The Best Testing Advice to Give

By:  Patrick O'Conner Ph.D

There seems to be little slowing of the changes in standardized testing, and that makes it hard for counselors to offer advice to students about which tests to take, and when. No one wants to steer students in the wrong direction, but not saying anything can be grounds for students to lose their faith in you as a trusted adviser.  As we approach spring testing season, it may be best to pull out some reliable advice that has stood the test of time—so if a student asks about testing, tell them to:

Take both tests once, and their favorite one twice.  I’ve offered this advice in the past, and some counselors think this is too much testing, but this counsel has stood the test of time.  Just like two Social Studies teachers take different approaches when discussing the American Revolution, SAT and ACT are trying to measure the same thing, but in different ways.  The only way to decide which version is best for you is to try them both—and once you know, sign up for that test a second time, to make sure you have a solid score.

Complete this testing by the end of junior year.  A growing number of students are holding off on taking their college tests until fall of senior year, especially when it comes to the new SAT.  No one has said why this is occurring, but there’s a sense students feel College Board may “tweak” the SAT this summer if the first few rounds of the new version don’t go well.

A veteran college counselor says we shouldn’t hold our breath.  Unless the highest score on the March edition turns out to be 250, College Board has never changed a test midstream, so it’s unlikely to happen this time. In addition, holding off on taking the test means you have little room for a second try until November—and given how many colleges want early applications, this can lead to narrowing college options artificially.

Send your scores NOW.  I have never understood the strategy to testing where students receive their SAT or ACT scores first, then send them to the colleges.  To begin with, the testing fee includes the right to send your scores to four colleges, and if you don’t do that, you have to pay for Every. Single. Score Result.  Since no college is known to penalize students for a low score if a higher score exists, this causes nothing but anxiety, and higher profits for College Board.

If this isn’t enough motivation, know that two colleges are strongly urging students to send test scores in the spring,  since both SAT and ACT have had trouble delivering test scores to colleges on time this year.  No test scores means an incomplete application, and that means your application gets read later—never good news at a college that practices rolling admission.

Test optional college choices exist.  Sometimes the best advice to give a student who doesn’t want to take the ACT or SAT is “OK.  Don’t.”  This not only gets their attention; it opens their eyes to the hundreds of great colleges that don’t require test scores from most of their students  as part of the admission process-  and that list is growing daily.  Take a look at http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional , and double check a college’s Web site to make sure their policy is up to date. 

Activities That Build a Better College Plan

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Like roads after the spring thaw,  the road to college has never been.  Record  numbers of college applications lead the media to wonder, “Can anyone get into college?”,  while disappointing financial aid packages changed the question to, “Is college worth it?”

The arrival of spring 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, take these steps to build a solid foundation in post secondary 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 learn. 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.

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.

Build your plan for paying now.  There are all kinds of ways to meet your post secondary 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 visitinghttps://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. They’re never too busy to help a student committed to building a better tomorrow.

Didn’t Get Into an Ivy? Consider This

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

We’re about two weeks away from the first Ivy League college announcing its admissions decisions   (OK,-- MIT isn’t technically an Ivy, but you know what I mean), so it’s time to brace ourselves with a few facts that might help cushion the blow for students who get any answer other than Yes.  Facts have their limits when it comes to matters of the heart, and college admissions is certainly one of those.  At the same time, sharing some of these facts now might create an opportunity for the head to drive the college admissions bus for just a little while.

Fact one—Colleges have more applicants than they can admit.  In a vast majority of cases, students not admitted to a competitive college actually qualify to go there—it’s just that the college runs out of room.  This has nothing to do with the font you used for your essay, the order in which you listed your extracurricular activities, or the teachers who wrote your letters of recommendation.  If Green Leaf U can only hold 500 freshmen before the fire marshal closes the place down, they can’t take 501.  It’s isn’t a question of qualification; it’s a question of physics.

