in the class of 2022.
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hi everyone um i'm miss crystal garrity i'm the secretary of the guidance office and this is the college roundtable panel for the college essay i will be helping to moderate comments as they roll in so feel free to ask any questions of our panelists oh like we have zero viewers i should wait it's my first time using this platform oh now folks are rolling in so we're just going to give it a minute or two until we've got a solid group and then we'll get started in the meantime i hope everyone panelists and students alike are having an okay start to the school year i know it's a little weirder than usual all right i'm just going to give it one minute more and then at 304 we're going to get started i'm going to repeat for folks who just logged in that you are welcome to post some comments in the uh youtube chat they will come over to us here um and folks are gonna be able to respond to those questions and i will be helping to moderate a lovely fall day outside i took a it took four minutes before this broadcast to go and take a quick little four minute meditation before we got started it's such a lovely day any any minute you can let off of zoom is precious right absolutely i got to meet with lots of amazing students today in their quest for their college process um so that was great so i'm going to get started so i can hand it all over to you all it looks like we have about 14 or 15 participants so far so that's a good starting point for those just logging in i'm miss scarity miss crystal garrity i am the guidance office secretary um those of you who are familiar with the guidance office know that i'm in the office today um you can see by our windows behind me um i'm going to be here during the college essay panel to help moderate comments answer any questions that are maybe more arhs related versus essay related and you all can feel free to put things in the comments and we will do our best to answer things um if anyone has questions or comments like post along and i'm going to hand it over to our college admissions panelists who are going to be able to tell you a little bit more about the college essay and what schools they're looking for and then there were four should we should we just introduce ourselves before we dive in does that sound good uh so my name is liam daly associate director of admissions at beloit college in wisconsin uh small liberal arts college and i'll pass it over to vanessa who's above me on my screen at least i'm above you on my screen as well um hi my name is assistant director of admission at sarah lawrence college i actually attended smith college so i know and love the pioneer valley very well and i'm excited to talk to you today hi everyone my name is deandra berthum i am an assistant director at suffolk university in downtown boston really and really excited to talk to you about the essay today all right and i am nathan assistant director at the university of hartford so small to medium private institution uh in west hartford connecticut so not actually in the city for those of you who have that concern we'll talk a little bit more about us on a different level some other time does somebody want to jump in and just give kind of a basic overview of what it is we're talking about today what is the essay why do you write it why does it matter where does it go sure i can do that if you guys want perfect so um the college essay itself is you know depending on which application a student is using whether it's the common app or a school's individual app is really a good opportunity for the assistant director or admissions counselor to learn a little bit more about a student on an individual level as many of you know the college application process does come hand in hand with you know your grades and potentially standardized test scores this is really the first opportunity that we get to see a student beyond the numbers if you will um so it can be anything as small as your first hit you ever had in little league t-ball um to you know a huge piece of adversity that you fought through uh in high school um to just why it is that you want to pursue uh your major potential career that you're looking at so um you know it's kind of a broad topic here that we're chatting about um but we're going to give you kind of as much insight as we can from school to school about what it is little things that we like to look for and that's where you folks come in being able to post comments and questions and let us know throughout your process how this is going for you first of all with everything being virtual and how we can help you lift a little bit of that stress out of that process if you will yeah and just jumping off of that i think we're really happy to talk about the kind of the the big college essay which is usually the essay submit on your common app or on an individualized school's application but there's also supplement essays to consider and i'm happy to talk more about that um but those are usually additional or optional um essays that you can write with prompts specific to the college you have in mind um for example sarah lawrence has four different questions to pick from and you respond to one of the questions in 250 to 500 words and that's just another opportunity to share another part of your story with us um and usually in a more in a way that's more tailored to the college because we definitely understand that your common app essay or your your main college essay is going to every school that you're applying to so we don't expect it to be super tailored to our individual schools but the supplement essays are a bit of a different story and i'm happy to go into that a little bit more later too so uh how about the the writing process um i think i can just say very briefly i imagine a lot of the people that were uh that we're talking to today are seniors so hopefully you've at least started thinking about your essays if you're not in the middle of writing them and tweaking them and things like that i'll just put a quick plug out there for juniors that this is probably not something you want to leave until october of your senior year so something you could start thinking about in the spring certainly over the summer you could pull a number of the common app prompts and start thinking about them write a couple different drafts get some people's feedback and if you can have this you know almost done by september or early october your senior year it'll give you a lot more flexibility to think about all the other stuffs that are part of the college application process but for seniors for those of you who are wrestling with it right now do you guys have uh some tips or tricks that you want to share about what you think makes a really good essay or uh ways to write it ways to sort of you know keep your own voice shining through and do something unique yeah i can jump in on that um i think just the most important thing to know is we want students to write about something that they're passionate about so we really do get to know who you are as an individual because really that is our only opportunity to kind of get to learn more about you as a student outside of your academics and activities you're involved in um with um within your school um so really just you know making sure you're writing about what you want to write about and not necessarily what you think we want to read about so just really staying true to yourself and writing about something that you're you're passionate about definitely and i know we we chatted about maybe sharing one or two of our favorite essays um but i think the the essays that always stand out to me are the ones that um no one else could have written but you and that doesn't mean you have to like break ground on something completely new you don't have to do like fancy research or anything but just the ones where as the andrew is saying where your voice really comes through um an advice one of my former colleagues used to give was that um if you you know print out your essay and like cut out cut your name off it and left it on the floor of this of your school and somebody picked it up would they know that you wrote it um would it be something just really specific to your story story and your voice um and some of us are like introverts and go to really big schools so that advice doesn't apply but hopefully that the concept translates uh so um one one thing that i would add to that is that i think that the the essay gets a ton of stress and pressure around it right it's this huge thing where you have to sort of tell your whole story share every possible piece of information about you you know talk about the the most intense or terrible or crazy thing that ever happened to you and i think that it's really important to remember that the whole application tells your story and the essay is just one piece of that and so it doesn't necessarily have to be this big huge event or moment or realization but it does have to be well written and i think that we're all you know we're probably going to talk about writing in about 18 different ways today i think that writing in your own voice is probably one really good definition of good writing um but if you write a really good essay you're probably gonna be in pretty good shape um even if it is not about uh you know some sort of uh earth-shaking you know realization or something like that if you write a good essay that's in your voice about something you know has some sort of interesting point or story or a little tidbit about you that'll probably do the trick it doesn't have to be this huge sort of you know kind of all caps uh moment in your life um anything you want to add to that nathan um yeah just kind of reiterating everything that you've all said um you know it it doesn't necessarily have to be one specific experience or um you know breakthrough that you've gone through but it just it has to draw us in it has to be something that you know you're excited to write which makes us excited to read it um and you know i have you know read countless personal statements and college essays and um the ones that i remember are the ones that that stood out to me obviously um so yeah i mean that's the shortest way to say what i'm what i'm trying to to get out of my mouth and i think that there's so much pressure on the the big asset sometimes i i really like reading supplement essays and i have this suspicion that it's partly because there's just less people have a little less pressure on them and they just kind of can write about what's on their mind and what what inspires