All right, guys. We're going to get started. I want to be mindful of everybody's time. Plus, the Red Sox are tied to, so go Socks. Um, so this is really our final part. It's a three-part process of the college planning. And this is really kind of the nuts and
bolts of applying for college, getting that process started and what that looks like. Um, so we're excited to kind of dive into it. So, we're going to go right ahead and get started. So, then that way we can get you guys out at a decent time to go home and get ready for school tomorrow. So,
so as you can see, we have our table of contents. We do have a welcome message. We know this is such an exciting time for seniors. It's such a big milestone for all of you. Um, it can be overwhelming, especially if this is your first child or your first time ever applying to school. It's an overwhelming
process with a lot of layers, a lot of steps, but we're here to support and guide in every way that we can. We are here to guide you and advise you. We're not here to do the application for you or tell you what schools to apply to, but we're here to advise and guide as much as possible. Okay.
So, our school counseling staff, we have Mrs. Amy Burn, and she has last names A through D AU. And then we have myself. Again, my name is Colleen Bretton and I have last names D E through J O. We have Mr. Andrew Sutterski who's up front as
well and he has last names K E to PH and then we have Mr. Goldman who has last names P I Z. Okay, that's our four counselors here and we're here to help guide you through those processes. So, getting right into the information, we do have different application
deadlines. We have about four different types. with early action, early decision, regular decision, and rolling admissions. So early action, typically that first deadline is going to be November 1st. There are a few schools that have a October 15th deadline. Um,
so those are mainly schools down south. So for example, Clemson is one of them, right? It's pretty popular school. Um, but most of the bulk of early action, at least in the New England area, is either going to be November 1st or November 15th deadlines. Early action is you're simply applying early and you're finding
out your acceptance early. Okay. Um if you're planning on doing nursing or anything in a competitive field like physical therapy, occupational therapy, a lot of those programs require an early action application. So please keep in mind with your major.
Early decision, same deadline dates, November 1st, November 15th, sometimes December 1st. The difference between early action and early decision is that early decision is a binding agreement. So if that school accepts your student, your student has to go to that school.
Um so that's not always recommended, especially if you're applying to schools that might be a little bit more financially expensive because let's say I did early um decision at Boston College and they accepted me. I now have to go to Boston College and that's quite rather expensive and a big commitment to
make without really knowing your financial aid package yet. Okay. Um, if your student is doing early decision, there is paperwork and an agreement that myself as the counselor has to fill out, the parent has to fill out, and the student has to fill out. So, those are conversations we can have privately um,
if your student is thinking about doing that, but typically we recommend the early action process or the regular decision process. So, that brings me to regular decision. Typically, that deadline is January 1st, but it can be also February 1st, February 15th. Um,
and keeping in mind with that that January 1st deadline, obviously that is New Year's Day. We are not in school that day. Um, so I typically like to recommend my students if they're applying regular decision that they have submitted that application before we leave for Christmas break. Okay? That way it's just done and you don't have to
worry about it and you can enjoy your holidays with your family. And then we also have rolling admissions. So rolling admissions means that there's no deadline. They just keep accepting students until they're full. For an example, UMass Dartmouth is rolling admissions. So, they just keep going until they're full, but don't wait too
long on that because you don't want them to fill up. Um, you know, again, we recommend if you're thinking of UMass, Dartmouth, or anywhere that is rolling, you just treat it like it's a regular decision deadline and you apply that January 1st deadline. Okay. All right. So, getting into the
application process, the first step is to decide schools and look at your deadlines. We recommend between 3 to seven schools. If you're applying to more than seven schools, that's absolutely fine. But we do like to try to keep it at 3 to seven. We see if they're applying to like 15. I've had
sometimes students apply up to like 17 schools. That's so many options. Um, at that point, it's kind of overwhelming, right? Um, so we like to say the sweet spots between 3 to 7. Obviously, each student is different and has unique situations and decisions to make. And
then you're also going to want to make sure you're organizing your deadlines. Um, hopefully you all know your earliest deadline. If not, you need to go look at that, especially if you're thinking early action and you need to meet with your school counselor if you're applying early, please. Okay.
