Five Summer Activities to Build a Better College Plan

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Well, you’ve done it again.  You’re almost out the door for the summer, but your principal has just reminded you about the article you need to write for the summer newsletter.  Now what?

I live to serve—check this off your list!
Like a dirt road after a rainstorm, the road to college has never been bumpier for students and parents.  In April, a record number of college applications led the media to wonder, “Can anyone get into college?”  In May, disappointing financial aid packages changed the question to, “Is college worth it?” It’s now June, and members of the Class of 2015 are off to put their plans into action, while other students and their families are left wondering, “What do I do now?”

Summer gives everyone a chance to stand back and look at the big picture of life after high school.  If you have questions that just won’t wait for answers in August, take these steps to build a solid summer foundation in postsecondary planning:

Understand that more learning is a must.  In this economy, a chance at a reasonable living depends on more school after high school.  This doesn’t have to include a degree from a four-year college, but a Bachelor’s degree has the best record of financial security, since four-year college graduates have the lowest unemployment, and make upwards of $500,000 more in their lifetime than high school graduates.  Certificates and two-year degrees offer their own benefits, so the message is clear; twelfth grade is not the end of the road for formal learning.

Spend two hours building a career map. The best part about learning after high school is that you have more choices in what you can learn, where you can learn, and how you can do it. The best first step in understanding some of your options is to complete a career exploration search.  These computer-based searches give you a list of possible (that’s possible) careers based on your answers to questions about what you like to do.  Once you get your list, you can find out more about each career, including wages, job prospects, and required training, including classes you should take in high school.

Many high schools have a career search program you can use for free; so do most community colleges.  Do some looking around, and be sure to talk with a counselor about your results when school reopens in the fall.

Visit tech centers and college campuses.  It’s one thing to learn about training options online, but nothing compares to seeing a school in action.  Visiting a local college campus or tech center gives you a feel for what’s possible for you.  It’s best to see these programs when they’re in full swing in the fall, but if summer is the only time you can go, call the institution, and make your plans.  Be sure to prepare a list of questions in advance—a good list of tips can be found at http://www.petersons.com/college-search/ask-experts-college-visit.aspx

Check your high school schedule.  How well you learn after high school depends on how well you learn in high school, and that means taking the most challenging classes you can handle.  Scheduling won’t start again until mid-August, but make a note to contact your high school, and make sure your classes will best prepare you for your goals.  Again, this is where your high school counselor can help—in the fall.

Build your plan for paying now.  There are all kinds of ways to meet your postsecondary learning goals, and most have a wide array of price tags, including public universities, community colleges with strong certificate and transfer programs, private colleges that offer significant merit scholarships.  Learn how to maximize your options by visiting https://studentaid.ed.gov/  and http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid .

Check your high school counseling office’s Web site.  Your local school counselors have helped hundreds of students make strong choices about life after high school.  Most high schools have a Web site with resources they’ve discovered that help their students build strong plans.  Take a look at those options, and stay in touch with your counselor once school re-opens. They may be busy, but they’re never too busy to help a student committed to building a better tomorrow.

Summer Shaky Time for College Bound Seniors

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

This is the last week many school counselors are in their offices, before a well-deserved rest—so I’ll keep this short.

Many of you have heard of the concept of “summer melt”.  This is the number of college-bound students who don’t show up on college campuses in the fall.  For some, this is because they changed colleges; for others, it’s because they changed their mind about college, period; for some, it’s because they ran into some problems over the summer, and didn’t reach out and talk to anyone.

This last group tends to have a very large percentage of students who come from low-income backgrounds, or whose parents didn’t go to college.  The reasons they don’t go are common:  there was a change in their financial aid award, and they didn’t understand it; there was a deadline to reply to a financial aid offer, and they didn’t meet it; they couldn’t go to orientation due to a work conflict, so now they think they can’t go to college at all.

In other words, some of the students you worked so hard to help get into college aren’t going to get there after all, and it’s likely due to some pretty small reason.

There’s a way to fix this, even now. 

Send one last letter, e-mail, and text  Now is the time to give them one last word of encouragement.  Let them know they will get lots of communications from colleges over the summer, and they should read all of them.  If you have access to parent addresses and e-mails, copy them as well.

Encourage them to ask questions  Some of these communications (financial aid) will be more important than others (renting a dorm fridge)—but your students might not know that.  Give them an e-mail address or phone number they can call this summer to ask their questions.  Let them know it may take a day or two to give them a response, but they’ll get one.