them whatever answer inspires them um so i wouldn't ignore those supplement questions but also oh i think maybe a roundabout way of saying like you can take a little bit of pressure off yourself as liam was saying like this isn't the end-all be-all i hate when people post videos of like the essay that got me into x school or like the essay that got me denied for mex school like especially with holistic admissions we're not just looking at the essay is not a make or break there's no make-up break point on any of the pieces of your application in a holistic process um so we are looking at your your test scores when relevant your transcripts those letters of recommendation um so know that that's not the only way that you're sharing your story with us so it's okay to just kind of take a deep breath and just share your story and not it doesn't have to be like the greatest essay even you've ever written it really doesn't right and and it probably won't be because it's actually a really really hard essay to write right i bet that there are a lot of you who are sort of tearing your hair out over this essay who you know write a ap you know literature paper every couple of weeks and do it could do it in your sleep and right but it's very different to sit down and analyze a book or do historical research or present scientific research or whatever it might be than to sit down and say okay me what do i say about that i think it's always really good for folks in our role every once in a while to sit down with the common app prompts and try to figure out what the heck we would write about because it's really hard so i think we we all understand that we you know we put you in a little bit of an awkward position you may be a really good writer you may be comfortable writing that this is probably something you you haven't done a lot of um do we want to share some of those favorite essays does anybody have one that that jumps to mind i can go first so we don't all right okay i have i have two that i always think of um and the caveat is that uh neither of these students were accepted but they were still some of my favorite essays um so i think that's just there are other parts of it even though they wrote really incredible essays the other like an amazing essay can't always save you if that makes sense but i still love these essays um the first one was about this this was from the student who he was like considering himself like very he took himself very seriously and like he loved classical music he had like really just like high brow things and then kesha's new album came out and he just was like torn over it because he loved it so much and didn't consider it high brow and he just it just sounded like him and i was and it to my point earlier no one else could have written this essay it was but it's not about some like earth-shattering thing to happen it was just over about his conflict for loving the kesha album and i just i love that because it just it felt very much in his voice no one could have written this for him and then the other essay um it was a topic that i don't i don't think is necessarily like particularly unique it was a student who wrote about being the only girl on her high school's golf team and she just wrote about it with a lot of empathy and compassion both like for herself and for her community and i hate that we talk about like grit in the college admission process but she did show grit and she stuck it out for four years even though the boys on the team were not super nice to her always um but i just i appreciated that vulnerability that she showed and sharing that experience so two very different essays that stuck out for for very different reasons and were very memorable to me i do think that that that point that um you know that young woman is not the only young woman who's written an essay about that and that didn't keep it from being a really memorable essay is a really important point i think it's really easy to get hung up on you know if you can come up with if you can write you know about this topic that no one else has ever written before it's going to be really memorable and that's true um but we can also read you know 20 essays in a row about you know folks love for you know playing baseball or whatever it might be and 19 of those might sound like a lot of other essays we've written or excuse me we've read and the 20th one we might go wow that was really unique and insightful and i have a really good sense for who this person is and why they'd be a great fit at this college even though the topic was exactly the same so i think that's just an important thing to keep in mind my mom always knows moses told the last original joke um i agree with and i think it's just about finding your own voice to put into the topic even if it to liam's point is a topic we see a lot i can jump in and talk about one of my favorite essays um so one of my favorite essays that i read was a student who talked about always wanting to be spider-man when they were little and then wrote about how the things they did like in modern like in their day that made them despite like a modern day spider-man so that one was really um unique and stood out to me it was just really real well written um and i really enjoyed reading it and literally i always think like every reading season i think of that essay yeah i'll hop in one one that that said or stands out to me um you know like you're saying gender every every time i sit down to read an app is one a student was writing about all these hardships that they had gone through all these battles that they fought and then the last paragraph was uh essentially them saying that none of what they had written about happened to them it happened to one of their classmates and it was just something that they had learned a lot about the people around them um and they were going into kind of those human services style majors so they were showing through the essay how much they cared about the people around them that they knew enough to write you know this piece about them so it kind of spoke to you know their interest in those human services but it also spoke to their attention to detail about the people around them and again it drew me in because i was just feeling for this kid non-stop and then it was i'd like to help that kid not i am that kid so it's just a different different perspective to to take for sure yeah i think probably probably any time you can sort of get us heading in one direction and then change your expectation expectations a little bit or something like that is always good um an essay that i really like guys helping a student with last year a young woman who grew up with dual citizenship in ireland in the u.s and had sort of moved back and forth and um was writing about sort of not quite owning an identity in either place and not really knowing what her home was and all these kinds of things and um what was really really great about the essay was that it was just absolutely hilarious um and so there were all of these great jokes about cows and accents and uh and i i laughed out loud a couple of times while i was reading it and then there was this really great sort of moment at the end same thing you were just talking about nathan where you know after all of these what just kind of felt like jokes there was some really great insight into who she is and what she would bring to a college campus but i also really like the essay as an example because she's a young woman who uh as far as i can tell has had a really great life right and i think that if she had tried to say you know oh i've been you know i've lived here and i've lived here and i don't feel at home anywhere and it's been really really hard uh i would have been like i don't know about that right i think you know um but because she was able to sort of um be a little bit self-deprecating kind of acknowledge that you know all this is really good and it's sort of a minor problem and she's loved being in both places she's learned a lot and use sort of humor and lighten it a little bit it then actually lent a lot more credence and weight to the to the takeaways that she was sharing um so i think that it's really uh it's important to be honest about your experience and whatever that is and you don't need to make it something that is more or less or different right we're really just trying to get a feel for you and and what your story is how about maybe um some uh some sort of uh things to avoid or things that um you know don't necessarily always work anything like that i think speaking to your your last point with the that you made previously was that um you know don't don't try to spin things to make it sound worse than it is you know tell us a story tell us you know kind of what what you're going through and and be matter-of-fact about it don't try to exaggerate bad things or minimize some of the good just be upfront about it i think going off that point too if a student you know definitely if you want to talk about some kind of you know hard thing that you went through that's great but you know maybe just share you know how you are now how you've overcome that i think sometimes i read essays and i read about those hardships but i don't i just read about the hardships i don't i don't read about you know like how the student's doing now or like what you did to like overcome it so definitely if that's something that you want to write about that's okay but just make sure to maybe include that part as well yeah i'd say um i like something one of my colleagues used to say was that the essay is the trailer for your life it's not the whole movie um so you don't need to feel the pressure to tell us in your entire life story i think it's a lot more impactful to hear about one really important experience that you've had versus i was born in wherever and then i moved and then this was hard and this was hard like that that's interesting but it's not really um i don't think it's as impactful as hearing it one really compelling story yeah that's a um another way of saying that is that the the essay is not a resume right so it's not your life story it is also not just a list of you know 20 different things i mean there's an activity activities list in the common app right there's space for that and a lot of schools are happy to have you share a resume the essay really should be you know kind of one or two things fleshed out and and um dive deep into i think another you know we've all touched a little bit on uh sort of you know people dealing with you know sort of intense experiences or you know hardships they've had to deal with in