##VIDEO ID:F2Vzqq3akiU## okay good evening everyone thank you so much for coming here in person and for all of you watching from home uh I am Marlene gud I'm one of the counselors here at kenalan high school and I with my colleagues uh am here tonight to present a little bit of information about the planning of the College Planning process or the postsecondary planning process process for the class of 2026 so before we get into the nuts and bolts of things I would like to introduce my colleagues my esteemed colleagues uh Mrs Lauren Biggins Mrs Jolene strs Marlene goodro yours truly and our uh supervisor of student services is Mrs Dena davidman and Mrs Jacqueline aano is our admin ative assistant so we all welcome you uh we appreciate you being here with us tonight U oh yes please yes how you they will be up later uh so for the what we're going to be covering tonight are the 11th grade tasks and please don't be concerned you don't have to have all of this memorized at once you know this is this is sort of just the beginning of the journey beginning of the process we will be be talking about researching colleges and developing a preliminary list visiting colleges whether virtually or in person standardized tests requesting letters of recommendation uh from teachers uh drafting essays updating a resume uh returning certain forms that we ask for the teacher Rec recommendation and the counselor recommendation forms we these are things that we ask of your students so that we can incorporate some details into our letters for them uh completing the applications online which doesn't start until August 1st of 2025 that's the first time it's open so we're starting well ahead of the game uh completing FAFSA the free application for federal student aid in senior year uh which is now uh a New Jersey state requirement for GR graduation so that's a new thing and then there is also a junior checklist we are going to post these slides so all of the links in here you will be able to access uh Pro sometime tomorrow so those are the just a few little things we'll be covering tonight um now admissions decisions are typically made uh you except for the huge huge schools which look primarily at GP a and test scores College admissions offices look at a holistic review so they're looking at all the different pieces of the puzzle the level of rigor on the transcript uh the grades in the college prep courses the standardized test scores letters of recommendation the essay it is huge be because that's a chance for your student to really showcase themselves and you know give them give the uh evaluator a sense of who they are uh they look at also activities special talents and then of course a demonstration of interest in that institution you know for example have they visited there have they reached out uh so demonstration of interest is also important now navian uh now some of you who have older students might be familiar with navian it is a platform it's our College and Career search platform that we use to help students initially to do their research on colleges to see how their uh their statistics match up with other kelon students who have been accepted to certain schools um it's just a great research tool we have codes for your students to log in it's a totally free service to families and students and it's a great opportunity to explore colleges at more leisurely rate and also to um look at career assessments self-discovery I know I talk to many students who say oh gosh I I really don't know what I want to do I'm not sure what I want to study well the the research career clusters and the career inventories can be really helpful and sort of starting to point them in a direction uh this is just a little snapshot of navian so when for example Elon University when you pull up a certain College it will give you sort of a a profile page of that college uh with some basic information about average net price the acceptance rate uh the the next deadline the application deadline and it is a very helpful tool just to kind of and I think where we're going to be going next because I know we just updated these slides so when you go oh no May guess not okay but there is another piece in here when you click on admissions where you're actually able to look at where your student falls statistically as far as GPA and test scores of compared to other kelon students who've been accepted to that college so it isn't even just National averages it's actually Kinnelon averages so it is much more specific information and can be much more informative and and targeted and that's something that we will show you uh and your students in our College meetings which we will talk about later we are going to be offering an individual meeting for each student uh and parent who would like one over the course of December and January so these these are things that we'll get to cover individually as well so finding your fit uh the academic and testing admission fit is determined by the college you know it's important for students to look at you know do my scores and grades fit the school profile do I look like I'm in the range uh the social and academic fit is determined by the student you know do they have the major you want your interest your social life these are all things that a student kind of really gets to know once they visit the campus or perhaps talk to a representative to see if it's really someplace they could see themselves that they could visualize themselves being happy and then the financial fit definitely determined by the family and the student uh you know can can you afford the school consider the hidden costs what kind of Aid can we expect to get and there will be eventually more financial aid information available uh as as it gets closer to uh when your your student is applying but we do have a financial aid Workshop that was