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College Information Night for Senior Parents

Added Sep 14, 2020 •

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Recorded session from the college information night for senior parents.

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okay welcome everyone my name is Doug Mitchell and the head academic counselor Bishop Montgomery year 32 for me Bishop Montgomery High School I'm can relate to each and every one because I have a son that's in the class of 2021 also so I feel your pain with all this unique situation going on so just so you know the presentation I just did one obviously it took about 30 minutes and then it was about a good 15-20 minutes for questions to questions the best way to do it is you'll see a chat born out the bottom you can type in your car and if you think I'm along the way you can type it in with Friday to answer mm along the way and we may ask for some out loud if there's multiple questions about the same thing we would ask that when you send the question send it to everyone do all counselors and parents can see it so we don't get the same question over and over again okay again welcome thank you for coming I'm too obviously a very unique year College admissions be making a lot of different ways so I'm sure it's a little chaotic a little confusing I have a daughter that also a graduate admission Montgomery and I feel like the shoe just feel so different than when we went to the process with her just because of the lot of a lot of questions I like to introduce the counseling team to you again my name is Doug Mitchell I work with last names by alphabet A through F contact information is right there of course they'll always on the website my colleague Miss Jennifer Sabol she works with last names G I miss the West Adams T through Z and Miss pazmino who works with her International students in Hazard learning specialist so tonight we're going to try to hit some highlights on things we think you need to be aware of and timelines and deadlines and maybe questions we saw in the that have come up with the past mistakes maybe people have made so again if you have a question just give me a shout in before the end of the evening we'll get to it do you feel like you missed something we are going to post the slide presentation on the bishop website and the counseling corner so you can go back and review any of the slides you saw the questions you may have if we wait for some reason we missed you a question we will ask turn off the post it we're going to post it on that website also so hopefully you'll get everything answered you have tonight next life please college application timeline this is obviously a very is kind of rough overview of what's happening and what they we doing you know we did meet with your students as a group and kind of went over this and provided a timeline for them last week we will continue to meet with them and small groups individually try to keep them on task on time meme deadlines there's a lot of great information on the website be honest Miss Adamson disable credible amount of work preparing videos and information and webinars and if you go to counseling corner official website coronavirus Wisconsin corner is all right there for you so right now students can be working on their applications, nap and applications and UC applications are open Cal State applications are not open so if they're working on the Cal State application right now they're working on last year's they can't get into dishes application till October 1st October 1st so the one thing they need to be doing right now now is finalizing their college list and that's up till September 29th we're going to give them time to really get that list finalized in Naviance because that list would really be able to help them it's also going to help you and the students stay organized because once they put that list and cause I'm applying to it'll stay deadline it'll tell you what the deadline is for each School's application it will also talk about the types of applications I needed this happens every year Havasu this every year they are really diligent really turned me on top of stuff they going to start working on their common application do a lot of work rights in essays and then they find out they do need a common app because none of the schools are applying to utilize the Common App so another way that Naviance is a huge help to you and the students is it will tell you what type of application or use if it's Common App school there's a little thing of Stacy right in there do you see these have one application for all uses you fill out one application and check off which ones you sent to the Cal State website you do have to go on application for each Cal State School but after you thought the first one all the information is transferred over automatically is pretty quick after the first one so miss Adams is going to go over a little bit more detail early decision early action what that means it will see that little bit later on the big deadline I want you to be aware of is obviously November 30th that is the Cal State UC deadlines for all cows that UC schools that is a hard death what I mean by that is the not going to take applications after that there may be a couple Cal State schools to go through emissions but I know the UC schools are very rigid on that particular thing so make sure you're very much aware of that you're going to start hearing some schools December January so on so forth the packages to be mailed out financial aid comes later we are going to talk about financial a little bit later on so I guess the things I want to stress from udon next light is Naviance extremely important and when I say we will give them sometimes when I see what happens is they put their schools in Naviance in the cause you're applying to and that's how we send transcripts that's how we send letters of recommendation that's how we send score reports that's how we send counselor recommendation they all go through Naviance believe me it makes it a lot easier in the old days when I used to mail it in and things would get lost or misplaced now we have a record School says we don't have the transcript so I can go back and say oh yeah I sent it to you November 12th you do have so just be aware of that and also the types of applications as I mentioned that Nadia is going to help you stay organized on that regard this will come up in a slideshow but I did want to mention once your student turns in their application all correspondence will go to the student to the students email a school is not going to contact accounts or save our missing this we don't have this part of the application can they send us this in they will contact the student and the students need to be diligent hey I have a