Oversee the project  This will require you or your colleagues to check in with e-mail or voice mail throughout the summer—or, see if the PTA will work with you and have parent volunteers check, who have an understanding of confidentiality.  Not fun, for sure—but it should help to know that schools that have implemented this kind of program have reduced summer melt in students by at least/about a third. Some schools even let the counselor by a disposable cell phone, and encourage them to call their “likely melters” a couple of times over the summer, just to check in.  Again, not a work-free vacation, but at least you can make the calls poolside.

Yes, it would be better if you had all of your students  give you their cell numbers before they graduated (a program like Remind is a great way to do this and respect their privacy).  You can do that next year.  For this year, send out one last announcement, and see what happens.  It can make a huge difference.

The Other Side of Better Training in College Counseling

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D


“Principal Matthews?”

“Hi Valerie.  Come on in.”

“Thank you.”

“I want you to know, this isn’t an easy decision.  You’ve done a lot for the school, and for our students—“

“—but you’re laying me off.”

“There isn’t a lot of wiggle room here.”

“Bill, this is a short-sighted decision.”

“I understand how you feel.”

“This may be hard for you to believe, but I’m not thinking about me.  Right now, there are three counselors in a high school with 1000 students.  300 or so students on a caseload is bad enough—and now, you want to go from three counselors to two.”

“And a college success coach.”

“Who has no training as a school counselor.”

“Well—“

“Don’t go there, Bill.”

“She has coursework in college advising, and three years of success turning around the college counseling program at a local charter school.”

“And you just said I’ve been successful in my three years here.”

“You have.  In everything except college counseling.”

“We’ve made some gains.”

“We aren’t keeping up with the national averages.”

“Or--?”

“Or, the high school across town.”

“So that’s what this is about?”

“It affects enrollment, Valerie.  Parents have a choice between the two schools, and they see the college-going rate is 30% greater at East.  If you want your kid to go to college, what choice would you make?”

“Not one where getting into college comes at the expense of my child’s well-being.”

“The two remaining counselors will still offer all of the other counseling services.”

“Right.  To more students.”

“But their college-related duties will be assigned to the coach.  This gives them more time to focus on the other parts of the counseling curriculum, while another counselor—“

“Coach, Bill. She’s a coach.”

“—while the coach focuses on the college curriculum.  Everyone wins.”

“Except the students.  And me.”

“You know I advanced your name for this job when the superintendent directed me to realign the counseling office.”

“But they decided to ship college counseling off to a stranger, who isn’t even a counselor.  Why?”

“Valerie, you know why.”

“I went to the wrong graduate school.”

“Human Resources looked at the college coach’s transcript, and saw two separate classes in college and career counseling.”

“Yeah…”

“And then they looked at your transcript, and saw…”

“They didn’t offer one!  I know everything that coach knows.  Career and college counseling was infused throughout the curriculum, taught here and there, in other classes.”

“So you know everything the coach knows?”

“Of course.  I’ve been doing this as long as she has.”

“OK.  What’s the median household income in Michigan?”

“What?”

“The median household income.”

“I can’t believe—“

“How about  five hot careers in Michigan, where the starting salary is above the median household income, or the colleges that offer majors in those careers?”

“Come on, Bill.  Who knows these things?”

“Actually, the college coach did when I interviewed her.”

“But that’s superficial knowledge.  You can look that up in a book.”

“If a student walks up to you between classes and asks those questions, there isn’t time to look it up—not with a caseload as high as yours.  The teachable moment is right there, and it goes away—“

“—as soon as the student walks away.”

“And so does their confidence in our college counseling program.”

“You know, this is pretty ironic.  The state legislature just introduced a bill requiring new counselors to take a focused class in college counseling.  I wrote my legislator, and told him to vote no.”

“Because it isn’t necessary?”

“Yeah.  Or so I thought.”

Why Take a College Counseling Course?

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

A recent article gave readers a list of outcomes they should expect when taking a class in college counseling.  This list has been praised, but it's also led some counselors to ask, "Just what will I get out of a college counseling class?"  

It helps students.  Counselors who have completed a separate college counseling class of at least 45 clock hours report important differences in working with students.  Some cite the ability to develop a comprehensive college counseling curriculum for all students in grades 9-12 or 6-12—knowing how to organize and present college awareness activities in an organized way helps them make the most of what little time they have with students.