You're going to want to gather your documents and information. So, obviously, you're going to need to know the school information, your counselor's contact information, transcript, list of activities, jobs, you know, dates and hours that you've done that. You're going to need to know
some family information, your test scores, um financial aid info, and then your personal statement, which is your college essay. And I have to say with the family information, that's where we see students if they um fill it out with us at college boot camp or they fill out common application um with us in our
office. That's where they get the most tripped up because it's very specific to the point it will ask like if your parent students parent went to college. It asks what year they graduated from college, what school, and what their degree is in. And that's typically where students get tripped up and they're like, "I don't know. Let me just text
them." I'm like, "Well, they're working. Let's maybe ask them later." Right? So, just if you can have those conversations with your students or um even better if you could help fill them help them fill it out at home, that would be great. Now, if your student is one of those students that did that section at
College Boot Camp or did it with us, we just recommend that you just overlook it and just make sure that everything's correct before they submit that part. Okay. You're going to want to make your common application account. Hopefully, many of you have already done that, but if not, I um linked it right here for you guys
to click. Um, and by the way, this workbook is on the website live and I posted it in all the Google classrooms right before we started the event today. So, it is electronic as well. Okay. Um, and you're going to want to click first year. None of you are transfer students. None of you have attended college yet.
So, you were all first year college students. Okay. Please, please, please use a personal email just because again once you graduate from Middlear High School, um, your email is going to be not active anymore. And in the event that you want to transfer at point, you can still use
your previous common application account. Okay? And also, we just want to make sure you're not missing out on any emails or anything like that. Okay? So, the first step is once you make your common application account, you're going to want to create and fill out the universal section. So, this is
like your common application profile. So, that's going to have the family information. I said it's going to have basic contact information, your testing, your activities, all of that. your personal statement, which is your essay. So, you're going to want to fill all of that out as much as you can. And then you're going to want
to go to your add colleges, which is in your my colleges section, and add all of your schools. This part's really important because oftent times students just think they're done. Once they've done the profile and added their schools, they're like, "All right, I'm done." Um, unfortunately, a lot of
schools have supplemental questions they are asking. Okay. Um, including like short answer questions. Once you add your schools, there is a um section called FURPA and recommener section. FURPA stands for your federal education rights privacy act. And that's
a fancy way of saying we can't share your transcript or letters of recommendation without the students permission because it's part of the academic record. Now, um and there's two options when we're sharing information. They can either wave their right to view it, um or wave their right like they
they don't want to view it. So, we typically say the best practice is is that you're waving to not view your letters of recommendation. Um, it's not that we don't want you to see it. It's just it doesn't look the best. It almost looks as though you're not trusting your teacher or counselor to write you a strong letter of recommendation. So,
that's just always the best practice. But, at the end of the day, it is really truly up to the student and the family and what they feel comfortable with. Um, and us counselors have no problem having individual conversations about that. Okay. Once that's been signed, you're going to start going into each college and
answering the college specific questions. Um, some schools have supplemental essays. So, for an example, UMass Amherst has quite a few short answer questions. They're only 250 words. It's not super crazy long, but I can tell you right now, UMass Amherst
asks, "Why do you want to attend this school?" Right? So, these are kind of questions if they're asking on their own separate application, they're going to read those answers. and you need to make sure you have a well thoughtout prepared answer. Um, so my recommendation is for any schools that have short answer
questions is that you're working on that in a Google doc. You know, you can label it am short answer questions, whatever, and work on it through there just because I don't always trust common enough to save the information. And I've had that happen where students are devastated because they spent hours
trying to figure out your answer question. It just didn't save. It's just not fun. And then that ensures a meltdown of course because it's stressful. So, please just work on your Google Doc, and then when you're ready to apply, you can just copy and paste everything over. Okay. Um, other questions that's going to ask is your
major. Do you plan on living on campus? Are you applying for financial aid, which should be yes, um, because it's obviously mandatory for FASA. Um, and then you just want to make sure you carefully read what's required of each school because each school's a little bit different. So, for an example,
Bridgewater State University, um, they don't require a letter of recommendations, but it's optional. So, I always say if it's optional, you should just submit the letters of recommendation anyway. There's other schools that may require only one teacher and then three optional. There's some schools that are super strict and
only want one letter of recommendation no matter what. So each school's a little different and it's important that you just kind of stay organized because we will have to work with your student to make sure that we are sending the preferred letter of recommendation. And that's definitely something we talk about when we meet individually with
your student. Once that's all done, you're going to want to request your transcripts and school forms. So this is where the website score comes into place. This is where it gets a little confusing. Common App is where your actual application is and score is how we send your documents.
