001college application since 2019 so we're we didn't know what to expect um we do have a virtual one of these happening next Thursday so if you have friends that you talk to after tonight that say h I totally forgot I didn't go in person to let them know there's a a virtual one that they can attend on the 13th Thursday the 13th there you all should should have some handouts that are the um this show that you're going to see at the end we also have some materials available for you your students did get this during their junior meeting if your student has not yet had their junior meeting we have about 50 or so kids left that haven't had their meetings they will get it but if you want a copy for yourself um
002we have the granite Advance admissions booklet um and these are the folks that will be presenting the online uh show next Thursday night so they'll be talking through this book your like I said your students did receive that they received their official Junior folder and inside their junior folder they had a list of important dates they have a College Planning tool which talked them through winter through um next spring a sample schedule for next year where we talked about um the classes that they could select an etiquette guide for asking a teacher for a letter of recommendation and a student info sheet that they should provide to their counselor so your students received this or will if they haven't had their junior meeting yet some of these materials are up here for you to take
003with you if you decide um that your child is not sharing with regularly and you've never seen any of that stuff um we have that available for you during the junior meeting they also received a copy of their transcript and a credit check form to know how they're doing getting through the classes that they want here this is also being recorded um so you can watch this later if you want so excited about that and um we have this little Pres presentation Mr Moretti one of our school counselors I'm Miss leech another school counselor over with the camera by the door is Miss Nukem handing out oh there they are handing out the um the guides were Miss Bowen and Miss levit um Mr York will be online Thursday night delivering um in conjunction with
004granite Advance the online version so he was not able to make it here tonight and the last counselor um rounding out our staff is Miss Roland and she was unable to be here tonight but she's definitely ready to chat with your kids about everything they can expect in the college application process so our general time frame right now your students should be exploring colleges looking at what's out there what might fit them if you can make a journey to get on on to a campus great if that's not a possibility at least looking at the statistics asking questions Talking to family members about where they went and why what was important to them um make sure that your students ask all kinds of questions they can always call the representatives and in many of my
005conversations with students talking about what to select for next year several students said do I have to take physics and my answer would be you need to contact the school you're applying to cuz physics is not a requirement for our graduation but it might be a requirement that you have exposure to high school physics before you get into Maine Maritime Academy it is a requirement Mass Maritime Academy it is a requirement but there are some schools that it is many schools it's not so that's why call those College reps they want to talk to your children they're okay with talking to you but they really would rather talk talk to the student so have them I know I know that students are a little bit allergic to making phone calls this is a good practice
006session for them to do so then um in September through next march there'll be again meeting with the Reps they'll be having their senior meetings they'll actually be applying to college and for financial aid which they'll need your help with that the college application does not need to start now we can take a deep breath and slow down we will meet with your students again having a senior meeting and we will open up a common app account with them and walk them through each section about how to fill that out they will again get an updated copy of their transcript they will have their GPA all their recorded classes know exactly what their transcript will look like that we're sending on to their colleges so don't feel like there's any rush in getting that done
007okay we have a lot of time and now Mr mer will take you through top priorities okay thank you so much for coming um I think there's a lot of resources out there um that are somewhat overwhelming so the beauty of you being here tonight is the way exitor high school goes through this process is relatively unique so what hopefully you'll gain is that oversight to college applications but then more specifically how we work with your child to make this come true um the way we do things is different than the way Dover High does things or paa does things so hopefully what you gain from today kind of gives you some insight as to you know what our students specifically are going to be able to access over the next couple of months so
008as we've kind of talked as a counseling staff we have somewhat agreed that one of the top priorities from now moving into senior year is creating um a very strong list that you feel confident in the things that can come from having that strong list take away a lot of um or remove a lot of questions and a lot of kind of hypotheticals like do I have to take a fourth year World language do I have to take physics what do I need to get on the SATs to get into a school without specifics those questions are kind of hard to answer um and if the specifics start to come into play soon places like the college Fair are really great you know opportunities to ask directly you know a school that you like do
009I have to take physics to get into your school and so those types of questions we get all the time and they're hard to answer until the list becomes firm so we look at um you know 8 to 12 schools being a really great list um where we separate those lists by probable or likely candidates Target schools and then maybe some reach schools and if you have that variety you're somewhat protecting yourself with admissions but then also kind of giving it an opportunity at a school that might be a little tougher to get into based on just general data and general statistics and so typically once you've made that list you're able to answer four pretty specific questions that will influence the rest of um your junior year and the start of your senior year