Other counselors point to the “nuts and bolts” of college counseling they get in a focused class, logistics that aren’t covered in many theory classes.  As one counselor put it:

"If you think about it you would be hard pressed to find a teacher that only had training in classroom management and lesson planning but no training in the subject which they teach. That is how I see school counselors; we are teachers of career exploration and college planning but most of us receive no training in this subject."

Something as basic as developing a list of schools with strong engineering programs may seem simple enough to learn on the job—until the demands of your time and the size of your caseload don’t allow you the time to learn how to do that, let alone actually do it.  Training in the details makes a world of difference.

Job Security  More and more counselors are realizing that strong college and career knowledge is a key to more satisfied students, parents, and school administrators.  While some families place a high value on the mental health components of school counselor services, all students need help making strong college and career plans—and if a family feels like they’re getting real help in these essential areas, they’re not going to keep it a secret.  Unfortunately, polls indicate deep dissatisfaction with the level of counselor knowledge in these areas; turning that perspective around can be the key to greater public support of school counselors.

Some counselors also express concern that their lack of knowledge in these crucial areas make them more vulnerable to replacement by career coaches, college success advocates, or college advisers.  To be clear, no college adviser is placed in a school that has laid off a school counselor.  Having said that, it is worth noting that members of the College Advising Corps receive 160 clock hours in training in college counseling—training some school counselors have asked to have themselves.  Ensuring that all counselors complete college and career classes early in their careers gives them a credential and a competitive advantage over outside independent agents; not only will school counselors have comprehensive college and career expertise, but they will have the training in mental health and development education needed to offer affective support for students as well.

A class that makes both your boss and your students happy-- that's something to consider.  

School Counselors, as seen by a College Admission Officer

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

College admission officers work hard, long days.  Fall brings many days far from home, visiting five or six high schools a day, and meeting students and parents at college fairs at night.  Winter finds them reading student applications, a labor of love to be sure-- but a challenge when you have to work through up to 30 files a day.  By the time spring comes around, and you've finished your last phone call with a student who didn't get in, it's time for a well-deserved rest.

Unless you're Jessica Fowle.  An associate director of admission at Kalamazoo College, Jess launched a private practice in college counseling this spring, guiding students and families through the college selection process, and helping them find colleges that meet their individual needs.  Jess is doing this work in addition to the many hours she volunteers doing work for the Michigan Association for College Admission Counseling, and her work at Kalamazoo. While she's just getting started, Jess has an impressive number of clients, and can work with students from around the world, thanks to the power of technology.

What would inspire someone to take on this demanding work on top of a busy professional life, and what does that say about our work as school counselors?  Jess explains.

It is spring, and commencement is in the air--the season of new beginnings, of change, of emerging from a chrysalis and spreading one's wings to embark on new adventures. This year, in the midst of my fifteenth year as a college admission professional, I find myself stretching and embarking on a new role as an independent college counselor.

This evolution comes from a personal desire to work with students and families in a more meaningful way than I can as an admission representative for a single school, but also from a recognition of the dire need for great college counseling. As this column has addressed many times before, the nationwide student:counselor ratio is 471:1; in my home state of Michigan the ratio is even higher at 706:1.  These numbers mean that however well-prepared and passionate, counselors only have a few minutes per year to meet with each student. Even when (and I say when with eternal optimism) our education system is able to move the high school counselor caseload down to the recommended 250 students and ensure that these counselors are adequately trained in college and career counseling, there will be students and families who want or need more focused, individualized, personal attention.

My new role provides an eye-opening new view into the world of college admission. From the outside it is an overwhelming web of nearly 4,000 institutions from which to choose, and a population of high school students who have no frame of reference for what being a college student is actually like (romantic comedies about fraternity parties and cheering at Big 10 football games notwithstanding).

In a flood of emails and brochures from colleges, overdramatic media articles instilling terror about being admitted to and then paying for college, and intense questions from Uncle Billy at the Thanksgiving table, it's no wonder that an inherently anxiety-ridden process becomes completely overwhelming.

From my perspective as an admission counselor, it both frustrates and amazes me that students and parents don't read official communication from our institution about important things like scholarship and financial aid deadlines. "How can they ignore opportunities for more money? They tell me this is their top choice, but don't respond to my outreach to meet with them!" My internal and water cooler dialogue is frustrated and impatient with "kids these days."

