perspective um as well as kind of that UMass campus versus a State University campus as well so College what's about and why it matters so there's multiple different reasons why students attend college um the basis of it is that hopefully
eventually it's to increase your job prospects and your job outcomes so that that way you're able to earn a higher salary down the line so the reason why most people are attending college are for the job and financial successes um that hopefully come with obtaining a
degree either at the four-year 2-year or graduate level programs what college also allows is for students to become more independent so once you are in the college system once you're 18 plus uh you are considered an adult and so therefore everything does go through the
student unless the student signs away those rights so as a parent if you call asking for your students grades or students billing um that can only released to the parent if the student has signed a furo request which essentially waves their rights to those privacy documents and allows the parent
access to them so the real really the idea is that we are going to make the student become more independent while they're in college and it also allows them to discover passions that they might not have known previously in high school they're taking kind of very cized subjects so English math science foreign
languages but when you get to college you might have to take a Humanities class or you might have to take a philosophy class or you might have to take a science class class but it might not be biology it might be looking at botney um so it really allows students to really explore different areas and different content areas that they may
not have the exposure to at the high school level um I know for me when I started in college I was English secondary Ed thought I was going to be an English teacher and for my education program they really really wanted you to take public speaking which was like probably the worst class that I could
ever possibly picture myself taking um but I took it because it was preferred and I loved communication after that so I ended up not becoming an education minor did not do my student teaching but did graduate with a communication degree in a program that I had never had any
exposure to prior to having to take the public speaking class for the education program I was enrolled in so it really does allow for you to explore different areas based off the courses that you might be exposed to in college there's also a lot of opportunity for not just
courses but the opportunities for sports clubs volunteer opportunities to really get to know yourself in a different way I am always very much a proponent of being involved in college I was a commuter student when I was in college and so going into it I knew I had to be
very involved if I really wanted that campus atmosphere to really feel like I was part of a Campus Community a school that was predominantly resident and for me it really came down especially to the volunteer opportunities um I went to Stonehill from my undergrad I went to Bridge State from my masters so very
different schools fantastic programs of both I always say I'm biased towards both um because I had such positive experiences but for me it was really the volunteer opportunities um so one of them I'm still involved with today over 10 years later and I also had the
opportunity to travel um throughout the US for service trips during my spring break uh and it really opened my eyes to um social injustice and different levels of poverty right within the United States and what different organizations are doing about it in terms of clubs and
sports um if that's more of a student's passion most schools will have intermural sports that anyone can participate in and then they also have the divisional Level Sports so sports are available from the community college level all the way up to the D1 schools like BC and Buu some of those schools is
a try out process it is a recruitment process typically um D3 and under typically no athletic scholarships if you're thinking athletic scholarships that's usually at the D1 level so to kind of temper the expectations of scholarships tied to Athletics depending
kind of on the division that you're looking at and clubs there's always a wide range of clubs that's everything from newspaper to English society to like the anime club um there's always clubs kind of popping up based off of student interest areas so I know like
when I was in school like they had just started like the K-pop Club because that was a big thing at the time um and so as long as you have a group of students who have a similar interest area you have that ability to create your own club so College also gives that opportunity for
leadership as well so St becoming a tour guide becoming an orientation leader taking ownership of a club being involved in student government so it's not just about you know exploring who you are as a person but it's also gaining those independent skills and that ability to advocate for
yourself in terms for one second sorry Ashley I think it's really important I love that slide because um I think one of the things that can be translated is these are the things as sophomores and and freshman that we really want to see the students doing here at the high school right because you know getting
involved getting um you know Finding kind of their passion within the clubs of the sports or even the courses um the direction so we're trying to build on that and I know that the uh the colleges are looking for that as well so you know this is really time as parents where you
can probably more easily encourage that they gain in in take part in in things at high school than you can when they're at College doing their own thing so I like how that kind of ties especially for this group that we're targeting so this slide is just to kind
of give you an idea of what it means for education so essentially the higher education level the higher the median income there is um so maybe you have a student whose school is not their favorite thing um I have siblings where school is not their favorite thing but it is tied to earnings longterm and and
so maybe they are not going to be a professional student maybe they're not going for a doctor degree but maybe they do want to go for an associates and associates 2year degree is a little bit less intimidating than four or six years in school and so it still increases their earning potential to have that
two-year degree and if they are taking something like engineering technology paralal studies dental hygiene nursing those can earn very strong salaries with just the associates level degree some career paths do require graduate or doctoral level so that would be anything
from nurse practitioner to physical therapist even the athletic trainer now that's a graduate level program um Social Work teachers all those programs um do require Master's level or higher so depending on what they're looking at for a career it could mean looking at
