The Ten Key Questions for National School Counseling Week

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Many schools have their plans well underway for National School Counseling Week, which starts February 1.  There are plenty of pre-packaged lesson plans and activities online, so it’s not too late to plan your own party—and it’s definitely an opportunity to raise awareness of what counselors do, and just how they manage to do it.

With that goal in mind, I offer these ten questions for you to insert into your plans for next week.  By having these on hand, or by typing them up and placing them in every teacher’s mailbox, you’re advancing the main goal of the week—to dispel the myths that surround our work and keep us bound to the past.  We spend a lot of time trying to help clients walk away from wrong perceptions; let’s help ourselves next week, and let the facts speak for themselves.

Ready?

1.       What does a school counselor do?  (ASCA offers a great definition, but use your own words here.)

2.       Why did you decide to become a school counselor? (Here’s where you can tell your story, and dispel the notion that counselors are just teachers who are tired of being in the classroom.  If you think that stereotype is dead, think again!)

3.       Teachers have to teach big classes, but how many students are on your school counselor’s caseload?  (Don’t be shy here—count your students and tell them.  If you’re lucky enough to have more than one counselor, give them the average.  They’ll be stunned.)

4.       How much time does that give your counselor with each student every school day?  (The math here is easy—take your caseload, and divide it by the number of hours (or minutes) in the school day, and you’ll be able to say something like “62 seconds per student per day, as long as the counselor doesn’t eat lunch, or never goes to the bathroom.”)

5.       How else can teachers help counselors?  Be our eyes and ears.  If you see a student’s having a bad day, don’t hesitate to ask them—and if it looks like this is part of something bigger, let me know.

6.       Anything else?   Share the information we send you about the programs we offer, and the events we host.  Remind students of the services we offer.  Think of ways the counseling curriculum blends with what you’re teaching.

7.       Why do school counselors want class time to talk to students?  The relationship between your curriculum and a student’s social, academic, and intellectual growth is tremendous.  Together, we can help students see this connection in powerful ways, leading to higher student engagement once I leave the classroom.

8.       Really?  How?  Research shows that students with healthy self-esteem are better learners who are more involved in the learning process (see http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/shore/shore059.shtml).  Healthy self-esteem is a big part of what school counselors do!

9.       And you help students through crisis?  Absolutely. (Use this space to list the groups and services you offer.)

10.   What’s the one thing every teacher can do that would help you do your job? (Don’t hold back here, but keep the goal realistic.  If it’s more time in the classroom, re-state that; if it’s letting students out of class to see you, make your case.  This is your party; ask for the present you want.)

It’s often been said that the problem with school counseling is that no one knows what we do.  I disagree; I think the problem is everyone thinks they know what we do, and are wrong.  This is our chance to set things straight.

Enjoy the week!

A Change in Store for College Admissions?

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

It’s been called an academic arms race, the race to nowhere, the rush to rankings, and more.  Thanks in large part to the ridiculous idea that there is one best college for everyone, applying to college has turned into a parody of Reality TV, where students spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours preparing for a four hour test that, in the eyes of many, holds their future well-being in the balance.

It’s important to point out that school counselors have resisted this change, long advocating for an approach to college selection that was based on the student’s interests, needs, and goals. That’s an approach many of us are about to embark on with the Class of 2017, even though those plans will be out-shouted by artificial college rankings that make students feel worthless unless they are pursuing The Best College On Earth, or by parents who are convinced that their child will be destined to a life of sleeping on their couch unless they attend a college “everyone” has heard of, even if that means driving the family, and the student, into deep debt.

It would seem all of that is about to change.

“Turning the Tide” is a report that came out of Harvard, and if its lofty goals are only half realized, the world of college admissions is in for a very overdue change.  Supported by 50 institutions, including some of the most selective colleges in the world, the report calls for a shift in the foundation of college admissions in three key areas:

1. Promoting more meaningful contributions to others, community service and engagement with the public good.

2. Assessing students’ ethical engagement and contributions to others in ways that reflect varying types of family and community contributions across race, culture and class.

3. Redefining achievement in ways that both level the playing field for economically diverse students and reduce excessive achievement pressure.

This change will only be realized, the report asserts, by making sure colleges, parents, and school counselors embrace eleven recommendations, including everything from devaluing the role of testing (where no student takes the ACT or SAT more than twice), to contributions to family, to expanding students’ thinking about “good” colleges.