just done last week uh it a webinar that is on our website so if you wanted to just take a look at that it was uh we held it November 13th so but more to come on that now structuring your college list uh we we recommend that students have a range on their their list of schools we don't want to have all reach schools the most competitive ones we don't want to have all Targets we don't want all likelies we want a nice little range that kind of gives students most of their of their choices in the target range but then okay to have some well safeties they used to call them we say likelies now and reaches as well um now the now for you to be like most likely accepted the GPA and test scores are above the average admitted student the target schools GPA and test scores are a close match to the average admitted student so it's a 5050 chance and a reach school would be your GPA and test scores are below the average uh but some schools have such a low acceptance rate that they are considered a reach for many students you know such as the IVs for example um on average an applica number of applications generally what we see are about 8 to 10 schools sometimes more and uh usually two to four in each category likely Target in reach you want to just have a range so that and a range of schools that any one of them your child would be happy going to and then the admission plans the admission plans that colleges abide by are first we're talking about deadlines essentially there is regular decision regular decision application deadlines are typically uh I'd say maybe January 1 February 1 March 1st they're later on in the school year and of course they're non-binding doesn't if you get accepted they great you're not bound to attend there rolling admission is first come first sered so the sooner you get your application in the sooner you'll hear back usually it's within about a month or so maybe even sooner uh depending on what time of year you're submitting it also non-binding early action deadlines are typically November 1st or November 15th and they are uh also non-binding but students get to find out the admissions decisions earlier so let's say you apply early action November 1st November 15th you're typically going to hear back somewhere between the middle of December to the middle of January um and then there is also single Choice restrictive early action they like to kind of was that Princeton that does that yes that was a Princeton thing where they only let you apply early action to their school so but that's up to you it is just another category of deadline that you could do if if you so choose now early decision is a binding agreement that means that if your child applies to applies early decision it's it's a decision that you you know the family agrees to the counselor signs off on it and if your child gets in then they are expected to attend that school um you are still able to get a little bit of a window into the financial aid that you could expect from that school so it's not as though you you have no information on that front but it is a binding agreement so it's important to really everybody sit down talk about it make sure that it's the right decision uh for your family and once a student is accepted to their early decision school then they are uh encouraged and and expected to withdraw their applications from the other colleges uh because they have committed to that early decision school and let's see that on that admission ticket I am going to turn it over to Mrs strs who will talk about college visits thank you Mrs goodro no problem okay so college visits our school we allow our students to have three excus visitations so that could be during their junior year as well as during their senior year we have a note in our office that you would have someone at the college to sign off on or you could get a letter from that specific College on their letter head just you know with proof that you were there visiting um try to utilize days off Spring break or summer as times to visit Vis it these could be college tours a lot of colleges also offer open houses there's a little bit of a difference between the two of those uh a campus tour that's more personalized and is usually only 60 Minutes to like 90 minutes long whereas an open house it's usually a weekend they tend to do them in the fall as well as in the spring and it's a whole day there might be activities you'll have Greek life tables you'll have maybe like some of the professors there so you can have a meet and greet and kind of get to know make sure colleges that you're interested in that they definitely sign um sign up for like their mailing list because again going back to what Miss what Miss GD had said earlier it's showing that you're interested in that school um start researching the open house dates I just said that and register events through the admissions website as well and make a good impression dress to impress kind of a thing business casual I would say um this is a hyperlink to for campus visit checklists St and don'ts standardized testing all of our 10th graders and our Juniors they took the PSATs this past October scores are in review that PSAT score report it kind of breaks down each part of the math section and the language arts section to show where their strengths are so if you do want to have any type of sat or ACT prep you kind of know what areas to focus on uh the remaining test dates are December 7th March 8th May 3rd and June 7th I did meet with a junior earlier and she had said they took the PSAT last year they did better this time around and there was more material on there that they were comfortable with so when you wait kind of towards the spring you're introduced to that material that content more in class so they met they might be better prepared for that and you could register through that through the College