their life and i just want to put out there that you do not owe it to us to share those stories right um and i hope that you do not feel like if that's something you don't want to share you should anyway because it's gonna you know it's gonna be sort of your ticket into college right i think that um if there are things that have happened to you in your life that you feel like we're not going to be able to understand you without knowing about them and you feel empowered to share those things by all means you should and i think we're going to do you know everything we can to try to understand where you're coming from and certainly to try not to sort of hold anything against you or judge what you've been through but on the other hand i wouldn't i wouldn't want anybody to feel like there was something that they you know weren't really comfortable sharing with us that you know a parent or a guidance counselor someone was like oh you should write about that you know that's going to really tug on somebody's heart strings or something like that there are other ways to do that but you know your counselor can talk about your background you can use the additional information session section or a possibly an interview or a call with one of us if you want to share some something you don't necessarily need to make the essay the the place where you sort of um uh you know share that that's that story if it's not the right space for it yeah i'd emphasize that using the additional information section if there's something you just want to tell us very matter-of-factly like you were out of school for a certain number of weeks because of a you know family hardship or a medical thing um you don't have to you don't have like i would rather read about something you're really excited and passionate about um in the essay because that gives us more of an idea of what you're going to be like as part of an intellectual and social community um but i'm not telling you not to write about that but don't feel the pressure of saying oh i have to write about something difficult that happened to me that's a great use of the additional information section there's also the coven section this year if it's coven related so if you just want to tell something very matter-of-factly you don't have to write another essay i wouldn't encourage you to write another essay for that um but that is a place that i think not everybody knows about until they actually open the common app and start it so know that that is there and that is a great way for you to just very transactionally communicate things with us as well yeah i've also had students that at schools where we didn't sort of accept supplemental uh you know essays or uh art portfolios or things like that who use that space you know it doesn't necessarily have to be something that sort of happened to you it doesn't have to be that you had a health struggle or you know something else go on in your life you can just say hey you know i wrote a really good essay my essay's about this if you have two extra minutes you know i'd love you to go to this website i built or i just want you to understand this uh you know other thing that's really important to me in my life so you can certainly you can be really creative with how you use that section overall um it's uh it's there for you it's additional information it's for you to share whatever you want so certainly take advantage of that you're gonna talk about supplements vanessa yeah i'm happy too um so i've worked at schools both where we had required supplements and then sarah lawrence has optional ones because we're very big on trusting you to know how you want to share your story the thing i would emphasize most about supplements is thinking about a lot about fit um so thinking both how you fit the college and how the college fits you i think it's really important to think about it going both ways um and so i think supplements really require you to do your research i know that it's very tempting to just copy and paste and change out the name of the college um for like why i want to go to x um but that's honestly often very transparent when you're doing that and sometimes you forget to do that and that's not a good look always um so i think just be be mindful of that um and and if there's a very common supplement question is why do you want to go back school which i think is a valid question and i think something you you also owe it to yourself to know the answer to um i always think that there should be not one reason that you want to go to a college so i think really understanding that and looking for as you're looking at colleges i think it's a really good sign when the question that a college is asking excites you um personally i i rewrote our supplement questions because i thought they weren't exciting enough um and i wanted them to reflect on sarah lawrence's personality um so we have four new supplement questions and if you hate them then that's fine um i won't take it that personally only a little bit um but one of ours is about being a hyphen like sarah lawrence students are direct they're not just directors they're directors sound designer linguists like they're economists but they also study mandarin like they're really cool multi-faceted people and if you you're like that's cool i want to be that then that also tells you something about um your fit with the college so i think that's kind of like the high level what i would say um schools will treat their word counts very differently i'm a very big proponent of brevity being the soul of lit um so i will never be mad about a short ter essay if it's 250 instead of 500 words for example um but what we're really looking for is to understanding that the common app is say the big essay that's what you're sending to everybody as as we mentioned earlier and supplements are what you're specifically sending to the college that is asking for them so i think putting in as much specificity as you can and showing that you've done your research and showing that you've put a lot of thought into this and that you're not just like applying for the sake of applying um because nobody feels special about that nathan or geondra have you guys worked at places that have uh supplements anything you want to weigh in there um not not that i've been a part of the process for so i don't i don't have anything constructive that i can add here so i apologize yeah i would say the only supplement question we usually ask is why you want to attend our university so just you know really emphasizing and making sure you're sharing that with whatever college you're going to um i think is important yeah and i think i think to vanessa's point uh hopefully that's a question you've answered long before you have to write it down right if um if your list is made up of schools where you know you said you you googled schools that have psychology and then you haven't taken it to that next step where you've tried to figure out what kind of community you want to be a part of or you know that faculty guidance is really important to you or internships are really important to you or locations important to you or whatever it is that really matters to you you probably want to start answering that question for yourself before you start you know hitting submit on college applications because it's going to come up one way or another it's going to maybe you get in and then you start talking to somebody like me and i say oh man are you so excited to come here you know what can we do can i introduce you to a faculty or you know student or you know get you out here for a visit or something like that and you go uh you know can you can you tell me about what what you offer on your campus right so you wanna you wanna try and figure that out a little bit earlier in the process and and um you know maybe you only apply to eight schools instead of fifteen schools because you've answered that question for yourself that's okay too just want to remind everybody that uh we would love if if there are questions that you have that you want us to answer you can submit them in the q a we'll we'll keep rambling until the session's over but if there are things that would be really helpful to you um by all means share those with us uh other things we haven't touched on guys anything you wanna you think we should cover what about um advice for just the the writing side of it i think we've talked a lot about kind of the storytelling part of it um do you all have advice for um i always like i always talk about like the editing process um do you have a kind of in the writing and editing process that you like to give students i can start if you want a moment to think um i like to encourage students to be mindful and selective of who they asked to read it um please ask somebody else to read it um i've read some some essays that i was like girl you really could have had somebody read this that they would have helped helped you out um but um i think an english teacher is a great person to read it you do not need to please don't pay somebody to read your essay an english teacher is great a counselor is great that your per um your friend who always copy edits your english papers is great um but i think be mindful about how many people you have because it gets to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen so i think if you ask one or two people whose opinion and feedback you really um trust that's that's a great route to go um and and be clear if you're like i only want you to edit for grammar and spelling or like i really want some help with the the way it's constructed in themes um because i think that way you're getting the advice that you're looking for not just somebody who's kind of like dumping on you or projecting um i think in my experience an english teacher is a great one and they'll also be um helpful in thinking about how your kind of entire story is constructed because they might be like why did you not mention this big thing and you're like of course um so that's that's i think something that a lot of people struggle with kind of figuring out how to identify so something to think about yeah i would i would mostly agree with that and just um you know not only having somebody else read it but read through it yourself a lot of times you can find a lot of those simple things um you know i know myself as a as a high school student i had a real bad reputation for just writing something and handing it in um so it never hurts to to go back through and read it through yourself um separate yourself from it for a little while too to to kind of clear your head and come back to it