010so some things like when exactly is my deadline to me is the most stress relieving thing you can have so right now if you're thinking I got to get started now but then a list comes up like a UNH whose deadline for early action is November 15th November 15th is a very long ways away so we can all again take another deep breath and say okay I can't I can't press submit until then that's a ways away so having that deadline in sight kind of adds more structure to the next couple of months which I really like my students utilize it also helps with what the SAT or the ACT expectations might be for your student who is taking um them for free in April which is cool um and you get that opportunity to
011see how you do and then B on a specific list you could decide to maybe take more exams in the future now that you have an idea of what that school wants you to get okay for a score it also kind of puts things in perspective financially you know if a list is more and more specific some of that Financial um worry might be you know broken down a little bit more specifically which just kind of helps your all of your planning so we like that too and then lastly like Miss leech said it helps pick your classes for next year a little bit more concretely so a lot of our Junior meetings because lists are slowly starting to be put together or just being thought about we're kind of in a you know I'm
012not sure let's do some research on that phase but next week um all of our students are picking their classes for next year so they have a couple of days um a week or two to really like you know dig in to um decide what sort of classes they'd like to take as a senior so as an overview that strong list really adds a lot of specifics to what um your child could look for um for the next couple of months so specifically speaking at exitor high we are very fortunate to have resources like Naviance um we're going to talk to you a little bit about a transition that we are probably making this summer into a program called School links but it's a very similar platform that Miss leech is going to talk about
013but in the meantime while we have Naviance there's so much data in Naviance that are is only specific to our students which is really nice so this is just kind of a brief it's kind of tough to see but on the advanced College search feature for your child they can you can have fun plugging in how far from home do you want to be what sort of programs do you want to uh study uh what size campus do you want to be on uh what sort of Campus surroundings do you want to be a part of and all of those preferences spit out schools for you it also has admissions criteria that are you know approximates or estimates but it will tell you you know this has a 25% chance of admission or a 75
014to 100% chance of admission so that list of likely Target and reach while might not be 100% accurate we can't make any promises it at least gives you some frame of reference as to how that might look for you and so that helps categorize these schools for you and as you can see here this is just like an overview of I just randomly picked salv Regina in Newport it gives you videos uh virtual tours overviews of of Admissions and the student life and the counselors have met with these admissions reps throughout the fall where we add our own private notes based on what their updates are every single year so in terms of like reading information rather than getting bogged down by everything the internet could offer this is very specific to you and your
015child which is really nice and the best part of navi's feature in our opinion is this thing called scats so we have data over the last I don't know 10 20 years five years of students who have been accepted weight listed deferred rejected from all the schools that our kids have applied to so this is kind of a sample example scat for Penn State um I was using a student who had a weighted GPA of a 4.81 with an SAT score of a 1090 and when you go to the pen State page and click scattergrams it brings up the last five years of how our students have done there so a student that sat with me and was curious about Penn State brought this up and was like o there's a lot of green that's
016good and I said well okay let's just make sure where you fall is kind of in line with where a lot of green exists and like I said earlier it's not always a promise but it is a nice frame of reference to you know take home so here it's hard to see but there's a blue dot where that students's you know face pops up so I would say to this student hey your GPA is there but when it comes time to the SAT what would help you is knowing if you're closer to that 1200 range Penn State might be more of a Target School likely school for your applications so this is our way of kind of like making this way more specific and way less of a guess now if we go to the
017next slide if a kid the same kid says oh but I also really like be we bring up be scattergram we've had a tougher time with bu but at least the data helps us kind of like and I'm only using you know random schools that I selected um but we've had a tougher time with be based on um some of their more recent admissions data and similarly we can make you know the students faces um a little below the GPA median a little below the SAT median so this school I might say okay right now it might be on the reach side but hey who knows what happens on the SAT um when you take that that might help show us a different category for you so it's not like I said a guaranteed um
018tool the data obviously being the SAT score and weighted GPA is minimal there's a lot more that our students do but at least takes you know the most important pieces of our applications the um academic profile puts it in perspective and then helps make this far more specific to you your family and your child and now the exciting new program so our school this summer will be transitioning over to school links everything you put in n so your schools that I'm thinking about the data that we have for our admissions over the last few years is we have been told over and over again all of it will transfer over it'll be seamless so uh the we're moving to this program because it has better updates we uh how students how many of you find
019navian a little clunky yeah all right so this is gonna yeah parents okay the parents that have used it it's a little bit clunky so this is a a in our opinion a much better more upto-date site when you look at the C remember before we showed you a little picture of what the school looked like this is what comes up for you the you put in your search you come up with these six schools and it shows you where they are on the map um so that you can oh all right this is a little further away from Mom and Dad which is great because I don't want them popping in as a surprise visit on a Friday night or that's terrible because I really want to come home every Friday right um so