Board um Act remaining test dates are December 14th the 8th April 5th June 14th and July 12th the biggest difference between those two is the act does have an essay portion so if you're not that great at multiple choice like myself taking an essay you know an essay portion it gives you um you know just a different opportunity to test schools are test optional now not all but many colleges and universities have moved to a test optional meaning you have the choice whether you want to send your act or your SAT scores some schools do a blind test where your tests are submitted but they don't look at them upon your admission and be sure to check their testing policies for the next admission cycle the 20125 to 26 cycle because it can change year to year majors and careers it is okay to be undecided um there are many colleges that have programs for students that are undecided they could go in and start taking a lot of their core classes their English classes their mandatory math classes but also they could have a support network there where they have extra counselors that kind of help navigate what the best choice for them is too and utilizing that search in navian will really help them as well some Majors may have a separate deadline and requirements some are more selective programs like medicine PT and nursing and architecture so those might also have another component as well we talked about the essay briefly we're going to go into it a little bit more as well but um sometimes the Common App that have certain set of questions each individual College might have a separate thing that you would have to write as well for these select programs some Majors have additional components like music and theater there might be auditions and art there might be a portfolio letters of recommendation colleges typically require two teachers of letter uh recommendation from teachers and one from a counselor we always provide our students as counselors they don't even have to ask it's just something we automatically do every college is different so make sure you look at those admission requirements per college some will say they only want one some will even say up to four consider teachers whom your kid has known for a while and maybe developed a really good relationship especially if you want to go into let's say like an Allied Health or Health Care maybe ask one your science teachers or if they were part of the Allied uh Health Care Program here utilize those teachers um you must make a verbal request and complete uh and complete the teacher recommendation request form so first we do have a form that you're all going to get in our little meetings that we're going to be doing over the next two months and in there we ask that the the student fills it out verbally asks the teacher between now and June they have until and then once in navian it's also an extra request that they would have to do in there because that just signals to the teacher that it's connected and then they could upload uh their letter of recommendation to navian and counselors we send their requested letter of recomend we send everything out for them all right more Junior forms important forms for your counselor the brag sheets that's a sheet of paper that or I should say multiple sheets of paper that the student fills out and gets the brag about themselves what information do you want us to put in on that letter for you there's also a parent input form as well so what you have to say about your child matters too so now is your time to brag about your kid um and also the activity form um any activities clubs Sports we want to know about it in that form it must be turned in before we could begin writing your letter uh and keep a copy for yourself as well we can make that copy for them and if there's any updates so let's say your child hands everything in in May and if there's changes comes spring maybe they were made captain of something that they weren't aware of before or they made Honor Society that wasn't on their list before just let us know is very easy to tweak our essays and we ask that the due date for that is June 1st that way we could get ahead Head Start over the summer submitting your applications this is the common application opens August 1st this is where thousands of colleges participate and in there you could list I mentioned the activities list for us you could list up to 10 activities in there numbers really don't matter it's more so the quality what clubs did you really invest your time in and not just to add something else to your list so think about those activities that you know you really put your heart and soul into uh the Common App essay is a 650w Max um Lauren's going to talk more about that in a little bit and like I mentioned before certain colleges might have a extra writing piece as well um and other ones that are there are certain colleges that may not be on the Common App that is a direct institution and that is on those individual colleges websites you'll sign in through a portal and then you would enter in your counselor's information we have to sign into the portal and then we could upload information that way I believe my portion is now over and I'm going to turn it over to Mrs bigin okay the ongoing joke is that I'm too short to be over the monitor so um and I take that very willingly um so um thank you guys so much for being here um the first thing I like to say is take a deep breath I promise we're going to get through this together um so I'm going to start by talking about the college essay so college essay is probably one of the more difficult parts of the Common App or the applications we just talked about the application um a lot of the students um it's like yes or no questions demographics it's very simple um it's cumbersome it's large but the essay is really where the students have the most