and read again um and then bring it to somebody else for grammar and punctuation and things like that um spelling is another one um there's nothing that that uh frustrates me more sometimes when i'm going through uh a really well done essay in terms of the storytelling piece and then there's just one one word that's pretty common that's spelled just a little bit wrong um so just little things like that um are are part of it for sure and just kind of pay attention to those as you're going through yeah i definitely agree with what vanessa and nathan both have talked about um i think my other piece of advice would be to read your essay out loud to yourself um it really can help you with the editing process if you're listening to yourself read it and if like you stumble on a sentence out loud then maybe there's some editing to be done but definitely look over it and have an english teacher look over it um and please capitalize eyes when you write your essays i've read a few essays when the eyes aren't capital capitalized and it really um really bothers me so make sure you're capitalizing all those eyes in your essays yeah i would definitely echo the the reading out loud is such a good tip i do that with almost every you know emails i write like almost anything i do um and not only will that help you catch errors but i think it's also a really good way to flag if you're not writing in your own voice and if it feels weird for you to read it out loud that's probably not a good sign particularly you know maybe there are you know cover letters you would write or certain papers that you would write that need to be in a particular format that don't quite feel the way you would speak this essay i would say as much as possible without like you know absolutely throwing the laws of grammar out the window should read to some extent the way that you speak i think you know um maybe i'd be interested to hear what all of you say i've certainly i've worked mostly at schools that are um you know excited when people uh are a little edgy with their essays a little creative and things like that so certainly you know if you want to start a sentence with but uh i i can't speak for anyone else but that's not going to bother me right i don't want to see an essay that has however 15 times through it right that's not who you are i don't think could be but probably not right i shouldn't need a thesaurus to read your essay right unless you're you know those are words you really use um so i think you can you can take some liberties i've read some really great essays that read a little bit more stream of consciousness or a little bit more poetry than prose or things like that and you know you don't want to do that for the sake of doing it but if that's really who you are and how you write um you can give that a shot and i think we'll give you some leeway there's a big difference between not sticking to you know traditional mla format or something like that and having a ton of spelling errors in your essay right one is a bold intentional interesting choice the other one is you know not proofreading enough um so i would i i personally really like like essays that sort of uh flirt with the edge of what's um what's sort of traditional would you guys agree with that or do you at your institutions as do people sometimes cross the line i would agree that um i like seeing creative takes i will make the bold claim that emojis have no place in the college essay um that's my take i will say that i i think i've seen really well done stream of consciousness essays but i think they're very very difficult to do well um largely because um i know every institution reads a little bit differently um but in my i usually i'm writing a couple bullet points about what your essay is and i think if you can't say in like two or three bullet points what your essay is about and what you want the admission counselor to take away you may need to go back and look at the structure a little bit um just because we want to be able to tell our colleagues this is what the the applicant was communicating to us not just in your essay but in every part of your application um not that we think you should be boiled down to bullet points but we do have a lot of applications to communicate about in a very short amount of time in committee so i think making sure that um you almost have like a tweet length version of your essay that we could write is is very helpful and i know we have some questions but i want to see if anybody else has anything to say at that point um so i see we have a question um eve asks is if there are multiple supplement essays do you want to see a consistent theme or is it okay to talk about a bunch of different unrelated topics activities that interest the student this is a really good question so at the last institution they worked with we had two required supplements one was essentially y ex school and then there were six to pick from to answer for your second question um i did not like seeing the same things talked about in all of the essays from um the big essay to supplements because i'm like well i already know that you're the captain of the tennis team like i would have rather learned something different about you um but um i think it's mostly most schools will have i mean there's definitely some outliers but most schools will have one or two supplement questions not not more um like i said there are summations um but i would i would rather i mean the theme and topic i guess can be disparate but i would rather learn something new about you in every essay even if it's the same theme from different angles than reading about your like love for plato in the same like three times like you're you're more than just one thing um essentially so that hopefully that makes sense i think that that extends beyond just the supplements right i think that um we're gonna see things that are sort of uh resident throughout your application right you know if your uh college essay is about your favorite thing to do probably that's gonna be mentioned in your activities list your recommender right mention it might mention it so it's not that things can't come up more than once um but i think you can end up in a situation where your common fsa is about plato and then the you know one of the supplemental essays is like who's an author you love and you write almost the same exact essay about plato but shorter and that's clearly a missed opportunity on your part um i i had a old colleague who said if you if you want to put all your eggs in one basket it better be a really nice basket so you know i've had i've had applicants where like they are a poet in all caps right and five different things on their activities list are like different you know editorial opportunities they've had in places they've been published and classes they've taken and you know lessons they've taken right and so there's a real diversity of things that they're doing under that heading and then their essays about their love for poetry and then maybe a supplemental essay is about you know one of their favorite poets right so it's all poetry but there are a lot of different things that you're learning about them along the way it still might be a narrower focus than some schools are looking for and that's something you might want to think about on a school-to-school basis if you're you know applying to a particular program if you're applying to a you know particular major or school within a school or if you're you know doing a more broad application a school might get a little nervous by that uh but yeah probably different school to school on that looks like somebody could use just a general sort of a backup for a junior on what is the common app essay what are the sort of other essays when do you write them what do you write for all schools what do you write for uh independent schools somebody want to just do kind of a recap and a little more detail on that are you talking about the i'm a junior question yeah yeah so so you write a main essay for everywhere and then individual ones based on requirements for each call you apply to essentially yes um so many many schools are on the common application um so you write one essay and we like if you're applying to our four institutions i believe we're all on the common app i know some of you have your own applications as well we'd all read their same essay um but you are school some schools will invite you to write supplement essays um or they might have other requirements some schools might have required interviews um or a create a performing arts portfolio or something else entirely um so yes you write one main essay that you're it's usually like 600-ish words um that's kind of you your story and we are again aware that everybody is receiving the same one and then some schools will have um requirements or optional opportunities to write a supplement with their own and their school will have their own specific prompt um we didn't really touch on the common app essay prompts i believe there's like six i never look at which prompt a student responds to because it doesn't usually influence my idea of the essay in one way or another i don't know if others feel differently um but to me that you're basically writing a personal statement and i'm not looking at how closely you're answering the particular question because i think we all understand what the goal is yeah i think the the prompts are there to help you figure out you know what some good essay possibilities are right so you know you can sort of take that and go in any direction and there is a uh literally right whatever you want prompt is like the seventh or eighth prompt so if you look at those prompts and are really feeling stuck uh you also you don't have to feel attached to any of them that's one other piece of writing advice and i might have touched on this right at the beginning but if you have the time i think it's really helpful to at least sit down and think of how you would answer each one of those prompts you don't necessarily have to do a full draft but you know write a paragraph or write some ideas down or bullet points or something like that because if you just sit down and say oh no what am i going to write my college essay about right it's like going to be the worst writer's block you've ever experienced so that way you can come up with seven different possibilities and you might discover that three of them after you've written them down seem a lot more exciting than the other four and then you might kind of run with those but it's a really good way to get started to just start jotting ideas down in response