Fact two—it’s harder to get in than you think.  The increase in applicants to highly selective colleges drives admit rates to record lows, and that’s expected to happen again this year.  What’s even more sobering is when you realize that record low—say, 8%-- is even lower for most students.  An alumni interviewer for one Ivy League college explained it this way:

• We receive about 10,000 applications for admission every year.
• We offer admission to about 800 students—however…
• About 300 of those offers go to athletes.  No, we don’t win national championships, but we love athletics.  If that bothers you, you may not be happy here.
• Another 300 offers go to children of alums, children of US Senators, and Tom Hanks’s son.  We do this because we can.
• That leaves about 200 offers for the students most people see as “smart, good kids.”
• The problem is, out of the 10,000 students who apply, only about 2,000 are athletes and children of alums. 
• That means the admit rate for “smart, good kids” isn’t 800 out of 10,000, or 8 percent.
• It’s 200 out of 8,000, or 2.5 percent.

To be sure, not every Ivy runs things this way, but this example goes a long way to explain why a prospective student visiting campus sees students who are “just like me”, but ends up not being offered a spot when they apply.  Yes, the college does take students just like you; it’s just that they don’t take very many of them.

Fact three—where you go to college does matter, but not the way you think it does.  Well-meaning adults (like me) talk to students and write articles (or books) that claim it really doesn’t matter where a good student goes to college; what matters is that the student makes the most of the experiences their college provides them.

Baloney.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not promoting the “If It’s Not an Ivy, I’ll Bust” mentality, which is also baloney.  But students don’t go to college by themselves, so there’s more to the experience than buildings, internships, and study abroad.  If the students you’re living with for four years don’t challenge, support, and befriend you, you’re wasting your time. 

You want this to be the best years of your life to date?  Learn about the souls of your fellow students when you visit a campus, and take it from there.  

Is Early Decision Doomed?

By:  Patrick O'Connor  Ph.D

Cracks are starting to appear in one of the oldest, and most mysterious, elements of college advising.  For years, students who have found THE college they simply can’t live without have been urged to apply to that college through an Early Decision program.  Not every college offers this option, but those that do require the student, their parent, and their school counselor to sign an agreement indicating that, if the college admits the student ED, the student agrees to withdraw all of their other college applications, and they must attend that college.  If most of the college application process is like dating, Early Decision is more like marriage—say yes to me, and I’m yours.

Since many colleges take a large percentage of their students through the ED program, qualified students can usually increase their chances of admission by applying ED—assuming they’re willing to make the commitment.  It’s also true that most ED programs notify students well before spring, so admitted students can enjoy the rest of senior year with their college application process settled.

But if ED offers a few bonuses to students, it offers even more to the colleges.  Admitting a large number of students early solidifies the college’s financial aid budget early, and it increases the college’s yield (the percentage of admitted students who enroll) tremendously.  These are both key pieces of a college’s admission portfolio, which in turn solidifies everything from the college’s bond rating to their place in college rankings.

It’s long been expected that the increasing number of students applying ED might influence the way ED programs work—and based on stories from school counselors, those changes are starting to take place. More students appear to be applying ED to increase their chances of admission, but then changing their mind, and attending a different college.  Since the ED agreement involves no financial commitment from the student, there’s little to hold the student to the agreement other than their word. To be sure, colleges have frequently released students from an ED contract if the college can’t meet the student’s demonstrated financial need, but the number of students simply jilting their academically betrothed seems to be on the rise.

Two possible solutions have been suggested.  The first one changes the ED agreement to a contract, where the student agrees to attend their first choice college if admitted—and if they don’t, they must pay the college a full year’s tuition, room, and board. Since the parent must also sign the ED statement, the contract would have the full force of law, and could at least lead the parents to think twice about making a casual commitment to a serious process.

Something a little less draconian is the creation of an ED Clearinghouse, where colleges post the names of their admitted ED students for all the world to see—including other colleges.  Colleges would then check the names of their regularly admitted students to the list of students who applied ED somewhere else, and if they find a match, both colleges turn their acceptances into denials, and the student literally has nowhere to go.  This already happens among some colleges informally, with great success.