As a college counselor, I get a whole new perspective of how little preparation students and families have for this onslaught of information and pressure, and how little time they have in their busy lives to assimilate, absorb, and triage this information into a coherent plan for the college search. The language in which I am fluent--that of rolling and precipice deadlines, superscoring, and loan default rates--is nearly incomprehensible and definitely overwhelming even to the savviest high school student.

The college counselor serves as a port in the storm, translating this new language, helping students tune out the external noise to focus on their strengths, personality, learning style and preparation. To help weed through those 4,000 colleges to find a manageable number for consideration, and then walk them through whittling that number to the one that they choose to attend. As an independent counselor with many years of admission experience under my belt, I have the luxury of really focusing on each student's individual situation, laying out a plan for both the nuts and bolts of the college visit and application process as well as the deeper moments of self-reflection. It is a joy to help these students navigate this path, which is much more varied and personal than the path I traveled with them as an admission counselor.

Jess invites you to send your thoughts and comments to jessica.fowle@cactoday.com

The “Other Duty” That Tests a Counselor’s Nerves

By: Patrick O'Connor  Ph.D

High school counselors across America are breathing a sigh of relief, as they say goodbye to the May chore they like the least—supervising Advanced Placement testing. Brand new counselors know this is the biggest job that falls under the contractual obligation of “other duties as assigned”, but they can’t really understand the demands of alternate testing, pencil sharpening, DVD tracking, and test administration reports, until they live through at least one May, where they commit the College Board phone number to memory.

Counselors understand the importance of relevant testing and assessment, especially since it plays a vital role in career and college counseling, as well as course placement.  But knowing what the results mean and organizing the logistics of testing are two different things, and only one is an appropriate use of counselors’ time.  If you’re trying to figure out how to replace your one-on-one testing manual time with more time for students, consider one of these strategies when talking about this important issue with your supervisor:

Agree on the duties you do and don’t have.  Counselors often swear their job description is being made up as the school year goes along, and depends on which teachers are absent that day, or how bad the weather is.  Every educator needs to be flexible, but if math teachers can be confident they’ll be teaching math every day, aren’t counselors entitled to the same assurance?

That’s where the Annual Agreement comes in.  Designed by the American School Counselor Association, the Annual Agreement is a document completed by a school counselor and their principal that outlines the counselor’s duties every year.  From outlining the hours the counseling office will be open to allocating percentages of time to various duties, the Annual Agreement gives principals and counselors a chance to create an overview of the counselor’s role in the school that’s based on planning, and not reaction. Type in Annual Agreement - ASCA National Model in your search engine, and it will pop up.

Explore the administrative support you need.  It helps if administrators see the big picture of what counselors do; it helps even more when administrators offer support that advances the work counselors do.  I did some research in 2000 that discovered five key areas where counselors want administrative support for their work—and a tool exists to measure just how much support you’re getting.  29 questions will help you get a better understanding of the support your administrator is getting, and how you can begin to get more support in the areas where it’s needed.  A self-scoring copy of the questionnaire is available at no charge; e-mail me atcollegeisyours@comcast.net and ask for a copy of the administrative support questionnaire.

Ask about your administrator’s counseling goals.   Many counselors would rather talk directly about their concerns, and there’s an easy way to do that with your other duties.  By asking the principal to outline their goals for the school counseling program, the counselor understands what parts of the program are valued, and which may be misunderstood.

Once you know what your principal is looking for, you can gather data to show them how well those counseling components are or aren’t working—and then have a discussion how those results could be even better, if only you had more time to focus on them.  This can get your administrator’s attention and support in ways surveys often can’t—and it makes your counseling challenges more real to them.

These approaches have led to great growth for counseling programs.  Consider the one that would best work with your administrator, and give it a try. 

First Ever Standards Created for College Counselor Training

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

It may not seem like summer is just around the corner, but the month that comes after a May of awards assemblies, testing, and graduation audits will bring graduation, longer days, and weather warm enough for ice cream.  Evidence of June’s anticipated arrival is starting to show up in your e-mail, where announcements are cropping up for summer professional development opportunities in everything from bullying prevention to making the most of a new scholarship tracker.