to those prompts instead of you know starting okay what am i going to write the essay about because that's that's the process really terrifying other tips or tricks anything else we think we ought to cover i just doubled down on what you you all said earlier and that it's it's not as stressful as it needs to be just take some pressure off yourself enjoy the process of writing enjoy the process of talking about yourself because we don't we don't talk about ourselves a lot in this world so um just kind of take the moment and do some reflection and and just put yourself on that paper you know we we talked um a little bit um about like the hardship essay i remember my senior my ap lit teacher my senior high school um would talk about like the three or four d's like the big scary topics like i was divorced to press drugs do we want to talk about um any advice about how kind of handling those bigger harder topics in an essay um i mean i know leah mentioned it earlier it's talk to what you're comfortable with sharing um you know those are very difficult topics to talk about um they're sometimes difficult topics to read about so just make sure that what you're putting on the paper is something you'd be comfortable saying to us really in person if you really feel that strongly about it um and just yeah i mean that would be my biggest piece of advice in that topic anybody else have anything they want to add i would say um there's no need to go for shock value for the sake of it i know when you're in like writing class you learn about a hook which a hook is a great thing to have but i think going for shock value really just communicates that something shocking happened to you um i think also just remembering that there's a real person um who's reading a lot of these essays every day um and i think usually that advice is given in like you have to stand out um i don't like reading about gross things i don't like about reading about bodily fluids like all day long particularly um and like i want you to share your story and be be vulnerable and be who you are and share your voice but i think just being mindful like is this something that is going to like not influence the person who's reading it today but is this going like is it actively contri i think just asking the question of like is this actively contributing to sharing your story about who you will be on a college campus academically and socially um i don't i just don't want to read gross things anymore maybe that's my my big takeaway here yeah i think the the the point of like is this uh is this actively contributing positively to my application is a really good one again i think as nathan said i think we've all said you know at the at the root you know core end of the day if it's something you feel like we need to know about you then go for it right and then we'll sort of all live with you know whatever sort of you know comes out of that because i do think that it's that it's really important that you you know own this essay and that it's something that matters to you and that you're sharing who you are um but i do think that there's a difference between um students who've had something really difficult that they've gone through that has really significantly impacted their that sort of the the ripple effects from can be seen throughout their whole application and so i know that we talked earlier about whether or not the essay is the right place to sort of explain those things but i've seen students do a really good job of using the essay as a way to put the rest of their application in context and help us understand why maybe their transcript looks the way it does or why they haven't been as involved in activities outside of their family or things like that and what i think can be really tough is when um an application outside of your essay looks um really really sort of strong essentially right it looks like you've been really involved and done really well in school and you know had a really positive impact in your community and all those kinds of things and then the essay gives us a window into another part of your life that's not really having a positive impact on on how we're going to evaluate you and again if you feel like you have to tell that story and you want us to know that then you know so be it it's your choice to make but i think that if you know if you have an application that's knocking it out of the park and then you decide that you want to tackle this really difficult topic in your essay that's um you know gonna make us sort of you know take a minute uh that's a that's a choice you're making and there's you know i think there's a little bit of risk there so you definitely want to think about that and own it i also just want to reiterate too that you definitely don't have to write your essay about that and you can again use that additional information section to kind of tell us like if there's something weird on your transcript there's a reason for it like definitely use that information there use that section to share that information so if you want to write your essay about it you can but don't feel like you have to and just really use that additional information section on the comments you can also communicate with your counselors if there's something you'd rather that they share um that they might have better insight into or you want them to you know have discretion around or anything like that that's that's a very trustworthy source for us as well or if you want them to send us an email um it doesn't have to be a part of your application especially if there's something you'd rather um you know if your parents are in the application and there's something you don't really want them to know about um that's okay to give us a call give us an email and we'll we'll keep things things discreet um but i think that's also something to be aware of that you know sometimes something that's really important to your story is not like i i as that's the ceremony i read a lot of students who are um not out um and in their communities or they're out to the family but not school vice versa so i if this isn't something you want us to know we would love to know it but there are other ways of communicating those things beyond the application as well so just something to be aware of i think that's just about all the time we have right i think there's a there's another set of workshops coming up oh there's crystal hey so i just wanted to give folks a reminder we've got just a couple minutes left so if you do have a pressing question throw it in the chat now um and then i wanted to ask the panelists about something that came up during a professional development time yesterday our school is working actively toward an anti-racist education right now and one of the things that the english department brought up is that they are trying to teach students to write with their own voice and sometimes that includes their own cultural voice which may include different types of language and so i'm wondering when those kinds of essays cross your desk what are your reactions i'm gonna pop back out well i'll start initially it's it's um there's some of that shock factor that we mentioned like you just see it and you can tell that um you know it's it's just different from every other essay we've read um but you know as as long as speaking to the greater picture of things you know we're still trying to take something from it so if it's taking away the importance to you of the the culture in the background um then that's that's certainly you know a great piece to to add and a great um i guess literary device to use in in the essay portion yeah i think it goes back to um you know that that there's a difference between kind of you know pushing the boundaries or breaking the rules or being a little bit more experimental in a way that i think is it's usually pretty easy to tell that someone's doing it on purpose it doesn't mean that it always works or that it's always the best essay you've ever read but it's usually pretty easy to say oh this person is clearly writing in this voice right they're making an active choice to use this language or you know punctuate in this way to you know um whatever that might look like um and we might not you know like it it might cause you know different reactions and different folks reading the essay but it's usually pretty easy to say okay this person has made sort of you know an artistic choice to own this to write in this style well i think we evaluate that very differently from an essay that just looks sloppy right and i hope that we're all pretty good at identifying the difference between choices we might not make in terms of how to write uh versus um you know something where you just sort of didn't proofread and uh i would i would go out on a limb in regards to this and this is again something that you know every individual needs to make a choice about but i think there's an argument to be made for you know if you're um you know writing in your voice um and there is a school out there that reads that and says you know this isn't the kind of voice that we want on our campus you probably don't want to go to that school right so that's a you know that's that's something you need to think about and and recognize that there is the possibility that some admissions counselor somewhere might read what you've written and say that's not what we're looking for here but i think if it's really a you know i hope that if it's really an important part of your identity you want to own it and then you want to apply to schools so you're going to see that and say yeah that's you know that's who we're looking for absolutely that was a great essay so i think that you know any choice you make there's a risk that it's gonna you know sort of uh impact someone in the wrong way but if it's if it's you know true to who you are hopefully it's you know it's gonna resonate in the right way with the right school well thank you all so much for hosting this panel for our students i'm going to encourage students and parents if you have further questions feel free to shoot me an email if you have further questions for any of our panelists and you would like their contact info please let me know and i can help connect you all right thank you all so much and have a great rest of your day enjoy the group of panels good luck to all the students out there
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