020the um the data that's in here again our school specific data will transfer over and it's just a cleaner um preview uh of what the schools look like uh easier to navigate and um tells you the same information and those of you that have used Naviance already and seen the school data it has all the same information it just shows it a little differently on School links okay so in terms of what some of our students have already done you know we want to take um we take a lot of pride in how we get this process going with them so that Junior meeting is a really crucial um opportunity to sit down get to know what's been going on get to know kind of what our students and what our families are thinking um
021and in our Junior meetings they get like Miss Lee said a transcript that shows shows how it's gone through five semesters that also shows their unweighted and weighted GPA they get the College Planning guide that kind of walks through season by season what you kind of can be focusing on as we get closer to senior year um a very detailed um form on how to ask for letters of recommendation which becomes a pretty critical piece of an application the admissions Insider booklet that NE or I'm sorry Granite Advance gives out which is super helpful a sample senior schedule and then an elective sheet that shows all of our classes so in that Junior meeting we usually make it 40 minutes to an hour um during their study hall to just touch base see how they're
022doing sometimes we'll kind of walk through what the Common App and navian combination can look like just to ease some anxiety get a sense of like what it actually looks like when it comes time to be a senior and that usually is a nice like jumping off point to just starting this process usually every Junior I speak with at first I say if you're just starting now that's okay there's there's a lot of time to do this research and put the time in to just kind of like tap into your preferences for these things to start to reveal themselves and when it comes time to senior year for senior year we really get to you know take off and that's kind of what um the fall looks like we immediately go into all of our
023Senior English classes um and speak with our seniors about the process and Life After High School encouraging them to make their senior meeting uh and usually that first week of September or second week of September we're flooded with senior meetings where we're having that follow-up conversation about how the summer went how visits went um we get a a new idea of what their GPA is through six semesters um which might be a big difference if you're in a bunch of year-long classes as a junior with all those final grades being put in um we get their desile ranking for the first time so we rank students based on percentages so we get a chance to see if they're in like the top 10 top 20 top 30 top 40% of their class which is another
024metric that helps put schools in perspective um they get a and then we also talk about other options too you know while forear college is a bit of a you know ambitious process we also want to touch base on two plus two programs or community colleges or trade schools if some of our students are in some of the you know trade programs at SST so it's really just a chance to see what those options are which is really nice um and make sure that they're working through the fall as diligently as they can all right so what do we do we are not sitting around eating Bon bonss all day um we are meeting with your kids and we are um talking about life After High School since they were freshmen um talking about what
025their path might look like now most of you that are are here your students are looking at a 4-year school so we're going to um complete that Common App we're going to complete a big portion of it with them at when we sit down so you don't have to be over their shoulder all the time pushing them along um we'll also support them in completing any outside materials and your your your student must do the work that's the big thing is that they have to do it um they're going to match School links in the Common App um just like this year we did um Naviance in the Common App if you had older students you know U what that process look like very simple um we're going to also remind them of the etiquette
026of the ask for Teacher letters of recommendation and remind them that they need zero one or two letters of recommendation not a whole basket full and we're going to make sure that they have officially applied when we link the um application to school links or in this year to Naviance we can see whether or not your child has actually submitted the application so as the deadline approaches maybe sending out a few emails saying you know the deadline is November 1st or December 1st and that's tomorrow so please make sure you actually hit submit and if they think they've hit submit I'll we'll actually have them come in and show them how to do that if it hasn't happened yet all right A lot of people talk to us about hiring an outside counselor that's absolutely
027fine you can totally do that it is not necessary um our whole department is well versed in the college process um combined I think we have 180 years of experience or something like that so makes me feel very old um and we are um great partners for your kids because it is our job to get all your exit or high school documents from here to the college an outside counselor can't do that part for you um they can be the one kind of being the heavy pushing your child along to get their list finalized to get their application um polished that's and if you feel like you need that that's absolutely fine um but we have kind of two different roles and our job will be to to Really get the process completed and have
028their their stuff from exor high school their transcript their teacher letter of wreck their counselor letter of wreck the school profile all of that stuff get to the colleges um oh yes you ready resources college fair April 14th coming up be right here in the um cafeteria um excuse me in the gymnasium parents you are not invited it is during the school day this is for your kids only if you want to attend a a college fair destination College registration is open for that now and it is only open to New Hampshire High School juniors and their families they have three workshops in the morning and then a college fair your child might tend the um workshop on what do I do if I hate my roommate and you might attend the workshop on what