that six plus years of postgraduate schooling and to just be aware of that I know in high school that can seem really scary and daunting to take on that many more years of school uh but I always say college moves really fit fast uh you don't realize how fast it moves until you're in it and so maybe it will feel
less scary then but depending on some students career paths and where they want to go for a career they should be thinking minimum bachelor's if not Master's or graduate level degree but students who maybe aren't quite sure where they want to go or what type of career track they want to be in an Associates program at Community College
is a really great way to start because of the cost components um so right now Community College is free for students as long as they can file a FAA and have Massachusetts residency and take a minimum two classes a semester so we tie very few stipulations to that program and it allow students to really start
exploring you know where they might want to go for a career but also allows them to take some of the core General classes that required pretty much regardless of program so we can line them up with English composition one and two their science requirement their history requirement their math requirement so we can line all those courses up for them
and get them started on the associates track or maybe they've taken now a criminal justice class and they want to transfer over to Bridgewater and take a victimology concentration we can line them up for the transfer there as well so students who maybe aren't as strong in school aren't quite sure where they want to start um Community College is a
great place for them to start to kind of get their bearings in college but also understanding the higher their degree attainment the higher their long-term earning potentials as well so we have a few different types of colleges and universities um so we have public versus private so that's
typically the biggest differentiation so public would be anything in the UMass system UNH URI Yukon eain Sunni um those are all public schools that are in different systems private would be your BCS your buus your North Easterns your
yalees um private doesn't necessarily mean division one or Ivy private is um like Cur college or Nicholls College Providence College so it is pretty much anything that isn't state run and get State funding so they do all their own
own funding internally they're a private school they can kind of set their own curriculums they don't have as much oversight by the state there's also four profit schools that would be like your University of Phoenix so we tend to encourage students to go more towards the public and private schools we want
them to have a regional accreditation for the credits to transfer some of the for-profit ones do some of them don't um so we tend to encourage the publics and the privates as opposed to the for-profit schools a lot of the schools the difference is a baloria versus an associate degree as well so Borat school
would be anyone who has the minimum fouryear degree the associates degree would typically be a community college most community colleges only award the two-year associate degree programs the borates honor minimum fouryear so some of them may offer doctoral or graduate
level programs as well but if they're Balor school they do offer minimum bachelor's level degree liberal arts schools are those that kind of are a little bit more well-rounded they don't really have a specialty area they have a wide variety of programs so students who are lesser where they want to study or
what major they want liberal arts is a really great option so that would be like Wheaten Stonehill Holy Cross um those are all liberal art private schools on the side of the public that would be like Mass College of liberal arts and North Adams um or even like a
Bridgewater State a Worcester State they offer a wide variety of programs again community colleges twoyear programs and certificate programs but you can also transfer your credits to the fouryear schools for the bachelor's degree as well so in this area that would be like NASA soyat Bristol CCI if you're looking
kind of on the Rhode Island side and then there's also institutions that have a special Focus so arts colleges would be like Mass College of Art um Ry they have very specific art focuses they typically offer Bachelor of Fine Arts programs so bfas a lot of times they
require portfolios UPF front to be reviewed for their freshman year the portfolio is a portion that they review as part of the application package if you're looking specifically at Art School there's also Single Sex colleges like Smith Single Sex colleges tend to
be more predominantly female so those that's typically what you see for the Single Sex colleges um is predominantly female so Smith and Simmons would be two examples of that in the area Simmons does offer graduate programs to men um but their undergraduate program is purely female we also have religiously
Affiliated colleges so that would be assumption Holy Cross Province College Stonehill College St ansam they have some type of religious affiliation to them a lot of times it's Catholic leaning in terms of that religious affiliation with those schools there might be a religion requirement as part
of the curriculum um just because they have that tied into their mission and how they were founded and then we also have our stem schools that would be like your WPI your MIT your Wentworth where they really have a heavy focus on engineering science math and Technology
most students in those schools are majoring in something within the stem field so how do I know what college is right for me these tend to be the kind of questions we ask students what is the right school what does the right fit look like some of it is size and location do you see yourself succeeding
in a really big school do you like the idea of 10,000 20,000 30,000 students or do you feel like that's overwhelming maybe you want to be one of like 3,000 students um I know for me thinking of a large school was very overwhelming coming from a high school of 800 I
really wanted to keep it small so for me even doing 3,000 I felt like was a huge increase from 800 and that was like all right that's enough for right now uh but then when I went to graduate school and there were 10,000 students I was like oh this is fine like I don't know why I thought this was would be overwhelming um because you're at a different point
in life at each time that you're looking so it's really important to know what's going to be the right size for you also what's the right location do you want to be close by are you worried about being too far away from family or do you want to be a plane ride away where maybe you can't come home for Thanksgiving so it
it's looking at kind of those pieces is what size are you looking for and how far away are you looking to go and also knowing that the size of the campus may also dictate the size of your classes so if your campus size is smaller your class sizes are probably going to be smaller if you're a much larger school