flexibility that's where really there's no right or wrong answer I mean let's be honest there's probably a wrong answer but for the most part it's where they can show the colors that make up the students you know personality so it's one of the only places where they really can show their own voice show the things that they're passionate about or talk about something that's not represented anywhere else in the application so the college essay on the Common App is 650 words and they do have set prompts that have stayed m mostly the same over the last about 5 years um so we suggest looking at the questions and prompts that are presented and try to answer the question to the best of your ability the last prompt that they've had for the last couple years is write about anything you want so that's sometimes almost too open-ended for our students so I do suggest trying to answer the prompt that's presented you want to make sure that the prompt that you choose and the essay that you write um does answer the question you don't want to pick a prompt and then go totally on a on a different planet with that you want to make sure you're answering the prompt you want to edit and re-edit we don't want any grammatical errors we don't want anything that looks um not not polished unpolished we want it to look really nice um most of the time our students are working with their English teachers the beginning of senior year sometimes the end of junior year um to work on that um with them they're very um proficient at it they've been doing it for years they really I've had I had one student particular this year who just didn't know where they were going with their essay and I didn't really have the heart to to rip it apart and kind of go there and I sent him to their English teacher I don't know how she did it but she made it such a magical essay and finally found the students voice of what they were trying to say so please use us as resources for that the essay does take time so don't rush it again the common app opens in August so you can start working on that prompt in the summer a lot of students do like to use that time so they're not rushed so that when they return the beginning of the their senior year in the fall they don't have to worry about an additional essay on top of their schoolwork um you can look at their most recent prompts um they're attached or you can look on Common App as well next is building your resume so the Common App does allow you to have 10 slots for activities um sometimes students that run out of room will put some of their maybe Awards or honor societies under the award section so there's about 15 if you really finagle it well um but again it's not about the quantity you don't need to fill every spot it's about the quality student uh schools know when you're just filling it with fluff you know if it's like one thing that you did one hour for one day in the last four years it's worth putting on but it's not if you're just trying to get to the 10 um if it was a worthy thing let's highlight it but they'd rather see about the experiences and responsibilities that they've built upon in the last four years they want to see maybe five things that they're really really invested in not 10 really small minute things that have been once you know oneand done kind of situation um the Common App does allow you and colleges like to see things that are not just Sports and clubs they like to see community service um they also like to talk about Hobbies home responsibilities I don't like to dismiss that and a lot of colleges have moved to a more Equitable situation where they're reviewing students holistically some students have to take care of family members or help with a family business or Care for Animals and they do allow you to input that into the Common App and ask about how many hours of time each activity including a home responsibility takes so do not undervalue anything you or your student does um this is a place to shine and talk about all the great things that your student is doing um many schools have moved away from the resume but there are some colleges that leave it open to upload an a resume and if you are looking at some highly selective schools they do request you to do an interview and it's always very um professional looking when students bring a res resum that is um completed and Polished to their um interview with an alumni or college representative special talents and unique experiences so athletes um you know it's in my opinion athletes have it harder and easier at the same time um because now we're not only looking at the fit of the school academically socially you're now looking athletically am I going to play on the team do I like the coach so there's a whole another layer of decision making there for students um as a junior we do recommend that you register with the NCAA um you know depending on the division and the recruitment some students are already getting you know offers maybe verbal offers um some students are self-recruiting they're putting themselves out there reaching out to coaches um but we do recommend that you're on the NCAA registered no matter what and you fill out the perspective athlete questionnaire um there is a guide I mean again the NCAA College Bound athlete is its own ball game I mean it's it's a very um specific process um that we work together with our athletic director on um but I would recommend anyone that's thinking about that route even if you're unsure to review the um athletic requirements and protocol for that artists um performers a lot of schools you know are looking at your ability to do well in school but they also want to make sure that they're taking an actor into the program that can act I mean it's not going to be helpful if you have a perfect sat and you can't remember your lines so they do have some portfolio requirements