The tone of the report is certainly encouraging to any family who watched the college selection process change their child from a student who loves to learn, to a student who learned how to negotiate a labyrinth of stress and societal scorn while trying to stay true to self.  Such a journey brings key life lessons, to be sure; but when one remembers that the purpose of college is to expand one’s view of self and the world, the competitive, narrow, cynical tone that too often resonates within college admissions seems a rather bizarre way to begin an experience intended to be expansive by nature.

“Turning the Tide” appeals to counselors because we are trained to see the best in all people and situations.  At the same time, there is some question if colleges that just admitted half (or more) or their class through early action programs are truly willing to risk yield percentages and graduation rates in the name of healthier children, and if they do, will students and parents actually buy in.  There are reports that a summit will be held this summer to discuss how to bring these lofty goals to life.  A first indication that colleges are serious about these changes will be seeing how many lifelong advocates of the “what’s the hurry” approach to college advising are invited to attend.

Those would be school—not guidance—counselors.

2016: The Year in Review

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Anyone can wait until December to write their reflections on the highlights of the year in college advising, but it takes a special talent—or lack of wisdom—to write them just as the year is getting underway.  The challenge is just too hard to say no to, so here’s what everyone else will be writing about in eleven short months:

College access improved.  The colleges of the Ivy League and other highly selective colleges are calling their latest outreach efforts to low-income students a huge success.  Rather than holding area breakfasts for school counselors this year, these trend-setting colleges took the money from those events and sent admissions officers to high schools in underserved neighborhoods, where they spent the morning working with talented youth who would be the first in their family to go to college.

“The real key was partnering with local public universities and community colleges” said one Ivy dean of admission.  “By working together and co-presenting on college readiness and the basics of paying for college, the message was clear: There’s a college for everyone, and while an Ivy might be your college, it doesn’t have to be.”

Early admission decisions support the success of this new effort, as public schools in Detroit, Los Angeles and St. Louis report record acceptances and scholarship offers to students. Plans are already underway to expand the program next year.

Test optional colleges soar.  A different kind of success was claimed by the 145 colleges who started the 2016 recruiting season no longer requiring ACT or SAT scores as part of the admissions process.  “I had students in tears calling me in May, telling me they still hadn’t received the results of their March SAT scores” said one Big Ten admissions director who took his office test optional.  “I kept telling them it’s OK, we don’t need them until October, but they were too stressed out to listen.  That’s when I realized this testing thing was completely out of hand.”  Since October, 110 additional colleges have announced the switch to test optional for the 2017 recruiting year, including 4 Big Ten schools and one Ivy League college.

Student renames FAFSA process, gets citation.  Seymour Hansen received the Student of the Month Award today, to honor the 17 year-old’s contribution to the simplification of the financial aid process at his high school.  “A kid at lunch came back from a meeting with our counselor all shook up, because the counselor kept saying ‘You need your income information from the prior-prior year.’  The kid thought the counselor was stammering, until I said ‘You have to give them last year’s tax information.’  She cheered right up, went back and talked to the counselor, and ‘Last Year’s Taxes’ became our school’s financial aid mantra.”  Seymour’s counselor credits this simple change with increasing the school’s FAFSA completion by 32 percent.

Art schools fail to file for Best Schools rankings.  Tired of being held up as Colleges That Aren’t Worth the Money, every college participating in National Portfolio Day decided to withhold their admission information from all rankings publications.  “At first, we thought the notoriety was worth it” said one admissions director, “but then our new president took me to lunch and asked me, ‘who goes into art for the money?’”  The NPD consortium has created a series of videos on financing an art degree and making a living as an artist, featuring some of the leading artists in the world.  Both videos landed in YouTube’s Top 100 videos viewed for 2016.

You Did What Over Break?

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Colleagues, it’s time to chat.

Like most of you, I’ve just returned from a long school vacation, one of the best perks of being an educator, and one of the best parts of having Christmas on a Friday.  My time off was relaxing, re-energizing, and gave time for reflection of the big pictures of work, family, and life.

As I returned to a virtual mountain of e-mail, it was clear some of you didn’t take this approach.  “Does anyone have a scholarship list they can share?” wrote one of you—on December 28^th.  “One of my students just e-mailed me with a rough draft of their college essays” another one began—from December 30^th.  And finally, this, from sometime over vacation: “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d start checking 2^nd semester schedules for conflicts.”

I realize this is a big world, and it is a much better place because everyone treats their work differently.  At the same time, I also know that the root word for vacation is vacate, which comes from the Latin “to abandon”, “to make like a tree and leaf”, or “to make like a banana and split.”  When one vacates a home, one doesn’t come back to check in on it now and again; you leave and never come back.