hello everyone thank you for joining us today in this college roundtable series my name is ed lubin i'm one of the interns working at amherst regional high school and i'll be moderating today the purpose of this session is to talk about some of the multiple pathways that students can venture into when thinking about post-secondary opportunities in going to college whether it is starting at going straight to a four-year university or today talking about some of the options that uh community colleges provide um i'll be introducing uh our wonderful panelists in uh just a sec i just want to remind people um most of the audience i think all the audience is on mute right now but if you do have questions please type them into the live chat and my goal will be to mix them into the conversation throughout the session but we will also save some time at the end for some q a so if that's all set um i think we can get started i think first up uh is andrea if you don't introduce yourself and uh we'll go from there great thanks ed how are you hi everyone my name is andrea bienvenu i am an admission counselor at springfield technical community college just a quick introduction we are a technical community college we are the only technical community college in massachusetts excuse me the state of massachusetts so we have a strong focus on the stem field but we also have a school of general and professional studies we also have a school of health as well too so i'm looking forward to working with the panelists that are here today give you some great information about what opportunities are out there for you and hopefully answer some of your questions when it comes to community college and stepping on and transferring to a four-year school thanks ed hello ed can you hear me okay you're muted ed i don't know if you realize that there you go i didn't i didn't i didn't hear anything you just said but no worries anyways we'll move forward thank you so much for having me adam for everybody out there thank you so much for being here and for joining us um and for my my fellow my fellow colleagues on the piano um i really appreciate this opportunity my name is aaron hellum i'm an admission coordinator at greenfield community college in the office of admission and um you know we we are one of 15 community colleges within the commonwealth of massachusetts um one of the the aspects of greenfield community college that makes it special from you know perhaps other ones is our focus on liberal arts education many of our students are enrolled in liberal arts options that present uh transfer pathways to bachelor degree programs that many of our students pursue we offer over 65 different certificate and degree options all designed with stackability in mind so that students can build their academic careers in concurrence with their professional careers you know i think one of the things one of the aspects of you know that the students are facing these days moving into college is is how we're thinking about it differently you know that idea of going away to college for four years for a career training career preparation and coming out and moving right into it working for 25 30 years and retiring is not it's not the way that it's working anymore um you know and another aspect of your education is i've been and i really want to stress this a lot because i think it's incredibly important that your education is yours and yours alone according to nobody else's timeline and nobody else's expectations the wonderful aspect that community colleges present for students is the flexibility of options you know we build academic pathways for our students to allow them to move forward according to their own identified goals what it is that they want out of their education you know we can talk about different kinds of guided pathways and in in articulated models what it comes right down to is that most community colleges in the commonwealth present opportunities for students to be able to create their own pathways um and according to their own timelines um and transfer um to to state universities or any other university as well you know all of our credits are designed with national standards and mindset transfer abilities at its core um you know so i i highly recommend it i think anymore these days especially you know in addition to the flexibility affordability is also on everybody's mind um as they're starting to make their decisions for higher education um in any more it's it it ends up becoming a fiscal one at the same time that it that it becomes um something more long-term um and i think that you know community colleges present the opportunity for students to be able to earn the front part of their bachelor's degree program and then transfer and and graduate with you know with 43 less of the costs total for their for their bachelor's de bachelor degrees education so i'm hoping that students are thinking about community colleges as a first option thank you so much ed yes of course thank you and thank you for the reminder appreciate it i think next up we have uh harold i think coming to us from holyoke community college yeah great to have you harold good afternoon ed thanks for having us i'm really excited to be here my fellow alumni school amherst high school this is holyoke community college we are right here in western massachusetts with one of the 15 obviously as ed as uh aaron had just alluded to um we are all different and unique um what i can share a little bit about hcc's some of our unique programs we have the only culinary program this side of the state um it's a culinary associate degree as well as well as a certificate program and we specialize in liberal arts transfer as well along with some specialized career training in nursing lpn radiology and those health career fields so i didn't want to take a lot of time i'm going to give all the dependents an opportunity to speak and uh thank you we look forward to hearing from you uh later this evening afternoon all right thank you harold i think next up we are about to uh go into some four-year universities so uh can i have nicole come up and share some of her experiences hi uh my name is nicole i'm one of the counselors at bridgewater state university thank you for having me um this is a great session to be a part of because you know starting off at a community college is such a great option especially you know these days um you know like aaron was talking about with you know the affordability and the 43 um a great option so transferring um at bridgewater to bridgewater is very common uh 50 of our incoming students are actually transfer students so that means we have the infrastructure in the team ready to help students along the way we have our transfer services so they work one-on-one with students to make sure that you have everything that you need um you know in order to apply and transfer as many credits as possible we have a very very liberal um credit policy because we want to be as you know transfer friendly as we can when transferring from a two-year institution we can receive a max of 69 credits and when transferring from a four-year institution it's 90 credits so you know thinking that most four-year bachelor degrees you know graduation uh requirements is 120 credits with those you're more than halfway there so great opportunity to do so we have equivalency tools on our website so if you are you know at a school and thinking about transferring you can actually go in and see all the classes that we have transferred in the past for students so that way you can see if say you took this certain english this certain um you know mass say it's springfield tech you can actually see how it transferred for other students in the past um so that's a great way to kind of gauge on your own when you're making those decisions and also our transfer services office is you know so happy to work one-on-one with the best path available to you we are part of mass transfer as a public university so we work with you know many of the colleges and universities um within massachusetts and there's different pathways and ways to go about within mass transfer one being the mass transfer block and so allow students to fulfill the you know general education requirements at one of our massachusetts community colleges and then transferring those you know all those credits over to one of the four-year institutions so you know that's a great way um to get all those credits in so in quickly a little bit about bsu we're in southeastern massachusetts around 45 minutes from boston in providence you know 90 plus areas of study so we really cover so many different bases and i would be happy to answer any questions about bsu and what it's like transferring to bsu thank you very much all right thank you nicole um i think next up we have victoria from uh becker college very nice to meet you victoria hello thank you for having me uh my name is victoria i'm an admissions counselor with becker college we actually have two campuses one's based in worcester and one in leicester we um we pride ourselves on being a transfer friendly institution give up we offer both associates degrees and bachelor's degrees so as a an app reviewer i'm actually i'm familiar with some of these other schools names based on the transcripts i've received we um i mean it's so tough to determine right out of high school what you want to study so we're happy to see if students have realized that they um they want to pursue a course of study that that we offer and then and want to transfer their credits to our institution we're happy to work with you we do also have an agreement with a mass transfer so we're able to accept a good amount of credits from most uh community colleges in the area we have uh one of those tables on conversion tables on our website so students can easily see what they've already have the credits for what they may need to um what they need to plan for in their future program study so um we do accept the uh the ged the high set accept their associate's degrees and you're able to apply um up to 45 credits for an associate's degree or 90 credits for a bachelor of science and or arts so yeah um like i said we are we're happy to work with you we know it's been a a tricky year to uh find a a a uh institution that works for your budget so we see a lot of students who start off at a community college and then come join us afterwards so we're always happy to welcome new students [Music] all right thank you victoria i think we have one more uh tiffany coming to us from greenfield community colleges uh took me there all right oh she may come back to us later okay awesome uh so it's very lovely to have our panels here today to talk about some of these options that students have in transferring to a four-year universities from community