they do ask for um and that includes you know artists as well they want portfolios they want auditions those also unfortunately the colleges haven't found a way to streamline the process and ask for the consistent amount of stuff um I had one student I'm working with on a portfolio this year one college is asking for 10 pieces another college is asking for five so I do recommend that if you are thinking of an Avenue and terms of artistry or you know performance um vocal or you know a musician in terms of instrumental um make sure you're checking with the colleges and keeping a very concise spreadsheet in terms of what the um colleges are requesting for applications and that's on top of the regular admission material and again we we will walk you through this you know we talked about we've kind of glazed over it a little bit but we will be meeting individually with each student and parent to go over this on a case-by Case basis so presenting yourself so um one of the little things i' like to mention is I did used to work in admissions so I'm very passionate about the admissions process um and one of the things is presenting yourself um and we tell students this and I think that they think we're not you know being serious or they like oh what are the chances but we do ask that the students clean up their social media I mean we live in an age where students have social media and that's okay we're not saying to get rid of it we're not saying to delete it but make sure it's clean make sure it's appropriate um because colleges do look look I mean when I was in admissions there were students that we were maybe on the fence about and I'm going to be honest I did Google some students and there were times where I found stuff that I was like is this the kid we want on campus so it is important to maintain a professional and we're not saying you can't have experience a teenage experience but make sure it's a professional at least appropriate social media prep um presence one thing I will say is some students have actually moved to using social media as a way to enhance their application if they're very passionate in a certain area maybe Sports maybe theatrical maybe they have a hobby that they have a you know a channel on um some colleges allow students to upload what they consider you know their um you know Instagram um username or their your story um so there is sometimes a nice way to like you know hone that into a positive Avenue but again we just want to make sure your privacy is correct the professionalism correct same with email addresses one of my favorite stories is working in admissions I would get emails and some of them were like very interesting email addresses um you know some of them were very sloppy and it was like is this the student that this is how they're presenting themselves you know like vulgar inappropriate email addresses so I do recommend that students if they're going to use an email address that's not their school email address make a specific one for colleges that has maybe just their General name not like music girl 555 like make it look polished right because this is college we're talking about career so um we do also say Google search yourself keep your communication formal with any um colleges and that goes also for um you know text messages and voicemail um colleges do call students on time to time from time to time they do text so making sure your voice message is also appropriate is is is important that's my little spiel about that I'm sorry um so other post High School options you'll notice that we called this really a post-secondary planning postsecondary um you know meeting tonight because we also respect that not every student is College Bound by choice you know um College isn't the choice for everyone um and we really equally value all of the other avenues including military trade employment students taking a gap year a travel year um our goal really is to align the students with whatever goal they have for themselves and that might be trade and that might be vocational but um sometimes students get feeling they feel a little dismissed if they keep seeing College College college and that's not the Avenue that they're sure or would like to take so um I just want to reassure anyone that's thinking about those avenues that we are here we do have a vocational um program we have lots of trade schools that we have in our um back pocket in terms of like recommendations um and you know it's something that our goal again is to make sure every student has a plan for after they graduate high school it's not um always pushing College because again and that's not you know where all of our students can go or want to go you know so it's a caseby case basis as I said many times so um again so right now we're g to take some questions but I do want to say again we will be sending out invitations to meet with you and your student on an individual basis um I want you to be rest assured that we will walk you through the process some students have older siblings that have gone through this process and the parents are like I could do this presentation I get that um but some students need more handholding they're like can you help me with this can you sit with me and go over every question on the Common App we're here to help with whatever level of assistance you need um we really want you to feel confident and feel supported through this process um one of the things I do want to mention is I want to say what I think 80 or 90% of our students have already applied right now as seniors so this time next year you hopefully will be mostly done and have you know a nice big sigh of relief that the applications are at least out there and um it's going to be a fun ride but we're here with you for the whole thing all right thank you any qu and at this point I would love to answer any