That's how we send your transcript. That's how we send you a letter of recommendation. That's how we send the school profile, midyear reports, so on and so forth. So, it's just two separate websites. Um, but that's kind of where that comes into play. So, what would happen is you're going to want to
request your teachers on score. And there's actually step-by-step process later on, so we'll get to it eventually. Okay. Once that's all done, it's going to be time to pay for your applications and then review and submit. Um, if you got a fee waver for AP testing, you're most likely going to qualify for a fee
waver for applications. If you think you qualify for a fee waver, please just have an individual conversation with your school counselor. There's just some paperwork we have to do on our end. Okay. Um, and then the other thing is if you don't qualify, but you went on an admissions tour or you're going to go visit the campus, it's always a great
idea to ask if they're giving out any fee wavers. Typically, they do. Um you'll be surprised how many of them are like, "Oh yeah, of course. Here's a code." Like not strongly. Um and that would help because you know applications are expensive. They range between 60 to I've seen $90 an application. So it
definitely gets costly. And then once you pay or you use your fee waiver, whatever, it's going to have you review in a PDF document one more time. Please, please, please review it one more time just because once you submit it, you can't go back and change
things. Um, and you do not want there to be an error on your common application account. And then you click submit and you'll know you'll submit it because it's super cute. The screen that like lights up a confetti and it's like congratulations, you've applied to college. Um, so that's kind of the process on applying. It
seems a like a lot of steps, but I promise you it's not that it's hard, it's just very tedious and it's a lot of the same information being repeated over and over again. Okay. Other deadlines to keep in mind is the letter of recommendation deadlines. So, us school counselors, we have give or
take about 40 seniors each, a little bit more. Um, and we want to make sure we're writing a really good letter of recommendation that's well thought out. Um, we want to make sure we have plenty of time and we're not rushing that. So, we do politely ask for a 15 school day um advanced minimum deadline. Um, so if
you have an October 15th deadline, that technically was due September 24th. If you're in the audience and you're like, "Oh my god, I didn't submit my form yet and I have an October 15th deadline." Please do not stress. We will accept it late. Of course, we understand life happens. I know a lot of you are very
busy with working and playing sports. Um, but if you can please try to stick to that deadline as soon as you can, that would be great. Um, and just keep in mind like deadlines become sooner than you realize because we do have holidays in the mix. We have Veterans Day, we have the full PD day where the
students don't have school, um we have Columbus Day, so on and so forth. Um so that's just something to keep in mind. Um we'll go through the forms too in a little bit. They're pretty simple to do, but we just want to make sure we're leaving plenty of time so we can get your letters in on time and make sure
that they're really good. Okay, testing information. We have the SATs and the ACTs. Um we are a testing site for the November 8th um test. So anyone who's thinking of applying regular decision and you want to retake the SATs
or take them, I would definitely sign up for that November 8th. That deadline to sign up is October 24th. Okay. Um so that's coming up soon. If you feel like you want to um take the test again, like there's a December date. We're just not
a test center, but there's plenty of other schools in the area that are. For example, you could go to Kushner or you could go to Conquit or um Silver Lake might have SATs that day. It just depends on which schools are doing what dates and when you register it'll have
like the closest one available based off the zip code, which is nice. Um but MHS is a testing date for that November testing. Um if you're applying early action, um obviously that deadline, that November 1st is before the November 8th
test. So it's not always the best. you can still test. It's just not guaranteed that they're going to get those scores in time to make your the decisions. Um, other things to think about is schools are test optional. There's quite a few schools in the area that are test optional. Um, so that's a conversation
you can have privately with your student based off of their scores. We can help recommend or advise if they should send their scores or not. Um, what we're seeing right now, especially with the New England area schools with being test optional, is a lot of students aren't sending their scores unless they have
like a crazy ridiculous high score. And what's happening is that's skewing the average accepted SAT score. So, that's just something to kind of keep in mind. We also have the ACTs. We are not a test center for the ACTs. Um, the soonest date you can take that is December 13th