senior student also they need to check your emails or not to parents email the student they felt their responsibilities fan top of the stuff so once that application is it could be about housing it could be about scholarship but all of this information is really important students keep on their emails to know coming in and there's a slight I think that's I think that's critically important to make sure I mention that okay next line okay College admissions one thing I really wanted to highlight here is the biggest question we're getting at least I'm getting from from students is about to test ACT SAT what do I do do I have to take it should I take it it's hard to find it appears that all schools are going to go test optional at least I can't guarantee that going to a country which means if you don't have to take a test or opted not take this it won't hurt you and admission process now some schools are going nuts called test blind call me if you can if you do take an act you can submit it and say I'd like to know if you did really well on a C10 you want the school to see it you can send it in remember the student control if the college Caesar test course optional I don't have very good test scores is that going to hurt me just don't send it to him if the test optional don't make it part of the application process keep it private test blind means if they even if you send the score in they not use it they will not use that test scores test blinds are not using test scores UC and Cal State schools are all tasks blind is going to be based on before you see Jeep yay and personal statements will talk more about essays little bit later on but I think that's that's the biggest question I'm getting right now and Naviance will also help students with things like this my school name letters of recommendation well you can check that to Naviance then we can help him with that and I've had students rush out and get all these letters recommendation and they're applying to schools that do not take letters of recommendation Cal State and UC schools will not utilize recommendation some UC schools in specific program for physics Majors may ask for want like I know nursing for example UC Irvine one select but that's that's more rare so you know what the you should Naviance staying on top of stuff understanding this disgusting question so I guess the question is the what what should they take the test I'm recommending and I'm doing the same thing for my son I signed my protest take it to a has it in case a major Pacific League requires it or maybe a scholarship program to be eligible for a scholarship requires a standardized test but I don't know that I will send it to any car but it would be nice to have a score taken out they took it already and I have some a act and SAT scores and some students that's great just remember it's not going to be required Black Label quite make sure I didn't miss anything when I want to talk about I mean there's a lot more to cover will get you a lot more but those with the big things I wanted to touch up turn it over Adams I'll be back at the answer questions hi good evening thank you for coming I'm just going to talk a little bit about admission options on the first one is early decision and is it as you can see there in the green statement early decision is a binding contract between the students and the college itself so once the student has been offered the acceptance they must accept it where they will be going so there are limited number of schools that actually offer early decision so your student will know based on their Naviance account what's the weather or not they offer early decision indeed applications are due as early as October 15th or as late as November 15th is not very late and then the nice thing about early vacations is the fact that decisions are usually made before Christmas I more like just before the new year so the students hard work doesn't go unnoticed because they've done all the work and they were ready to admit their submit application and so I think it's really important to know that we only recommend early decision if if it's as clear first choice for the student on this has been there. school forever this is where they've always wanted to go this is what they dream of Etc it's a it's an extremely competitive pool and so this dude didn't have to make sure that their application is and completely like dotted eyes crossed he's all those things need to be done for this early application especially for early decision next slide please early action is actually what most students use in the early admission option they can apply to multiple schools across the board if it's a, not school and like I said before they will have their decisions by Christmas or early January so when we're talking about early action we just want to make sure that you guys know that early action option they are not bound to the College of the colleges offer so they can apply to many schools in the early action options early decision that can be applied to the one school they can a regular decision to other schools we apply early decision someone gives them more options to be finished we also encourage the students to apply early on 4th sake of the best scholarships come in house from the school of themselves and so we want to make sure that if the student is seeking money that they actually apply early so that they can be considered for a scholarship options so the action early decision those are the early admission options Netflix rolling admissions Slow Rolling admissions means that colleges accept students throughout the year on so it's not as a definitive but we do we do want to emphasize that the students should actually be applying before May so that they have an option by graduation so they're they're not guessing however there are certain colleges that will be rolling into July and so maybe even into August because of this situation especially and so there are definitely School out there that if you don't get into your first-choice school but you're still looking for a 4-year there are options out there but still the same thing applies if you're looking for scholarship money or you know loans or anything like that the students actually apply early and I'm going to hand it off to his house good evening sir in Spanish so much for joining us tonight about parchment parchment is the online platform that we use for students to send official transcripts to their school with their accounts Jordans and parents can view current transcripts please note that this should be updated each semester and there's a there's an update button at the bottom of the transcript that if you just click on it it will update the tree except for the students we the counselors will automatically send transcripts through Naviance student for