college i wanted to start off by jumping off a point that victoria just made in terms of some of the adjustments that students in their families have had to make as a result of the pandemic so that's the question i posed to our panelists are some of the successes and challenges of meeting students where they're at as they try and figure out how to uh get to where they want to go uh through the transfer program in the midst of uh the pandemic all right so i am going to start with um with you andrea hi thank you all right you can see me okay yep okay great um so that's a great question so we are all i mean i just want to start by saying i hope you guys are all giving yourselves a pat on the back i hope you guys are recognizing how unique of a situation that we are in and how incredib these these our students have just been incredible from elementary to high school to college level just the adjustments you've been forced to make and how everything you've known when it's come to learning has been forced to change and it just shows how resilient that you guys are and i just give yourself a lot of credit i hope you guys recognize that as well too it's tough you guys are getting there hopefully we're not having these same style conversations this time next year when you're in college um but the truth is it's it's definitely been a challenge all around we've had to learn how to do everything brand new and unique ways but we've also talked about how some of these changes have actually forced us to help students for the better um just by even having options that we didn't have before so you know we're a very traditional school so it's a lot of if you want to meet with your professor you have to go to office hours office hours or this time in this office maybe it's through email maybe it's through phone but obviously that's not realistically the situation right now our campus is currently closed except for selected majors um and from there what we have to do is we were forced to just make some changes so now we have opportunities that actually make things more convenient for our students so instead of having those office hours on campus you can actually video chat with your professor you don't have to worry about driving to campus we still have all of our offices that are open they are accessible through what our live chat connectors they're accessible through info sessions one-on-one phone calls they're still the ability to connect and assist students throughout this process we still have a lot of resources that are now have always been available to students but students are taking more advantage of them so one thing um that i believe it was uh nicole and victoria brought up is the mass mass transfer that's something you're going to hear a lot today so the mass transfer website is going to be a huge tool that's going to be helpful and accessible um throughout this time if you go over and look at it it'll actually assist you with pathways so if you're somebody that knows you wants to go want to go into engineering and maybe you want to start at a community college you start there and i'll show you the pathway and to where it's so global to what school you want to go to if you want to end up at bridgewater if you want to end up at becker what classes you'll have to take to help assist you with that um i realized i don't want to be talking my ear off so i'm going to cut it off there i'm going to let one of my other colleagues jump in because i know they have a lot of great information to share as well thanks thank you uh aaron you said you had a few words yes thanks ed i just kind of wanted to follow up with what andrea was um was talking about in terms of um offering remote services for students i think it's important to know that for the most part community colleges already had a lot of a lot of its pedagogy components online or online versions of their of their coursework um already in place so that for us to make that pivot wasn't as challenging or as difficult in that instance as many other more traditional colleges and universities or residential colleges and universities um had to go through in order to make in order to make those kinds of transitions and adapt to that and i think what andrea is referring to as well which is really important to understand is that all of our student support services at greenfield community college are now available in a remote setting um so that any student regardless of location which in franklin county is something that we have struggled with in terms of our students having accessibility because of location now everything is available online so that students have access you know to to our peer tutoring our peer mentoring our wellness cert center um our math studio in addition to as andrea had indicated as well all of our faculty members um in addition to that um so it's something to bear in mind um if if you know i'm a lot like andrea i'm hoping that this is this is a lot more temporary than more long-term um and hopefully um we'll be back to campus you know where our services can be in place once again however with the uncertainty of moving into the future and you're having to make these kinds of decisions which i my heart goes out to all of you to have to do that these kinds of situations um to to bear in mind that there are other options um so that if you want to pursue with your academic career that you don't have to put it on plots or you don't have to you don't have to wait until until you know all of all of everything else is back to normal again to be able to continue with your education um that there are options available even for a semester or two if that's if that's what it takes um you know as a placeholder um before before moving into a college that you that you want to that you want to enter into there's lots of different possibilities and as i said initially it's according to your own um your own timeline and your own expectations thank you ed yeah of course thank you aaron uh harold you had a few words yeah i just wanted to chime in as well guys that you know we at hcc are also remote and just to kind of give you a timeline as to when you may see on-campus classes resuming which were scheduled i believe for the fall of but there are certain programs at the campus who will be resuming on campus um as andrew had mentioned certain programs one of our programs that we are resuming is our culinary arts certificate program which we'll be resuming on campus in small groups but hopefully eventually as we said fall 2021 will be back on campus and in a blend of other opportunities to continue remote learning and or do remote learning and on campus as well so just wanted to share that little tidbit about hcc's situation right now all right thank you thank you and a theme um that i'm noticing is the the adjustments that uh community colleges uh have made um partly based on what they already had in place with uh remote learning features and how that's being used to support students as they seek to transition wondering for uh four-year universities what options that they are providing for students that are transferring out onto their campuses yeah i'm wondering if uh nicole if you had a few words to say about that hi uh yes so um you know it's great hearing um you know from all the different schools and yeah i kind of i just want to echo the sentiment that you know we have online resources and our support systems are in place to be able to you know support you during this time even if coming to campus isn't as possible um you know if you're looking to maybe go to community college for a semester or two um you know but want to see how that could translate to a four-year college whether it be bridgewater or another school you can always reach out to us and you know we can work with you know everyone one-on-one to make sure that you are all set up and um you know have the the path and the goal that you're looking for so you know even right now we have online transfer services sessions whether it be through zoom meeting or an opportunity to connect one-on-one also with admissions counselors to be able to make sure you're all set um in you know transferring um you know criteria wise and so we just want to um yeah make sure you're best supported and the resources are available to you even in the online setting and so hopefully by the time that you would transfer um we will be more in an in-person setting um and this world will go back to a little bit more normal um yeah thank you yes of course yeah and i think that is a hope for all of us but it looks uh like their each college has their options on ways that they could support students um is there anything anyone else that had a few words to share before we move on all right in the context of students that are seeking to go to a community college for example a lot of students you know as a result of their pro academic progress in high school um going to community college may be a chance for them to kind of uh refine some of those skills that will be needed uh in order to uh make the transition um if colleges would like to talk about like what are ways um that you support students you know that are seeking to uh build on their academic skill sets so that um they can be able to have a successful transfer to whichever pathways they choose all right hey andrea thanks ed so that's a great question so um some of my colleagues on here who i see pretty regularly they may have heard me say it before i like to refer to community college as the most affordable and accessible form of education now we're kind of focusing right now on the accessibility part of it and so the beauty of community college is it gives everybody no matter what their educational background a chance at higher ed and pursuing their educational future and we work very very closely particularly with the four-year schools and all of our pathways to kind of help and assist these students that may just be i wouldn't i don't want to use the term missing the mark because that's not it but maybe to help better prepare them for what their next steps with their bachelor's degrees will be we work very closely with a lot we have over 400 pathways to both four-year public and private schools in all different areas throughout our campus there's one local college that i have in mind that has a strong engineer program and they very commonly will meet with us or refer students to us and say you know what we really like the student we want this student but we just want them just to bring up their grades a little bit just to help prepare them better for this program and they'll say you know start