and the sign up deadline is November 7th. If your student is interested in taking the ACTs, just have them contact us. We can help them sign up. The biggest difference between the two is that the ACTs does have a science section specifically in biology while the SATs has no science. So, if you're
strong in science, it might be, you know, worthwhile to take the ACTs. Okay. Sending test scores. It is the students responsibility to send the officials test scores. So, in common app, there is a section where you can report your test
scores, but you still have to send the actual official test score report. That is through College Board. It's super easy to do. I've linked a YouTube video in this document. Um, so if you look at this online, you click the link, it'll give you like a quick 2-minute video on how to sign in and send those. But that
is the student's responsibility. Us counselors are not responsible for sending official test scores. It's like the one thing we don't send. Okay. Other important information, this just has the school address, the phone number, um the dates attended, as long as you are not a
transfer student, right? You didn't go to BP or you didn't come from a different high school. It has that on there. Has graduating class size, and the CEB code. It also has each school counselor's full name, their role, their phone extension, and their email
address, too, just in case you need it. Teacher recommendation request. So, like I said, we send all that through SCORE. You need to request your teachers through SCORE. So, typically we advise that students ask two academic teachers, preferably someone they had their junior
year um or someone sometimes it happens they'll have them sophomore and junior year or two years in a row for an elective and a main academic course. That's always nice too. Um we're recommending if you have not asked teachers, please ask them soon because they are getting really busy and some teachers will cap. Some teachers will
say, "I'm only taking 20." the first 20 students that ask me. So, we want to make sure that you get the teacher teach teacher that you prefer to ask. Um, we always advise that you have an in-person conversation with them and then follow up with an email. So, you have a conversation with them. Goes great. You fill out the form that's required and
then you can email them be like, "Thank you again so much for agreeing to write my letter of recommendation. Here's my information sheet. As a friendly reminder, my first deadline is November 15th." Right? Um, it's just always good to follow up with an email, too, to keep yourself organized and help keep the
teachers organized, too. Um, and like I said, you will request them through score, those step-by-step instructions. It's super easy to do. If you get stuck on it, just come see your school counselor. We can help you, no problem. Okay, so that brings us to um how do we access
the letter recommendation info sheets? Um, we did this a little bit different this year compared to other years. So, if you haven't, you know, if you've had another child do this process, it is a little bit different this year. We've decided to go ahead and create Google Classroom. So, all of you should be in some type of college application help
with Google Classroom. And then when you go into assignments, there's the info sheet for teacher and the info sheet for counselor as well as the activity sheet. And it should already be like created as your own copy. So, literally all the students are doing is clicking on it and
then they're clicking open in Google Docs. We are well aware it says in bold letters on the form do not do in Google Docs. Please ignore that. We apologize for that confusion. Um it was originally a word document and we are having some hard times trying to transfer everything over. It was like you either deleted the
whole paragraph or you just kept that in there. So we just had to keep it in this year. We'll reformat again next year. But it is through Google Docs which is I think just much easier. That's what our students have learned to use throughout their high school career. And it just automatically saves everything which is great. Okay.
And the Google classroom is a great resource too because that's where we post like a lot of our information stuff. Um if we have events, for example, we posted that we having this event tonight, right? So um definitely after even you're done applying, I would still check that Google Classroom every time there's a notification when one of
us posts financial aid. I'm not going to get super into this because we just heard from Al about financial aid. This just has the super basics which is that it's open now. You should be creating your FSA ID. Um, and you should be gathering your documents that you need. Okay? Um,
and you want to make sure you have your FASA done around the same time as your deadline. It just helps the process. I can't tell you how many times I'll have a student like wait to do the FASA and like what are you doing? Like your school needs that information to help make an informed decision. Um, so please
just your goal should be to be done with the FASA around the same time as your first deadline. We recognize things can be hard. It can be hard trying to get some information from some family members or parents or whatever, but just try your best with that.