you're probably going to have large lecture style classes where maybe you have 90 or 100 students in a class with one Professor so that is also something to take into consideration is what is the class class size of the classes that you're taking at that particular School some schools offer housing they
guarantee it all four years some do not especially in Boston so for example you Mass Boston typically will guarantee the housing freshman year and then after that you're on your own so you either have to commute you have to find housing in the city in the Dorchester area they have a housing office to help you find
apartments um but it's not guaranteed housing Boston College will guarantee for you three out of four years so junior year you have to find your own off campus housing but they'll give you housing freshman sophomore senior year some schools are more removed from the city like Stonehill guarantee at all
four years so how important is it for you to have housing all four years how how flexible are you at getting off-campus housing so that's another piece to consider is are you looking to commute from home then you want the campus to be close do you want the fouryear housing guaranteed if so maybe
the boss and schools aren't going to be the right fit for you because you're going to have to find housing at some point for a lot of those colleges so that is something to ask on your tours the other piece is test scores gpas and selectivity so typically the more applications the School receives the more competitive it is the harder it is
to gain entry so a lot of times they're looking at a combination of test scores and GPA as kind of the main deliberating factor for determining emission to the programs at the state schools level at UMass and Bridgewater um typically the higher your GPA is more flexible they
can be about your SAT score the lower your GPA is the more important that SAT score is it operates on a sliding scale so the lower the GPA the higher the SAT needs to be the higher the GPA the more flexible the test score can be some
schools are test optional where you don't have to send any test scores in some are mandated if they're a very selective program or you're applying to a program such as nursing so even if school is test optional they may say it's test optional except our nursing program nursing is required so that is
something also to consider is what's schools are going to require testing which ones are not a lot of schools will take the SAT or the act so those are the two main testing options a lot of times if you submit the SAT and the ACT they will take the stronger of the two into
consideration for your file and then if you are taking the SAT at least for the public schools they will do what they call a super score so they'll take the math off the highest test and the English off the highest test put them together and give you an SAT score that may be higher than either one SE so there are those options for super
scoring so if you're touring the private schools you might want to ask about the super scoring option sometimes major comes into a play as well um I was at Bridgewater and I had a student come up who was like I just love Bridgewater so much I can't wait to be a nurse there we
don't have nursing um so I'm like what what's more important to you do you really have to stream to be a nurse or do you really want to go to Bridgewater because you can't have both you have to pick what's more important to you and if you really want to be a nurse then this is not the right college for you so
sometimes it does come down to Major what major is the best fit for you what major are you eyeing and your major May dictate what schools you're applying to cost is always a factor um so always encourage students to fill out FAFSA so Fafa is a free application for financial
aid everyone should fill it out um that financial aid application is typically for Public Funding a lot of times for the private schools they have What's called the CSS profile you fill that one out once that's typically for their private owed scholarships and funding so if you're looking at private schools
you'll most likely be filling out both forms and so that's to take cost off the sticker price most schools um you're not going to pay the sticker price that's on there it's just kind of depending on how much financial aid you receive what that final price tag is right now for
Community College it's free um as long as you're kind of meeing the stipulations we set which is the FAFSA the six credits um and that your Massachusetts resent very very flexible but what's coming out too is you dmouth for example if your household income is under 75,000 they're doing free tuition
in fees not housing but the tuition and fees in brid state is actually 125,000 or less so there are fouryear schools that are offering really great options for students so you definitely want to make sure you are aware of the costs typically you're going to get larger financial aid packages from the private
schools because their cost is more expensive so your package might be higher but that's because the overall cost is higher so it could end up being that you're still paying more for the private school than the public school but your package is bigger so you really have to kind of look at those pieces as well and decide what's going to be the
right cost for you and what do you feel comfortable with paying for college sports and activities are also important I know when I was sorry can I just jump in for one second on the cost because one of the things we do encourage especially at this point um as you're just adding to explore is to not rule
out either you know I know sometimes parents will say well you can't look at these schools here's our maximum you know or uh that we can we can do and they look at that sticker price and again I think when you start to look at things like GPA and activities and test
scores you know that price May depending on the school and your students um particular skill sets balance out to close to what another school that cheaper sticker price would look at look like so um especially in the exploration
stage don't just look at you know the the price they put on the on the website and say well that that school is Out Of Reach because it it may not be depending on your situation and then we also have the sports and activities so if it's really important to go to a really strong like
college sportgo um School even if you're not playing then you're probably going to be looking at some of those D1 teams uh my cousin's down at University of Alabama right now Liv in the best life going to football games all the time but so for her it was very important to have that
large school strong sportsgo culture very very important for her for me it was more did I want a campus ministry or did I want a swim team um so sometimes it's more of those smaller considerations of what what's more important like a strong volunteer program or I've been swimming for six