at stick do a semester or two and then reapply but if you get this certain gpa that can prepare you for scholarships that can help assist you with that so that we have a great you know it may seem i don't like to use the term that we're competitors of one another we technically are but we're more of sister colleges and the whole goal in mind is to help assist the student throughout the process and get them to their end goal um stick in particular like i said besides our pathways and our agreements with the local for not just the local but um the four-year private schools and public schools we have a transfer counselor who specifically is there to help you throughout the transfer process walk you through the transfer process we have specific counselors from certain schools that are actually on our campus weekly some of them are on our campus weekly some of them are on almost every other day just because they want to be as available as possible to our students to help assist them and actually be able to advise them whether it's about what classes they should or shouldn't be taking what classes they may need to improve on our tutoring centers there to help specifically with that as well too so the biggest part of it is you know a set helping the student succeed academically but also helping them reach their goal and we reach their goal by working together having a close connection um having constant conversation checking in with that student make sure all their goals are being met to help assist them with their future it's it's a great great option for students it's it's fantastic thank you andrea uh harold you said you had a few words thank you ed um thank you andrea so yeah um just know that wherever you are academically um as andre had mentioned we we we get students of all walks of life who come in at different levels and abilities and the support on campus for those students is second to none we really want to improve their life we want them to succeed at hcc we want them to transfer so again the the transfer programs are geared specifically tailored to do that transfer process with the student in mind that they don't really have to do much but take the curricular courses that are on the curriculum and qualify to transfer upon meeting the minimum threshold gpas but again the support on campus whether it's um academic support tutoring support um staff is available to students now more than ever because of the technology that we're using so um you know their their tailored programs specifically for you um so that you can move on to your next destination whether it be a university or private public school we just want the student in mind to know that they are well and capable of completing their associate degree and moving on and we hope that you know you consider one of the community colleges here in the pioneer valley all right thank you harold all right aaron uh he said he had a few words thanks ed i really appreciate that i'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach to it um you know because a lot a lot like um um our my colleagues at uh the other the other institutions we do have a lot of support services in place to ensure student success um i think when you're talking about students looking to improve upon academic progress i think it's a little bit different than that i think it's really as a transition for students to have to learn how to identify themselves as college students versus identifying themselves as high school students um and i know the students out there watching they've been i think it's a i think it's a matter of of differentiating the two different questions that are being conflated into one when students are being asked what they want to do with their lives um i there's two the two questions that are that are that are embedded in that is what do i want to do that that question that's sort of that strikes that passion within you that soulful question you know who am i going to be as a people and as a citizen as i get older and there's a second question what do i want to do for money and those are two very disparate questions and when thinking about higher education i urge students to try to keep those as separate as possible ideally in the long run you're going to want those to align at some point in your lives but for right now your education is designed to um to to help you understand who you are as a person and as a citizen in the world help locate yourself in that um you know to be able to think about um critical thinking and and communication um quantitative literacy scientific reasoning um you know all the skills that are going to benefit you in both your professional as well as your personal lives that teaches you how to be a people in the world um and what community colleges especially afford and at greenfield community college in particular is that opportunity for an academic playground you know to be able to to explore the liberal arts and that foundational education you know to to find out who you are and what what you what matters to you what you care about what you're passionate about and what you want to pursue um so that later down the line you can start to answer that question of what do i want to do for money um you know so i highly encourage students as you're looking at your your higher education choices you know to to to put that to prioritize that um that that education is first and foremost an act of self-discovery thank you ed thank you and that brings up an interesting question as well um especially students that are looking to strengthen their identities particularly in transition to four-year universities where sometimes the transition is hard and there's a lot of there's a lot of details in place on how to adjust from coming from a two-year institution to a four-year institution so i'm wondering for our four-year institutions here like what are um some ways that you support students once they do transition and as they're trying to adjust to the classes as well as the overall campus life wondering if uh nicole if you'd be willing to take that question sure um so first off like i mentioned earlier um we have many students who are transferring to bsu every year yeah as i said 50 of our incoming students are transfer students um so that means there's a lot of people going through the same thing you know at the same time we have um you know special groups both in our you know virtually on our mobile app and through orientation um where you know transfer students come together and are able to act as a resource for one another and a great way to make friends to make friends who have also attended you know community colleges other you know public and privates so on the you know social side we have that foundation um i always recommend that students get involved and that's the best way to become acclimated with the campus culture to join organizations we have 90 plus student organizations on campus and you know as i said we have so many students transferring in it's really common to you know join an organization it doesn't have to be starting off as a freshman that any year you can join whatever whatever interest you have um as well as you know we have plenty of academic support um so if you're having a little bit of troubles you know adjusting to you know campus culture and then also academics we have our academic achievement center and so that acts as our one-stop shop for really any academic support a student may need whether it be you know tutoring or advising our advisors are great in figuring out you know upcoming class schedules and really you know your path what you would like to do um and making sure that you get towards that goal so yeah in terms i feel like there's a lot of you know camaraderie in all of our services on campus whether you're living on campus or off campus um you know wants to be able to support you and find the resources that you need thanks all right thank you nicole um victoria i was wondering if you had a few words to share um so we do have a very strong transfer population as well and we actually recently readjusted the staffing responsibilities of our career center so half of our counseling staff works with students who come in with under 60 credits and the other half work with students who come with 60 or over 59 chris i believe it is so they um so those counselors are prepared to work with transfer students and they um they're just they're more familiar with working with students who have um some some courses already as part of their plan so i think that adjustment is helpful as students so that the person they're working with is familiar both with the the freshman and sophomore becca curriculum and with the curriculum from area community colleges or part of the mass transfer agreement so um that gives you a look up leg up in terms of academic support and as nicole mentioned this goes for any student no matter which part of the college experience you're entering as either a freshman or transfer getting involved is crucial everything i think a lot of transfer students come in especially vulnerable because they're new to the school and to the school's culture but uh keeping in mind they are not the only transfer students coming in is it is important to just meeting people making friends so getting involved off campus on campus in the classroom whatever whatever suits your interests and um gets you to know the people that you are working and living with all right thank you victoria yeah yeah and i think for a lot of different student populations um trying to make the jump from two-year and four-year universities and what you're all are highlighting is that level of support that you provide but also providing space for students to grow in their own self-concept and identity in finding people they can build a community with i want to switch gears and uh also talk about um students that are may also be working other jobs um there are students that either are coming back to school um in trying to raise raise families and trying to finish their education but particularly for our students today some of them are working some of them may have families of their own that they need to support so i guess my question is getting with the community colleges is you know what efforts have your schools made of supporting students like that all right andrea keep forgetting i'm mute um great question so i think you bring up a great point there's no cookie cutter when it comes to a student a college student especially a community college student the average age of our students is actually 25.
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