And then last but not least, our last two pages. We have two save the dates. We're doing an instant decision day for two schools. One of them is Bridgewater State University. That's going to be Friday, November 14th. You have to sign up by October 20th. Um you can sign up
using the QR code or clicking the forms link. This is really nice because you can um you meet with a admissions representative from Bridgewater State University. You have a short about 10 minute interview um and then they make a decision on the spot if they want to accept you or put you on a wait list or
whatever they decide. This is really nice cuz then you have peace of mind. Um you have a decision right then and there. There's no waiting around. Um it's just like a really nice event that we put on. So definitely if you're interested in BSU, I recommend that you do that. And the biggest thing is if you
do the instant decision day, you get your application for free. Like there's no paying for your application, which is huge. That's saving you I think BSU is like $55 or $60. So that's expensive. So that's a great way to save some money, too. And then same thing with UMass
Dartmouth. That's going to be Tuesday, November 18th. Again, there's a QR code, very similar process. You're going to be meeting with an admissions rep. It's going to be an interview. and then they will decide on the spot if they are going to accept your student or not. Again, a great thing especially for
student interviews while where it's very personable. It's just a good um event that we do. So, we've had like a really good turnout in years past. So, we're excited to be offering those two events and it's during the school day which is nice. Um so, we'll work with your student. We'll make sure they know their appointment time and we'll check in with
them prior to that day, make sure that they feel supported and they have everything they need. The biggest thing is both those applications need to be submitted before that day. And I'm not talking about like 9:00 the night prior, like a few days before that date. That way the admissions rep can pull the
application information. And then last but not least is just a senior to-do list. I started doing this with my students, I think last year. It's just a good way to keep yourself organized because there's a lot of moving pieces and everybody gets confused. Everyone's like, "What's on score? What's on common app? What should
I be doing?" Right? So, it's just a way to keep organized and just kind of start the process. Again, we recognize that this can be an overwhelming process. There's a lot of layers to it. There's a lot of things to do, but we are here to guide your child um in every way that we can. Um we we are taking individual
appointments. I know Mr. Swordski literally just emailed his seniors today saying if you have a November deadline, you need to sign up to slot with me. So, if anyone has Mr. Swordski, check your school email, please. I also plan on doing the same thing. He just needs to train me on how to open my calendar
because like the way and Mrs. Burn did it today too. So I I'm just a little late to the game. But um so you can like for Mrs. Burn and Mr. Soreski's students um it's like a calendar link that you open and then you can see his calendar and you're just going to book a slot. I
will get that sent out to my students tomorrow. So I apologize for the delay in that. Um but regardless, even if you feel like you're supported and you have everything lined up, please just set up a time to meet. We just want to double check and make sure we're checking in with all of our students and that we have everything organized and ready to
go. Okay. Does anyone have any questions? I know that was a lot and that was very fast. So, yes. So, for students that did the college, um, how much
I know they did the but I was just curious like would they have done the teacher recommendation you already. Yeah, that's a great question. So, if you didn't hear her, her question is for students that did the college boot camp, how much have they gotten done? They
should have gotten done the whole profile section of the common app and their essay. As far as requesting teachers in the score for letters of recommendation, probably not done because they still had to ask their teachers and at the time that was in the summer. There were some students that were like, well, I asked in June before
we left. So, there are other students that have a time, but typically that's something you do in the fall. Um, so definitely check in with your student, make sure they've asked their teachers, please, because like I said, that's getting really busy and we just don't want to be on a time crunch with that.
Any other questions? Okay. Well, myself, Mr. Sosi, and Miss Burn will be around just for a little bit if you'd rather ask us individually. Um, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy nights for this event, and we hope it was helpful. Have a great night. Drive safe.
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