A handful of ED applicants have strong reasons to ask to be released from their commitments each year, but recent trends suggest an increase in the number of students showing a “ho hum” attitude towards their commitment.  This may not mean much to popular colleges now, but if the trend continues, Early Decision programs may be heading for a rocky time, leading to even more change in the world of college admissions.

ACT or SAT?

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

We’re only about a month away from the first administration of the new SAT, and it’s safe to say no other upgrade has received half the attention this one has.  Between College Board’s groundbreaking test-prep partnership with Khan Academy, and the end of students being penalized for guessing, it’s safe to say this isn’t the SAT of old.

Happily, most juniors don’t seem all that impressed by the changes in the SAT, and that makes perfect sense, since they never took the old one.  The real question on their minds is much more fundamental—should I take it?  They may not know just what all the changes are, but they know the test has changed—and if they didn’t previously know the turbulence change brings to the testing world, the fact that they don’t have a paper copy of the PSAT they took four months ago is more than enough to bring them up to speed.  Since a similar delay in SAT scores could deeply affect the timing of their college applications, they’re worried—and rightly so.

A good number of school counselors (including me) have long advised students to take both the SAT and ACT once; determine which one is the test that’s best for them, and take that test a second time.  Just like no two English teachers take the same approach when discussing The Great Gatsby, no two approaches to assessment are the same, even if they claim to cover the same content.  The best way to figure out the one you like best is to try them both out; once a student knows that, they should give their favorite test one more try.

Not every counselor follows that strategy, since tests cost money and take time to prepare for.  That’s understandable in most years—but in this year of many college changes, the time might be right to err on the side of a little extra testing.  This is especially true in states that offer the SAT for free to all juniors.  Free is great—but given the delivery challenges we’ve seen with the PSAT, and given that March SAT results aren’t scheduled to be delivered until May at the earliest, students aren’t going to have much time to plan for a June re-take under the best of circumstances.  Since many public colleges hope to have college applications in late September, now isn’t the time to rely on a Fall testing re-take.

This isn’t to say students should skip the new SAT completely.  Last fall’s PSAT and the test prep material on Khan Academy offer strong clues of what to expect—and while colleges have no experience interpreting the new SAT results, it will be hard for them to say a high score has no real value.  At the same time, there’s enough mystery surrounding the new test (and enough concern about when the results will arrive) that students will want to hedge their bets and have a spring ACT score to share with colleges.

Low income students who rightly worry about the costs of so much testing need to be supported with the fee waivers counselors have—and if we run out, there’s no better time to ask for more than this year, since both testing companies are trying to curry our favor and support. As we wade through the waters of change, students will need ample support and opportunity to show what they know.  Supporting their right to do so should be the core of all the advice we offer them, and testing is no exception. 

Changes in College Applications Become Clearer

By:  Patrick O'Connor  Ph.D

It sure was nice having that dizzy feeling of being the center of attention during National School Counseling Week, especially since it was a nice change of pace from the dizzy feeling school counselors get just trying to do their jobs every day—or keeping up with the changes in their jobs.  In the college counseling arena alone, enough changes have been introduced this year to make it hard to remember what’s stayed the same, and what’s going to change, when. 

A couple of change became clearer this past week:

Addition of an August SAT test date  The news that seems to have evaded the headlines is that College Board will be offering an SAT test date starting in 2017.  School counselors have long sought a summer offering of the test, saying that students are likely to do better on the college test when they don’t have any other academic obligations.  The August date also makes it easier for students to make sure they have a set of test scores for the many colleges with early application deadlines of November 1—and given the massive number of students applying early, this can’t help but be welcome news.