029am I going to do when I'm an empty nester um or you could attend one together how do I make a solid list and then that college fair is there that is um presented by Granite Advance again uh we work hand inand with them they are free they are a great resource for you as well um they are located and conquered and you can utilize their services at any time including through filling out financial aid forms next year which they are a great help with that um we oh yeah our school is awesome we have rep visits in the fall they come to our College and Career Center these are typically the representatives from the college who will be reading your child's application now sometimes the meeting is a school counselor the admissions rep and
030your child sometimes those meetings are school counselor admissions rep and 45 students from exiter who are all looking to apply to that school but this allows that college rep to put a face with the name oh I remember Sally she was from exitor and um not every school has opened this up again since covid and so we're really fortunate that we allow these reps to come into the building all fall and you'll find those signups right on School links in the fall uh our local scholarships open up about this time of the year um so right now our seniors are busy filling out local scholarship applications we have a lot of generous people in our community so those will be great resources for you for the next year and New Hampshire charitable Foundation always a
031great resource for scholarships uh and they actually have two exitor specific ones so that's pretty pretty awesome Kathy is that the right date for the college fair okay great I got nervous cuz I made this and I thought I had the wrong date initially but so that sounds good so um a couple quick things helpful tips we think could be you know good takeaways for today um as that list is being generated you you really need to read everything like read all the things you can about these schools to know exactly what they need we have a lot of students who will apply and once they press submit think that they're just done um and there's a lot of other things that kind of come from the or come after the pressing submit you know
032so there are things like just going to throw out one thing called the self-reported academic record that's something that a lot of schools look for um that kind of just is you showing what your transcript says it's very tedious but sometimes needed for depending on the school you're applying to and that's often forgotten um within with our students who just haven't gotten quite through the whole application to read that requirement what happens a couple years ago um a student applying Clemson had their application um removed because they had not done the SR which was very frustrating to that student so now we make a point to to say you know make sure you read everything that's required what letters are required what classes are required what extra documents are required and that's where the partnership
033with us really becomes helpful we send a lot of stuff midyear grades quarter one grades transcripts School profile letters of recommendation um any sort of extenuating circumstance es that you feel like we could we could help shed light on so partnering with us um is the best way to make what they require come true okay um exploring all possibilities I think is super helpful um there's a this is a big process there's a lot of schools out there so just kind of being open at the in the meantime to what might be a great fit for you is a nice start and then sort of narrowing it down as we get closer to senior year visiting campuses I know at least in my own personal experiences I would go to a campus and get an
034immediate gut reaction on if I could call this place home or not for four years um and visiting just kind of gives you that sense of okay I can I can be here I can four years is a long time I'm gonna I'm going to be here for for four years and I feel really good about that um and then also the information that you get when you do a campus tour can be very helpful as well as this thing called demonstrated interest so when you visit a campus they keep track of that data they like the students that are interacting with them any email I know that these students get thousands and thousands of emails from colleges but emails that are opened even notify the college as some sort of demonstrated interest so between
035interacting on email or making a phone call or talking to it ad missions rep visiting a campus those sorts of things are tracked and schools like to admit students who want to be there and have shown that interest so that's all very helpful too staying organized is super helpful Naviance is really helpful School links will be very helpful to keep these lists organized and that will just help you in the fall once we get closer to actually pressing submit seeking your resources through your counselors and the opportunities that we have at the school are very helpful like Miss leech said some of those rep visits in the fall if it's just one student it's really great for that one student because this admissions rep and that student become super close they create somewhat of a
036relationship in some um ways or another where they're able to like kind of talk through what sort of things they can do next and even in the larger setting that demonstrated interest is being tracked so having those resources available to our our kids is super nice and then not waiting to get on this um where you're just really taking a look using Naviance using those resources appropriately is is a really nice first step after you leave tonight and so lastly there are a couple other um little requirements for certain interest that you might have as a student whether that is with Athletics visual Performing Arts um some of these schools require a little bit more than just pressing submit on an application so we are all well versed in you know portfolios and auditions and
037Athletics and recruiting so if this is something that your student is interested in learning now what would be required will make that a little bit more easier or a little bit easier in the fall and you might not feel like pressed for time to schedule those types of things so I know for sure in athletics the recruiting season is kind of starting now as Juniors and if you wait it might be too late as roster Siz are Li roster sizes are limited and the NCAA is constantly changing at this point um in their career and same with um you know music and theater they need portfolios or art schools they need portfolios or auditions to make sure that you would be eligible for their programs if that's something that you're interested in too so just