schools that will accept them through Naviance and please remember to Ed Sheeran All of the college deadlines is there a no exceptions and remember to check your emails often and also your jump or clutter folder next light please community colleges after many students community colleges will open up more opportunities if a student attends at community colleges it gives them the opportunity to save money raise their GPA participate in a high-level sports or work while in school we suggest you explore community colleges as you would any for your college for example a 10-day virtual visit or consult with an admissions counselor applications open in the winter and are usually do in the spring of their senior year and the dates are still to be determined but we will be hosting El Camino Community College workshops this fall next wifey financial aid is based on family income some examples of financial aid include Grant loans for work study programs please be sure to complete the FAFSA starting October 1st and ending March 2nd I'm also please complete the CSS profile in the fall the CSS profile or college scholarship service profile is an additional application for non federal financial aid please note that this might be required by some of the private colleges Bishop Montgomery will complete and submit the Cal grant verification form between October 1st and March 2nd and even if you think you don't qualify for financial aid please follow your FAFSA application to qualify Merit Scholarships and for better student loan terms next light alright thank you parents dismiss table just wanted to give you a heads up also for financial aid we will have a financial aid webinar put on by El Camino College to go over FASFA and how to find a file that starting October 1st the meeting will be on number 24th at 7 p.m. and will be sending out information about that in the next week to come so will we Western undergraduate exchange so that's one way that students can get something bikes similar to in-state tuition and basically go to a school outside of California for in-state tuition as if they were in state resident of say Washington Oregon or whatever state that they are applying that has this movie tuition Reduction Program so this is all this is a great option for students looking at schools that are outside of California could be too expensive this is an option where the students apply it's really important that they apply early and it's important that they talk to the admission counselor seeing if they are interested in movie because not every student that applies will will be awarded that tuition reduction so it's really important that if they are looking at this this can make going out of state public school very affordable to be the same as what it would be if they were going to the California state school also a lot of schools will stack scholarships so you can actually become cheaper than what it would cost in States warships okay so students can apply for scholarships starting now we've posted Scholarships in a couple different places they are on the counseling Corner in the bmhs website and they are listed by due date by each month we also post them in the weekly bulletin as well as posted in Google classroom for students it's important that students apply broadly to the scholarship Spartans because the more that they apply to the better chance they have of getting and being awarded a scholarship scholarship I'm the scholarship and they can reach out to me that would be great letting me know that they are interested in in looking at those they are in need of need-based scholarships it's really helpful to know that not all scholarships for academic portal they are in many senses the big dollar big point to notice is any schools that are on your students list in their college list you're going to need to go to their financial aid website on that school website deadlines for certain scholarships can have where they students need to apply by a certain deadline which is usually called priority and that's usually in December or in November so if a student is like going to apply regular decision they may not qualify or be considered for certain scholarships due to not meeting that also watch out for scams never provide your information for scholarship application and never pay if you're not sure about it definitely check with the counselor to make sure that's part of it or that they know if it's a real or not irate College Evans procedure so this kind of talks about wrapping everything up so it colleges will notify students of regular admissions Decisions by April 1st March and April a good time to visit now with everything going on it's really good now that you do all the virtual visits so you may not want to wait until March or April or you may wait until March or April to do those virtual visits based on schools that your student got into is another good idea to let's sit down and talk about costed fit and you can definitely bring in the counselor to talk about what's going to be the best for your family and your students we definitely like to consider you know making sure that you understand the cost and what goes into creating a college list as well so the end of that is students must submit a statement of intent to register or an sar-21 school only by May 1st we really encourage students to do this to one school cuz it is frowned upon to apply to more or two more than one or two schools because you're basically taking spot away from somebody who you know may go there are adopt their school that they want to go to on your student is just using it as play Space so just be considerate of that so the big thing on this one is the waitlisted we just want to touch base on what ways listed means and what that means for you and your student waitlisted is basically worst colleges will send out all of their acceptances and then they develop a wait list of students that maybe didn't make the cut but we're not completely denied so if there were to be open spaces of students that were accepted but they take that acceptance date then start to let students off of the waitlist and offer up those spots now that's usually done after May 1st which is when a student needs to send in their statement statement of intent to register really encourage students to think strongly about what wait-listed means in our sense of waitlisted means that pretty much as Adonai because they are not offered admission at that point so with students liking and loving their college list they should have been admitted to some other school on their list that they love just as much and the email we want them to read the thoughts to move on to a school that has accepted them and to go ahead. Decision and then submit their statement of intent to register now there are some situations where a