questions because I'm very chatty and had my coffee before this meeting so let's go sorry sure you want to take this go ahead sure yeah I'll I'll just U for those of you at home uh the question was where is this when and where is this presentation going to be posted uh we're going to uh ask our staff to post it on uh the website so the uh the counseling page of the website if you want to email us too we could email we could always send it to you as well yes and most of the documents we give our yes a lot of yes exactly the things that we have talked about we have all of this covered uh in the meeting with and you'll have a whole folder of goodies to take away with you yes you it's it's an excellent question that came from the the governor's office uh that this was something that we first saw uh they were thinking about in in Spring of this year and then it I honestly wish I had a better answer for you than the government the the governor told us we have to do this we we don't really know yet so uh but it's it's it's a thing now so that's true and it might change that you know how these things happen they say oh this is what we're doing for the next two years and then there's a change we've heard ofer process we we have yes we have heard of a waiver process that districts can wave out of that but I that's that discussion is at higher levels way above my pay grade so um but our Administration is looking at that and we'll certainly follow up with them because obviously there are questions U early decision deadlines are typically uh November 1st or November 15th however there are some schools particularly in the South that have an earlier deadline of October 15th that's senior year senior Year yes typ typically October is the earliest because once we once we roll over to the new school year in in the system we have to make sure that the transcripts are all correct that everything is been calculated properly so we don't want to just send out transcripts until we've made sure that that everything looks looks right and in a rollover every year you know how that can be so we we take extra care and making sure that that's accurate any other questions yes yes that's the the Cs uh the question was about the CSS profile uh in addition to the FAFSA and the CSS profile is for it's it's an additional I kind of call it like almost like the private school FAFSA but it it's it's an additional uh application to fill out uh which gets a bit more granular in the questions that they're asking it goes through college board not every College participates in it the there are quite a few who do but that would actually you would submit that through college board because they're the I guess parent company if you will that um showcase the CSS profile did you want to share more about CSS I think that typically they're asking for additional financial information more than the FASA it provides because they have so much endowment at those private schools they're usually more expensive so they have more of the private funds to allocate so they're asking for additional financial information like specifics that the fast fasta does not so it's um but again again like the faf FAFSA there might be a waiver process that they have but there's a very small select amount of students uh schools that require the CSS and they're typically private and more expensive to begin with because of the cost they're looking for more guidance in terms of where to allocate a lot of that endowment does that make sense yeah yeah um it's not necessarily it can be but I feel like it's more um I think they're looking for need based you know in terms of like um where the funds are but Merit typically is it's independent of CSS typically yes typically and's CS yeah you have to P which it seems counter intuitive to have to pay for free money I know I know and um again it's owned by col college board and not every school requests it so you'd have to check Case by case on ter of the school anyone else sure so you know I always joke that they yeah it's okay so there's so many terms and and I joke that they couldn't have named them a little differently so College Board is the organization that owns sat PSAT and CSS profile they also own AP testing so they do kind of have this you know like I always say like the evil empire like they have this like huge branch of everything they have like a they don't own act so they're a company like they're like the company that owns and house quite a few standardized testing and CSS profile they do also have some resources on their website in terms of like college search you know information um but then common app is a totally separate entity in terms of the website So Co College Board common app is its own website and it's a universal application for like most schools are on there I think over a thousand so there's only a handful that are not at this point so you would have to create an account for both of them separately you know to access them does that answer your question okay I know I they wish they could have picked different names anyone else I'll close it out well we we greatly appreciate you coming out tonight especially on this uh rainy night where it probably would have been nice to be you know cozying up on your couch uh but we greatly appreciate you being here and we look forward to sending out the invitations to set up meetings uh both to you here and to you at home and uh please please reach out to us uh you know on the slides we certainly have our email addresses there and we'll be happy to help you through this journey and uh we look forward to walking it with you so yes oh yes and we thank uh Matt Miller who is handling our uh yes who just our live stream thank you thank you everybody who's tuned in at home and we look forward to uh to seeing you in college land so you take care everybody get home safely