038kind of getting that information ahead of time in addition to what you need to apply and scheduling those things when it's time will make the application process that much easier for you in the fall okay I think that's it all right and I will say one thing your child will get a lot of emails so it might make sense to create a college application specific email your child's email um so that you they make sure they read every email that's a really um great Habit to develop now and I know their school email will end when their High School career ends um your college application process will also be over before that so you can use your exit or high school email however students have told me they get a lot of emails from teachers
039reminders about things that are due announcements from the school and they don't tend to read through them and there are hundreds of unread emails so having a specific one for this college process might be a really good one and and you know make it appropriate your name at Gmail not I'm a really cool student uh I mean that might be memorable there could be worse ones so now we are open for questions seeing none thank you oh go ahead okay School links navian common app so common app is an application that students use to apply to many schools although it is a common application it is not a common fee every single School most schools will charge you a fee to apply to each of them that is where your student puts in their essay
040that's where they list all their activities that they've done um and that is the actual college application that your student will hit submit on they will match that account to school links we are leaving Naviance and replacing it with School links they'll match their application account with School links and that is where the exitor high school documents come from and they will get married in cyberspace and sent to the school school links and Naviance are also the research tool where we have stored all that data from previous um applicants from our school looking at our weighted GPA so comparing because we have a very weird GPA no doubt um so it's comparing our students who have graduated within the last five years to your child and what they have earned on their SAT score just
041two two marks sat and their GPA their weighted GPA so does that help okay and it it will become more clear when you see everything yeah so typically in that senior meeting when we sit with our seniors we'll excuse me we'll explain the differences where Common App really is just for the kids that we oversee with them so they sign in on their own we have no access to Common App because it's a kids actual application so as we're coaching them through their application that's when we're able to link to what we need to use to send the documents that the counselors have like transcripts and letters of wreck and things like that so we sit with them to make sure they match the accounts together and then when they press submit on Common App
042and we press submit on our end like Miss Lee said they get you know put together in cyberspace and sent to the school and while it's a little confusing right now to hear actually doing it with your child in their senior meeting is basically two clicks um and as long as the students are making the Common App by the time they're senior or during Senior Year we're able to walk through that with them and some students who come in who haven't made a commona account yet it's all good we make it with them in their senior meeting yeah we don't like when students make the accounts before August 1 because there's a lot of stuff we give you in the fall does that help did I see another hand yeah yep definitely right yep definitely
043so um this gentleman asked about our rep visits in the fall so a lot of the rep visits that or a lot of the admissions reps that come to our college fair which is coming up soon end up being the same reps that visit us in the fall it's all set up online through our counseling office and the students obviously don't see what that process looks like but they select dates throughout the school day from you know the beginning of September typically through October and so it's completely random just based on when an admissions rep can be in the exitor area and they typically you know usually when they're leaving I say oh where else are you going today and they usually hit do or Burwick or all these other places in the area and
044so typically because they're scattered throughout the school day we post the list of visits on the TV throughout the building and then right outside the room that they always occur in which is right across the hall from the counseling office we typically send emails out to our seniors that tell them when the dates are that they're visiting and then each student on there at the time will be School links account it will show every single visit and their date and they can actually register for the visit it's helpful when we see who's registered for it but we have many seniors who see the list on the TV and then just pop in sign in we help them get excused from that class they are responsible for the work that they miss but our senior teachers
045are very well aware of this process and encourage the kids to go visit with the rep because they know that that Dem that that demonstrated interest can count for so much in the process yep yep we roughly get over 100 uh at the fair and in the fall and it's mostly Northeast schools um Mid-Atlantic what you Canada schools um and then we'll get some Florida they have a lot of regional reps that are up here like we met with um Tain had a rep that lives in Maine and it was really cool having them come this fall because that's a school not a lot of our students apply to so it is somewhat random um but it's nice to see that list ahead of time and that's part of our senior meeting instructions to show
046them where that's listed and what that meeting usually consists of it can either be like a firm business pitch from that school or it can just be a rep saying what are you interested in what do you want to do at our school and so it's we we usually print out a list of questions in the room that they meet to kind of guide them through what that awkward conversation could be but our kids are pretty awesome and usually when I'm in there I'm very impressed with what types of questions that they ask and then reps when they leave with us are usually incredibly impressed like wow most schools they just kind of sit there and listen to me at exor I've noticed a lot of kids are asking a lot of really great questions
047does that help so a list of the Reps that are coming yes so um the the week before the fair we start printing up a list of who's coming again parents I'm sorry you can't come um but your students will have access to that list um sometimes things change that very day um and as has been pointed out to your students in their junior meeting College fairs are always alphabetical A through Z in a serpentine pattern and so they it would be wise for them to circle the ones they want to go to and kind of popcorn through rather than start at a and think you're going to make it all the way to Z that's probably not going to happen but yes they will have access to that list ahead of time and the