This change does bring opportunities for counselors to stress caution.  First, many high schools are in session in August (especially in the South), so their time to take an out-of-school SAT is still June.  Second, this addition of the August date includes the elimination of the January test date—so if your advice to students has been to take the test in January and re-test in the spring of junior year, it’s time to look at offering new advice.  Finally, students thinking they can now skip taking college tests in spring of the junior year will want to look at the calendar.  Taking the August test means getting scores back on Labor Day, which leaves about a month to study for a re-take in October—while school is starting.  Students planning on taking the SAT twice will still want to consider taking the test in spring of junior year, allowing lots of time in the summer to prep for round two in the early fall.

Coalition App Won’t Be Naviance Ready  A colleague attending the College Board Forum in Chicago reports that the authors of the newly-minted Coalition Application have confirmed that the application will not sync up with the widely used Naviance application system for the 2016-17 school year.  Touted as a viable alternative to the widely used Common Application, the Coalition Application and its “locker” feature for storing application-related materials, counselors relying on Naviance to deliver transcripts and other documents supporting a student’s college applications will have to find another way to deliver those elements, at least for a year.

The announcement comes as counselors report an increase in student questions about the Coalition application—specifically, if the application will be supported by the student’s high school counseling office.  The absence of Naviance compatibility may help clarify whatever answer your office might reach—but whatever that answer may be, it will be important to convey that information early and often to juniors, well before they start work on their college applications this spring. 

More changes await, as Common Application accounts can now be saved in spring of the junior year, and the new October filing date of the FAFSA begins this fall.  Just how these two changes will affect college access remain to be seen, making it an exciting time to be a college access advocate. 

Finish School Counseling Week with a Bang

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

There’s no doubt this National School Counseling Week has been the Best. Counseling.  Celebration. Ever.  Social media is burning up with pictures of kids handing counselors all kinds of goodies, counselors holding up signs explaining why they love their work, and more cookie cakes than the eye can behold.  It’s clear the message is out there—counselors are valued, and make a difference.

Which makes now the perfect time to go in for the kill.

It’s certainly gratifying your principal recognized you in the morning announcements, and that validation may have been enough to get you through a pretty demanding day of too many students to see and not enough time to see them.  It’s also true that the sweatshirt that was signed by every student you’ve seen this year is something you’re going to cherish for a very long time.  But given the sweat your break getting even half of your duties done, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to wear that sweatshirt, at least at the office.

These demonstrations should be valued, to be sure—but they also should be seen as opportunities to move forward.  Using the foundation of gratitude and goodwill National School Counselor Week provides, now is the time to engage in thoughtful discussions about the direction of your school’s counseling program, and what others can do to help it grow.

How do you begin that discussion?  Thoughtfully.

Keep the discussion realistic.  As much as you’d really like to, this is *not* the time to talk about high student ratios and ask for another counselor (or two, or three, or…)  The events of this past week have given a wide array of people a glimpse into everything you are trying to do, and everything you have to deal with.  Picking one or two of your most challenging issues to improve is the best way to proceed.

Start from an attitude of gratitude.  We tell our students to do this all the time, and it’s always true that the best way to teach a skill is to demonstrate it.  “Bill, thank you so much for the shout out at the all-school assembly about how hard counselors work. I’ve just come across a new approach to bullying prevention that could move the school forward.  Is there some time next week when we can talk about this?”

Consider the common agenda.  Asking for a meeting about a bullying prevention program shows interest in a goal that’s shared by counselors and administrators, and that’s the best approach to take when asking for someone’s help—they’ll be more likely to say yes once they see what’s in it for them.  Asking the PTA for funding for a parenting program, working with your athletic director on an athletic recruiting seminar, developing a college essay workshop English teachers can implement in part in the classroom—these all advance their professional goals, and yours.

Turn “no” into “not now”.  It’s likely some of your well-wishers from this week aren’t ready to commit to a more long-term sign of support for counseling.  If you don’t find easy support for one project, try a different one—it isn’t like your program can only grow in one way.  Just make sure you leave the relationship on good terms with a potential partner.  Once you succeed in other partnerships, they may come talk with you later, eager to be part of a growing program.

The reason it’s called National School Counseling Week is to call attention to the importance of your program.  What better time to build new partnerships that will help students all year ‘round.