I also know that counselors know the value of unwinding and distressing.  We are familiar with studies showing how this actually increases productivity and learning in students, leads to longer lifespans, and makes us easier to get along with. 

Knowing all we do about the benefits of pulling a Queen Elsa and letting it go, I can’t help but wonder why we don’t actually let the office go.  Is it because we care too much?  Have we become the workaholic we entered the field to rehabilitate?  Is there really nothing we can do to make sure we can truly take time off, not worrying what awaits us when we return?

The answer is likely different for all of us, but after reflecting on the e-mails I’ve just read, I would offer this advice for you to consider for next year:

Create a December to-do list.  When you return from Thanksgiving—that’s when you return, not while you’re eating turkey—write a list of everything that needs to be done by January 10^th.  Complete at least two of those tasks every school day, with the goal of having everything done two days before vacation starts.  That way, you have the scholarship list in hand before you go on vacation, and you have a less frenzied return to school after break.

Give students internal deadlines.  Starting November 1, I post a reminder in each weekly newsletter that my office is closed when the school is closed, and that includes Thanksgiving and December vacations.  If students want help with essays, they know they’ll only get read when school is open.  If students want a transcript sent for a college with a January 1^st deadline, they need to let me know by December 5^th.  Telling me after that guarantees it will be sent late, and some colleges might not like that, but it’s up to them to let me know on time.

These steps may not work the first year you try them, but it’s important to remember we set an example for students to follow—so if we want them to demonstrate balance, they need to see what that looks like.

Give it a try—and if you really relax by doing schedule changes, call me.  We could make a tidy sum opening a small online business. 

An Ivy League Dropout Due to Jeans, Not Genes

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

My first school counseling job was in a rural town, far away from the major city where I was born and the suburbs where I finished high school.  A few years after leaving that job, I heard that a neighboring high school of that rural town had sent their first-ever graduate to an Ivy League college.  The success turned out to be brief, however, as the student came home for Christmas vacation, and never went back.

There are all kinds of reasons students change colleges, but this one is particularly sad, at least to me.  The reason this student left her college had nothing to do with roommates, or classes that were too hard, or even a broken heart.  She came home because the brilliant students at this wonderful college made fun of her rural background, and her lack of worldly ways.  “Everyone made fun of the jeans she was wearing” her counselor told me, shaking his head.

That story came to mind last week, when another counselor and I were discussing Justice Scalia’s remarks at a Supreme Court hearing about the need for many students of color to attend less challenging colleges.  Counselors usually try to give people the benefit of the doubt, so even though this statement was appalling in so many ways, I was trying to figure out some way that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

My colleague assured me it was as bad as it sounded, but then he offered this.  “When I was working at the admissions office at a highly selective college, and we received an application from a student from a very poor school, we only looked for one thing—sophistication.  If we took this student, we knew they were going to be exposed to all kinds of new ideas in the classroom, but they were also going to be exposed to different political ideas, lifestyle choices, foods, and people they’ve never seen before.  Sure, they had to be smart, but that meant nothing if they weren’t sophisticated.”

There are other words to describe this quality—flexible, accepting, resilient-- but I knew exactly what my colleague meant.  It helped me understand more of what that rural girl was feeling when she was being mocked for wearing the wrong jeans.  She had the brains to make it in an Ivy League classroom; she just didn’t have the wherewithal to make it in the Ivy League hallways.  She knew she had some growing up to do, and, all things considered, that was fair.  Given all they had been exposed to, her Ivy League classmates had a different kind of growing up to do, but she was unwilling to let their need to mature come at her personal expense.

I’d like to think Justice Scalia really meant to talk about sophistication last week, about the need to make sure students are picking colleges where they will find the right mix of challenge, opportunity, and support, both in and out of the classroom.  Finding that fit is our job, and we’re smart enough to know fit transcends gender, race, age, and background.  Lining up the right college is an individual process, and that’s why it takes time, knowledge, and insight to create the right mix of art and science that is college counseling.  It’s why some students end up at Ivy League schools, and why some students from the same high school end up at public universities—and all of them end up happy.

We’re smart enough to know that.  I just wish Justice Scalia had been that smart, too.

What Your College Application Decisions Won’t Tell You

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

With many colleges releasing early admissions decisions, seniors are creating more parallel universes than the Matrix movies combined. This "what if" game is so intense, it's easy to think you'll know all about your future life, once the college says yea, nay, or maybe.

And that is absolutely wrong.