048the rep visits those reps are signing up all fall so we encourage kids to keep checking back to the home screen on or it'll be linked on School links um to see who's coming that next week and we do post it like I said outside like I'm sorry Mr M said outside the door of the school counseling office and the rise SL College and Career Center oh yes for your specific child um so the question was in navian I don't see the data for my child in there um they haven't taken the SAT yet so the SAT won't be in there um but if their GPA isn't in there please email their school counselor um and you said they hadn't had their junior meeting yet okay so that's why they have not had their junior
049meeting at and for PSATs once the PSAT was completed if your child took the PSAT College Board sends them an email that says that their are scores are available to view this is another awkward thing that we run into because we don't have access to their college board account so we get when that happens I get an influx of emails that are like hey can you get me my college board account um information and I don't have it so I say okay and sometimes I sit with kids and call to re you know reset a password just to be able to get access to it so if you're looking for PSAT scores it's most likely in your child's College Board account and if they can't remember that password or their username it's just like a
050simple reset to try to get back in um one piece of advice that we tell a lot of our students is those who are like very impulsively trying to see their scores sometimes end up creating a new account which makes it worse so so they have an account they just have to figure out what it is to get in and if they have two accounts because they've created one now College Board is confused and we have a hard time F tracking down where their actual score lives okay some students in here might be giggling because they might have already run into this yeah yes yeah So eventually you'll be able to balance and that's kind of that piece of like staying organized the College Board account is where the SAT scores and the AP scores
051will exist the Common App account is something they create as a senior where their applications live and they press submit in and then School links eventually in the fall is where we help them with the resources they have access to and where we actually do our job of sending the other materials for them it is a lot yeah yep that is a great question why do we wait for the desile ranking before or until senior year so um your kids attend a school that has a lot of really great students on our school profile which is available at um online for our school at at our school website and on paper here it lists this year so this is is the class of 20 um 25 and it lists the desile so the the first
052just to go over how competitive this school is right our weighted GPA um a a b average um on the weighted GPA be about a 4.5 4.5 goes all the way down to the middle the fifth sisle so half of the class has a b average or better okay so um the desile ranking for the the the um top 10% of this current senior class goes from 5.78 to 5.22 the reason we don't publish it quarterly is we don't update the GPA quarterly it's only based on final grades if we were to rank your child right now it would be based only on freshman and sophomore grades not on any Junior grades so wait till we have 3 years under their belt to know what their GPA is I don't know what your child feels
053like but what I hear in my office is that junior year is the hardest year chemistry is the hardest class and this year my GPA okay I'm seeing a lot of head nods um and this year my my grades are a little lower than they've been in previous years so we don't want to give a false sense of uh your your um desile r thinking you're way up here and now after junior year what happened so we we really wait until that started the senior year when we have all those grades in does that make sense okay yeah anyone here really loving chemistry because you're my people that I'm going to rely on to help me get through chemistry okay it's you oh good okay I love that e so the question is um is
054there advice around when students should request an interview I will tell you that most schools have moved away from interviews there are still a few um RIT uh is definitely one of them um in you Rochester um that has a a robust interview process and our suggestion would be again read everything so when you read through the requirements read am I required to um schedule an interview before applications are due sometimes that's true sometimes your students wait until the deadline let's say it's a November 1st deadline to hit submit and then they get an email saying don't forget to schedule your interview before the deadline is over and it's already the day of the deadline deadline is the last day not the first day to hit that submit if they are requesting an interview because
055there's an extenuating circumstance there they really want to showcase themselves um outside of the classroom absolutely acceptable there's all kinds of online um tutorials about what an interview could look like um and I wanted to say one more oh um a lot of your students who are applying for visual Performing Arts would be required to have in a face Toof face um whether it's you know auditioning with a piece or um a musical piece or a the theatrical piece so they will count that as part of that interview process and those deadlines are often different than the deadline for um the actual application so um Carnegie melon's um application deadline is different than their deadline for submitting your portfolio for that art that photography program maybe that you wanted to get into okay so to
056also answer that we at the college fair will print typically some questions on a piece of paper that are really appropriate types of questions to ask when popcorning around now while those questions typically at the end of the college fair end up on the ground um we do think it's helpful and then in that rep visits room there's like 20 copies printed at every seat and so I've seen many conversations get a little stale and a little weird and kids just look down and then ask the question that's right in front of them and then the conversation kind of keeps going so there is like little coaching like that that exists like in the way that we set up the infrastructure of all of this and like Miss leech said the organizational piece of starting