student may be let off weight less after May 1st that they've already decided that's definitely a family decision and that can be discussed later but mostly wait-listed me and said to us it's been denied and to move turn to another school in your list that you were accepted to these are some common myths I'm going to focus on 5 6 and 7 teacher recommendations don't really count so that is a MIT teacher recommendations especially now quit being test optional Artest blind are going to be very they're going to weigh heavily in the application because these colleges are going to want to know what each student is really like so what does someone else think about that beer student so when students considering how to pick their teachers for recommendations on we've already talked to them in the senior timeline discussion and so it's really important that they pick a teacher that knows them and can give factual information to the about your student private colleges are too expensive so that is another myth lot of private colleges have a lot of extra funding in either need-based scholarships or academic Scholarships in the office stack scholarships as well so some private colleges depending on what they offer and what scholarships are available to your students can become if not the same prices in state tuition but sometimes all so don't throw private colleges out of your list just yet definitely go to their financial aid website check out what they do offer and what they can provide to your animosity there is no real. attending a community college so again this is something that would do to the pandemic and everything that's going on has become very more pronounced in real that there is an advantage of going to a community college so Dennis wanted to go away to college and get the college experience with everything going on being online going to community college for 2 years may not be that big of detrimental of a change for them since they would be online regardless so looking into a community college that can be an advantage another Advantage would be if a student didn't get into their first-choice school that they had been dreaming about going to a community college can be at next they may have a better chance of applying as a transfer after getting experience of Community College level and doing really well getting the grades that they need in all the prerequisites math so that's definitely something to consider and definitely having Community College as a backup option there's no charge to apply that there's many different programs that can help students succeed and they've put a lot of money and time into creating a program to actually help students succeed and not get stuck in the community college fear so they're really getting student not to your plan of been transferring to a 4-year College if that is the goal alright so now we are on to the Q&A and if we want go ahead and have the counselors can be looking at the questions and we can be answering those one thing I did want to mention by 4 million questions so for most schools optional testing or blind testing so what's going to be important in their criteria obviously they're going to look at the grades GPA curriculum rigor important but I might have messed Adam talk about this also is being annexed English teacher we really feel any time of school requires a personal statement like a UC school or an essay that is going to be Greenlee important this may be even more than usual this year because they have to have other ways to decide who they're going to accept so really important that I think the students put some time into these and again if they feel overwhelmed we did tell the students Miss writer is offering essay writing workshops next three Wednesdays in a row and those those Wednesday afternoon so actually the next two Wednesdays and we skip want to do another it'll be posted but the first one just going to have to start an essay so it might be a good opportunity for the seniors to go in and get some help this Adams you want to add to that at all I would concur as an instrument said I was a former English teacher at Busch Montgomery and I just in this climate I think it's really important that the students answer the prompt and answer it very well and then just make sure that they're grammar and they're equation and everything else is on point as well as having someone review their their essay or their Insight questions before actually submitting them often times you know they'll come in and asked us to review it and then you know we met read it back to the student and then the signal say that's not very good or I could probably add something here or there and so I think actually hearing it or you know just going through it again with with a a pair of eyes maybe two is extremely extremely important this year and I mention this last I forgot about I was talking about the testing he is traditionally for athletes NCAA Clearinghouse athletes cleared academically to play Division 1 division 2 Sports and traditional way is by grades and test scores escorts will not be utilized by the NCAA is part of the process and she will be strictly great but there was a question about rolling admission so it depends on the college so some schools have admission deadlines and then some some schools still so it's going to depend on what's to what school capacity or not rolling admission will be stated in Naviance under their application and then also on the school's website many schools will say that they are rolling one quick should we had from last last group was about possibly a flying with a major that's for lack of a better word a little obscure or a little less impact less competitive to get into school and switching over we would really discourage that because we're finding it's really difficult especially for impacted major to get in if you're not in the program originally another words students we was known as soon as you have done this try this I need I really want to go to the school but I know I can't get in in majorettes because that's an impact major league on another major but they're probably not going to get their nature then I can be able to switch over it's a lot more competitive out there and Miss Adams put in some of the examples of impacted majors there was a question about GTA so a student's GPA is going to be different for whatever schools at their find to based on what the school is going to be out there so the Kelsey calculate GPA differently than some of the private school it's just going to depend on each school students GPA is going to just depend on the classes that they've taken and they can talk their counselor about where they stand with their GPA and what would be good colleges for their list dismiss stable said every school can get the GPA made different little