Applying to college isn't easy, especially when you're still on two sports teams, taking demanding classes, and preparing for your last Winter Concert. But all the applications you completed, letters of recommendation you tracked down, and essays you wrote (by yourself--right?) are designed for one purpose only--to help a college decide if they should admit you. When it comes to other parts of your life, a college decision tells you absolutely nothing about:

Succeeding at that college Most colleges are receiving more applications than ever before--so many that they can't say yes to every qualified student. If you hear from a college this week and they deny or defer you, it doesn't mean they don't want you; it likely means that, like a good restaurant, they have more people that want to partake than they have space. That has nothing to do with you.

If a college admits you this week, it means they think you *can* do the work--but nothing's guaranteed. Getting in is time to celebrate, but not time to put your feet up; use the rest of high school to take your academic game to another level.

Your ability to have a happy life I could pull out data from studies showing where you go to college has nothing to do with average income, career achievement, or life satisfaction--but numbers just aren't that comforting right now. Instead, think back to a time in life when you didn't get something you really wanted. It was disappointing, it hurt, and for a while, you weren't sure what you were going to do. You then found Plan B, and realized that the opportunities it brought were just as good--or better--than what you had hoped Plan A would bring. If a college tells you no this week, Plan B awaits.

Your value as a person This is the time of year when we believe, more than ever, that the right "stuff" will make us a complete person. When you see ads with people thrilled to get the latest smartphone, automatic vacuum cleaner, or big screen TV that's larger than a school bus, you can't help but wonder why we just don't buy one for everybody, since that is clearly the key to world peace.

But stuff doesn't do that--and neither does a college decision. A yes from a college doesn't make you somebody; the work you put into earn that yes did that. A no from a college doesn't make you nobody; that happens when you decide their denial is a character indictment, instead of an opportunity to build a great life at another school.

Either way, your worth isn't waiting in an e-mail that's going to drop this week, or next week. Your worth is within you, and it isn't waiting for much of anything, other than your recognition of its existence.

Applying to college is a big deal, and there are a lot of people who love you for who you are. They hope it all works out for you when college decisions are announced. Whether it works out or not, they'll still love you for who you are.

I'm really hoping one of those people is you.

Before You Yell at your School Counselor

By:  Patrick O'Connor  Ph.D

You've worked so hard to schedule, prepare, and nudge your high school senior to apply to college on time. You shared that small thrill when they hit Submit with time to spare, and you thought you were all set.

Until they got the e-mail.

"Our records indicate your application is incomplete. Unless we receive a copy of your high school transcript in the next five days, we will be unable to process your application."

At this point, you've decided this is personal, so even though it's 7 at night, you pick up the phone and leave The Mother of All Voice Mails for your school counselor.

Boy, did you just blow it. Here's why:

Your entire reaction is based on a wrong assumption. The college hasn't said "Forget it"; they've said, "We need something." You can help them get what they need. Was that voice mail helping the college? Was it helping your child?

The college likely has the information. Even with advanced technology, admissions offices get backed up--so the transcript might not be in your child's file, but it is in the college's application system somewhere. That means your high school counselor--the one you just called incompetent--sent the transcript, and in a timely fashion.

If the college already has one copy of your transcript, they don't want another one. If the transcript is already in the college's system, they really don't want a second copy, since that would just increase their backlog. The only way to double check is for someone to call the admission office, and see if the first copy has found its way to your child's file.

You just berated the person who can help you the most. To be honest, the person who should call the college is your child (it's their application), but it's likely you want the school counselor to call. You know--the one you just described as incapable of doing their job.

This isn't to say they won't help you and give your child their full support, but if you've just given them a big, and very angry, piece of your mind, you've now put them in a spot where they need to start keeping a paper trail of your, um, complaint. That takes time; so does recovering from being told by someone who last applied to college 20 years ago that you don't know what you're doing. You want the problem resolved now, but you've just prevented that from happening. Is that really a good idea?

You've just left an impression you can't erase. Let's say the transcript is already there, or that a second one is sent, making your child's file complete. The college is now considering your child carefully, but they'd like a little more information about them. How does your child react to setbacks? How well do they speak up for themselves? Do they demonstrate flexibility?

The person the college will be talking to is--you guessed it--the school counselor, who is now only able to extol the virtues of your child's ability to hand their problems over to Mommy and Daddy to solve, simply because that's what the counselor has experienced. This isn't about a grudge; this is about their experience.

It's easy to freak out about the college admissions process, but just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. That's even more true when challenges arise, and your child looks to you to set the model for handling adversity they should take with them to college. This assumes the college still wants them. Part of that is up to you.