057with a list then kind of answers a lot of those immediate questions like if an interview would be appropriate or not or if it's even allowed or not so right now this conversation can be tough because it's it's sort of like signing up for a marathon without having a training plan to look at where it's just like extremely overwhelming and you know it's in the future but once you see a plan and you start to know what it's going to take to do that race it ends up kind of falling in place a little bit more that's kind of how I look at making the list because the list shows you exactly what would be um appropriate for that specific school that you might be applying to and then at that point these conversations are
058very much ongoing with us so like a junior meeting happens it's not like we don't see them again until senior meeting so if a list all of a sudden becomes available by May it's like hey okay that's a PR Inon that's a tough school we may want to get that interview locked down um for the fall you know to make sure that that's something that you can focus on and those conversations are happening all throughout the spring and all throughout the fall yeah there is a career fair we do have colleges and careers at our Fair on April 14th um also in Naviance your child has been given the opportunity to do a career interest inventory and a personality type indicator uh and those will continue to be available with different names on um the
059school links account but yes those are available right now on navian to go in and explore I would also say that most students don't know what they want to major in and are going to school the number one major is undecided or Undeclared and when you're looking at us going to school undecided or Undeclared do not select a business school which has only business classes do not select an engineering school that has only engineering classes select something like UNH that has a wide variety so that you can explore and UNH actually has a really robust program for undecided students where they do a survey of programs many schools have that so yeah undecided Undeclared perfect way to go to college I don't know how many of you knew what you wanted to do at 17
060how many of you know what you want to do at okay all right you're probably not that old at 40 all right so two great questions first campus visits when would I schedule them if your student is applying to all schools in California that's a lot of money to go check those out right so Local Schools I would go while the schools are in session which is right now April break great time to go uh you do not need to visit every school you're applying to but you definitely need to visit the school before you accept that school that you decide I'm going to go to that school site unseen or I went there for soccer camp in fifth grade so I already know all about that campus what you know is a bunch of
061fifth graders that you already knew were at a place that you didn't know and you had a lot of fun but those are not the college students that are there so stepping foot while those college students students who actually attend there are on campus is a great thing to do the other question was about how many schools I tell my students six to know more than you have fingers if you have 10 fingers 10 schools is great if you only have nine fingers nine is great too but um it gets overwhelming even if you get all yeses and you've applied to 20 schools how do you make the choice it gets overwhelming if you apply to 20 schools and 15 of those are NOS it's hard not to take that personally please don't take it
062personally because it's like casting a play all right so this guy track guy could you tell planning a marathon training okay so schools are admitting students like we're casting a play your child might be the best soprano in the region has won all new englands for their voice unbelievable but our lead role calls for an alto not a soprano your child is not getting cast in that role cuz that's not what we're looking for this year and that's true for colleges too even though you may be the best you may not be exactly what they're looking for that particular year okay so it's really hard not to take the NOS personally or the yeses personally um but don't take them personally and the the other part is um I have no idea what I was
063going to say because I'm over 50 and it evaporated you can you can you remembered it okay some of these these apps cost some money too so between you know there are some schools that charge like $85 just to apply you know so I've had some students come in who have a list of 15 to 20 schools and when we start looking at Common App together where it shows that price I'm like hey if you can do this that's you know by all means but for for all of your sake it's it's a lot to to spend money to be rejected you know in a lot of cases too you know so six to 10 um would be awesome other questions don't worry you want me to spend a second on it second okay so
064um typically I kind of look at it as like buckets of ways to get money so and as soon as you apply anywhere most students are enrolling in something called merit-based scholarships where what your application shows the school would elicit money if it's eligible from the school and the school's websites show typically like UNH has a very black and white way to show you what you might be eligible for based on GPA stuff um and then our local scholarship process is something that the seniors take on honestly starting like January February March because they're due in April so we typically in terms of that time frame prefer the application window start now where price is like a conscientious part of the decision making knowing that we have to pay for this at some point and
065then once they start getting accepted the money starts to become a little bit more and more clear and then our scholarship process last year we gave out I think a lot of money um And Then There Are Places like New Hampshire charitable foundation and other National or Regional scholarships that students can access as they start to get closer and closer to putting a deposit down so right now your Juniors can go to the scholarships tab on Naviance and see what our seniors are applying to and sometimes those are you know super specific I mean they're sometimes as easy as lives in stratum um and if that's lives in East Kingston and if that's you then that can be something that you hopefully will have next year and sort of like start to you know potentially