bit from school to school because of what they use like for their art schools that will use the unweighted GPA they won't that the majority schools use weighted they took honors AP classes but some schools use unweighted so it's going to very high school school parchment and transcripts and then Vista counselors actually submitting transcripts through Naviance on this is a good question in order to self reports I'm the student actually need the transcript and so they'll go through parchment actually see you there Amsterdam use it on to self report on their Cal State application their use the application basically any application once the student has finished has a completed their application I submitted it under the counselor will send their grade transcript weapons through their 6th semester which is the end of their junior year to the colleges. Need them so or that we require them witches mostly Common App schools and then the mid-year report happens on half way through the year and that usually happens in February for the Common App schools after their 7th semester grades which is finals in December that councillors will then again send their 7th semester transcript including all the previous grades to the various, knob schools so is what they use to access their current transcript so that they can self-report and then Naviance is what we'll use to send the transcript to the correct colleges on their final anytime something else that we didn't talk about in the first meeting at that keeps coming up to me is is the importance of loving the list right we recommend something from 6 to 12 school how can I bury her family in there a flying budget right every school cost money and then it gets expensive and test scores get expensive you know every every little bit it you know matters and so loving the list becomes extra important especially this year so we're talking about every single school on that list means that you are willing to go to that school I'm going to attend if you are accepted we know that you guys have provided your students with the best education you possibly can for that we are thankful you're not attending college with them so it really important that they want to go to that school so if you guys can come up with a lisp you know a compromise between all of you something that you're willing to allow them to go to but also would be proud that they graduate I think that's really important as well so loving the list and we've talked a lot about that with the students when we have this this talk back and met with them when they were doing the junior college project and we've continued two kind of hard on that idea of you know that this is very important in the schools that you put on that list the schools that you are really excited about attending there was a question about students applying for Leo Shenandoah list of nether first semester grades so no because most early action applications are due in November or December of our students don't get their grades until the end of December so they won't have that now we do send mid-year reports for early action schools and since they could be used to continue a student accepted and that maybe in their stipulate on their early action acceptance so some schools will put in parameter saying that a student needs to maintain a 3.5 or higher or they need to maintain the grades that they were assigned with from the previous Masters so it really will encourage students to maintain their craze and continue boxes that they're teaching and the rigor that they had been taking before and had chosen for the semester and set this clear so as the turn coordinator the question is would Bishop consider doing at the 80 or act testing for seniors we are having a tough time finding a location so problem that we ran into with that is that because we are in LA county a we are not at. Next year to allow students on campus would not be able to be able to offer our our area as a as a location so we have considered Scott's. However because we do not meet those requirements we are not able to offer that test location unfortunately which is why so many of the testing centers and look in LA county have the administrations in so if you are looking to do an Administration and if you do have it in your wherewithal where your budget you're able to travel to do that some students have had luck going outside of LA County been driving two different counties that are not as impacted by full bed by the time they are able to have and they are able to have any person texting and they found that kind of that loophole to you know they've they may have to drive two hours but they are they're finding a way to do unfortunately not everyone has that there's a question about going back to school in person maybe in January that is our hope we do hope to have the students in the faculty back on campus and when is it safe for everybody and we are fun doing all the guidelines including the Archdiocese of La guidelines and so our hands are kind of tied at this time you know because we're not sure what the numbers are in turn off David's increased enough to have in-person contact and so we want to make sure that it's the safest place possible we've talked about it as a team and we've talked about it I'm with you know with with other groups campus and you know the consensus is that yes we'd like to be back on campus by January but we're just not sure if that's possible as of right now Frankie Bishop Montgomery does not rank our students and we do that very specifically this was a conscious decision to protect our students most strong private schools do not ranked at this day and since he's very clearly on our school profile we do not ranked so that was a conscious decision because we have so many high and kids we going to have a really strong student with the middling Rank and that would hurt them where's that GP another school maybe a really strong so we chose not to rank and I think find pretty much any strong private College Prep High School does not right also colleges are moving away from using class ranking because of this reason so they are understanding. you have many students taking AP classes and many students with the exact same GPA that a student that is you know a 4.5 and then is ranked in the top 40th percentile because there's so many kids at the exact it's not fair so many schools are looking to move away from that late in the evening and hopefully we cover the questions if we miss any we will we will go back to the trash I can get them in thank you for coming everybody have a great evening and I guess my best advice to hang in there I know it's a little tough right now thank you all don't forget to check out the council corner from your question thank you

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