The good news is that more and more of these training opportunities relate to college counseling—and not a moment too soon.  College Board surveys show about half of all school counselors felt their graduate school training in college counseling was insufficient; more important, polls of recent high school graduates felt show they felt their high school counselor was of little or no help in the college selection process.  It’s certainly true that high caseloads and other duties (like testing and awards assemblies) make it more challenging to talk about college with students—but, as one counselor told me, even if your caseload is 25, you still need to know what you’re talking about.

Summer training in college advising can fill the void, but only if the content meets your needs.  If your graduate school training is like that of most counselors, you may not know what you don’t know—and that can make choosing the right college training hard to discover.

That’s where the Michigan Association for College Admission Counseling steps in.  Realizing counselors will have many choices in professional development, MACAC has adopted a list of content standards for professional development course in college counseling.  Based on the work of  counselor trainers Bob Bardwell, Trish Hatch, and your truly, this is the first set of competencies believed to be passed by any counseling organization that helps counselors evaluate the quality of training in college counseling by listing the competencies the course should address.  There may be a number of ways to teach college counseling, but at the end of any of the approaches, counselors need specific skills.  MACAC’s list attempts to help counselors evaluate their professional development opportunities by focusing on outcomes that will help them be more effective college counselors next fall—that’s the best way to make the most of your training time next summer.

The document is by no means complete,  but it’s a start, and complete enough to let counselors know that if the college counseling training you’re considering doesn’t address these crucial outcomes, it’s time to keep looking.  Here’s the list:

Michigan Association for College Admission Counseling
Content Standards for Courses in Counseling in the College Selection Process

General competencies

·         Understanding and application of various college admission choice theory

·         Knowledge of psychological and family issues that may be present in the college admissions process

·         Understanding the relationship between models of comprehensive school counseling programs (i.e.: ASCA National Model) and the delivery of college admission counseling

·         Understanding of the importance of creating partnerships with faculty, school administrators, community leaders, and community-based organizations in delivering quality advice in college admission counseling

·         Awareness of the wide array of different kinds of colleges, including community colleges, research colleges, and liberal arts colleges

·         Admissions requirements for community colleges and public and private colleges/universities

·         Understanding of alternatives to college, including gap years, postgraduate years, and deferrals

·         Ability to discern when to discuss postsecondary options other than college with a student

·         Knowledge of college application timelines and deadlines

·         Knowledge of the unique needs of special populations going through the college search and application process(i.e., multicultural populations, international students, students with disabilities, gifted students and student athletes)

·         Ability to find resources available to counselors in the college admissions process (i.e., print materials, software, web sites and organizations)

·         Awareness of college admission testing options and the use (and misuse) of standardized testing

·         Ability to write effective letters of recommendation for multiple purposes – two year, four year, vocational training program or employment

·         Ability to support teachers in the writing of effective letters of recommendation for these same purposes

·         Getting the most out of the visiting a college campus

·         Establishing strong relationships with colleges and college admissions officers

·         Hosting a successful high school visit by a college admission officer

·         Awareness of legal and ethical issues confronting the college counselor

·         Knowledge of financial aid applications and process, including the role of the FAFSA

·         Ability to collect, analyze and synthesize college admission counseling data on the individual, school, state and national levels

·         Being able to identify, close and eliminate the opportunity and achievement gaps for all students in regard to higher education

·         Understanding the professional organizations and resources available for school counselors

·         Being aware of and to discuss current trends, issues and controversies in college admissions

·         The ability to develop, implement, manage, and evaluate a college admission counseling curriculum that meets the needs of the students and families served by the school

·         Knowledge of how to evaluate the efforts of a college admission counseling program, and how to share those results with a wide variety of audiences

Specific competencies:

·         Assist a high school student through the college search and application process, including the online application process

·         Assist a student and family to complete the FAFSA, other required financial aid forms, and searches for funds for college.

·         Work with a student who has applied via various types of admission decision programs, minimally early decision, early action and restricted early action

·         Coordinate and organize a college tour, college fair or educational program for students and families

·         Work with a student from an underrepresented population (i.e.: student of color, low income, special needs, LGBT, homeless or undocumented)

·         Use college or high school specific data to inform decision making

·         Apply the ethical guidelines of the Statement of Principles of Good Practice of the National Association for College Admission Counseling

This list was originally developed by Bob Bardwell of Monson High School (MA), and enhanced with suggestions by members of the MACAC Executive Board.

Approved by the MACAC Executive Board, December 11, 2014.