066work towards what that we'll ask of you next winter y yes go ahead yeah does a timeline apply for early action or early early decision so early decision is a time or is a decision track that if you get in you have to attend it's a binding agreement early action is an agreement that is non-binding so you could apply to 10 schools early action get into all 10 and still choose so yeah our timeline at the beginning of the Fall um is perfect for making that choice because there's still plenty of time to make that call based on you know talking with you all on if early decision is the right track for your child and then early action I would argue a lot a higher percentage of our kids do early action as they're
067pretty eager um but in that meeting we get a chance to strategize on what works best based on the T like the deadlines of that school so I believe um Yukon is a good example where they do an early decision track only or a regular decision in January and so some students were like oh Yukon like that sounds cool but it's a binding agreement okay I'm going to have to wait till January and now we're kind of making a strategy together based on the specific list that they have so answer your question directly it's the perfect time to kind of like make that plan plan together as soon as we meet in September and you had a question [Music] too want do that how do you sus out what's likely probable or reach for your
068student so looking at the data right now we are using navian so look at the data in Naviance and see on that scattergram where your child Falls um I will tell you the UNH scattergram is really hard to read Because we've had thousands of kids apply so it's a it's a lot it's a lot it's just like a a blob but um in some schools we might have no data on because you're applying to some school in Idaho that none of our students have ever heard of um but that is the first and best place to look and if on Naviance if your child's GPA is above the average accepted GPA of the students from here then it will be in green if your child's GPA is equal to or below then it will be
069red and that doesn't mean don't apply now we look at the scattergram and see how far out we are just like we showed about BC and Penn State if your child's little blue image is way off the chart I would say that would be a complete reach if we are looking at any IV or highly selective School those are a reach for anyone if you look at our data that even if your child's um GPA is green and we've had a 100 Kids apply and four were accepted that is a reach school for anyone who applies uh the the matches are where your child's GPA and test scores are right in that that range and then the probable is where you have a gap between what your child's GPA is and then the average excepted
070is a little bit below again you're probably more likely to get Merit money when you outshine the average accepted applicant a great questions oh back row we're going to repeat the question so are scattergrams accurate for students who haven't taken the SAT yet yes they're very accurate but because our Juniors haven't technically taken it yet it's hard to really pinpoint where you are I actually think the Juniors aren't pinpointed at all yet so when I've been working with some of my juniors their specific Circle isn't there um and they're like well where am I it's like well you haven't taken the SAT yet so it's kind of like this meeting is really kind of like we said like the beginning of this and a lot of stuff is going to SL slowly start to fall
071into place like the SAT score and now the scattergrams are that much more meaningful then the college fair happens and these interactions are that much more meaningful then a list is generated and your organization and your strategy is that much more meaningful so we're kind of like giving you a bunch of info right now to hopefully make you feel more confident and in control of what the process looks like but just remember it's really just starting and that's okay even seniors who come in in the fall and say I haven't done anything I have no idea it's okay regular decision deadlines in January and February and March are very common as well so we typically say okay no worries let's get your first semester GPA in there and go from there you know the majority
072of applications in a lot of places live later in the school year anyway so take it as just kind of like working through the rest of junior year into senior year before worrying about you know exactly what the outcomes might look like the next question was about the app um we don't the comment was since you don't want them to start the Common App before August what about the essay so in uh Common App literally yesterday I got an email from common apppp saying we just set our ESS prompts for next year so so they yeah maybe you got one too and they so now we know what the six um essay prompts are same as they were last year actually they decided to change nothing and wow that's news um but the the last
073one is a subject of your choice your child should write about themselves it's a topic they should know pretty well pick one event 650 words or less in English classes a lot of them have are will start or have started a practice essay this spring uh if they're not doing it in their English class it's a good thing to to think about and you can start now you can always work on a narrative essay about yourself at any time right it's always good to do a couple practice runs uh the college is looking for the flavor of your student if your student is quirky and writes a quirky essay it'll come out great if your student is a serious student and tries to write a quirky essay it typically Falls flat so make sure you're
074true to yourself don't try and be someone else in your essay if you're writing about the impact someone else had on your life spend a little time talking about that other person and a lot of time on the impact it had on you how it changed you what you've done differently in your life um because of that interaction with that person okay yes very yes so how do we determine how valuable this education is going to be from the school which we might spend 50 Grand or 100 Grand a year at over four years all right so um the currently it's still active the US government um produces something called the college scorecard I don't know how long that will continue um but it's up now and so you can look at the college scorecard
075which gives you um access to graduation rates and um how uh quickly their students and what percentage of graduates get employed within six months and what the average salary is so that is the that is public data that we right now have access to you're welcome I hope we continue to have access all right I will shut off the microphone and the recording we're going to leave you and um if you have additional questions come on up and if you want any of these handouts comeing up thank you so much for coming tonight we are so glad for the turnout [Music]