years and I think I might want to continue swimming so those are some of those questions that students will have as they start kind of narrowing down their lists is what's most important under Sports and activities for them and lastly is the personal fit um there's no way to really Define personal fit it's
just like a feeling that you get when you're at a particular school um Stonehill was the first school I toured and I fell in love and everything compared to Stonehill uh and so it is really important to go on those campus tours to figure out what the personal fit is it was that it was small it was
Catholic it had a strong volunteer program it wasn't that far from home like it checked off so many boxes that then when I was going to other schools and I toured schools on the North Shore I toured schools in Boston and it kind of going back to I think I want a small
school I think I want something that is a little bit more homey feeling I don't want to feel like I'm getting lost on campus so it is very important to tour campuses I would even encourage students to start touring even as a sophomore so that that way once you're a senior you really have a nice list and can really
narrow down where you want to maybe even go back for a second tour or an open house for yeah we definitely as part of our process encourage our sophomores to go out we're so lucky and that we have so many different kinds of campuses even if you really are not
interested in let's say noreast but you want to get a feel for what is like in a city you know you can go in and have that experience um I think the only thing we miss are like the like the Alabam and the michigans like we can't we can't replicate those around here but just about every other kind of school
you can so even if you're not like at the point where you're picking schools that you really are interested in we encourage at least take some time drive through some campuses maybe do some some open houses or something like that just because we have you have that opportunity to look at different kinds
of of um campuses so sorry to keep interrupting Ashley that's okay um and then in terms of figuring out what type of school you're looking for these are kind of the primary ways that students tend to narrow down their lists um so number one
is always speaking with guidance counselors school counselors teachers so they're the ones guiding them through this process probably helping them build out lists going over applications going over essays um they're really kind of taking the lead on this search within the school system um so it's very very important to make sure to have a good
relationship with your counselor so that that way they can help build the best list possible for you um to try and figure out what's going to be the right school so explore what might be really good fits for this list what's something that maybe you haven't thought about that could be a good option after that definitely College fairs so most schools
will host a college fair they'll invite in 50 60 70 schools and it's your chance to stop stop by quickly ask some questions to their admissions representative grab some brochures grab some information and then from there you decide you know is this somewhere I want to explore in more depth if that does
happen a lot of times schools will also have uh High School visits so they'll bring a rep in for maybe a half hour 45 minutes so at that point then you can ask much more detailed information to the rep they can answer more detailed questions that pertain to you as opposed to more general information and then
that also allows you to build that relationship with a counselor at the colleges that you're thinking about attending highly highly highly recommend campus tours toward every type of school you can if you think you maybe are interested definitely toour the school um it's the best way to really get a sense of the culture of the campus and
it allows you to meet current students so your tour guide is always a student they're going to have the best idea of what it's like to be a student on campus you can ask them questions about being a student about their classes about how they're involved what clubs they're in what sports they're in and it's a really good way to get a snapshot of what would
it be like if I was a student at that school admitted student days and open houses are similar programs but are different points in the process open hous is typically at the start of the process again as a sophomore Eng Jor definitely go to open houses it's usually very informational not so
transactional really gives you an idea of these are the programs we offer these are the additional supports we have these are our students this is what our students do after they graduate are you interested in us that's essentially what an open house is accepted student day is on the back end um so the accepted
student day is yay congratulations you've been admitted is this where you want to go so this is what you can see yourself as now that you are an admitted student so similar types of programs with definitely different results the open hous is you know this is what we offer is this what you are thinking you might want the accepted student is now
you're accepted now we are an option on your table is this where you want to go for the next two or four years some schools will do um College visit days or overnight so if your school does offer that it's a great way to you know get really a sense of what that is it's
usually a one-on-one Shadow with a student they try to make them freshman in sophomore so they're a little bit more relatable to you more entry level classes it typically gets you right into a classroom let you really get a sense of this is what a classroom would be like here um a lot of times they do try
to pair you up with a similar major um I did the Shadow Days at Weeden and at Stonehill I definitely felt they were a great option really gave me a sense of you know this is what classes would look like El and I was impressed I'm left-handed they had left-handed desks and I was like oh there's a left-handed
desk I've never seen this before so sometimes it's the Small Things um that allow you to really kind of get a sense of is this where I see myself for the next part of my educational journey and it's always good to connect with curent students or Alum so if you know someone who graduated this year who by the time
you're a senior they're a sophomore they're a great resource because they've been two years there so they have a great idea of you you know what their program is like what their campus is like do they like their classes were they able to transition to college easily and then definitely follow people's social media um pretty much
every school has social media and then every department has social media so it is a great way to see kind of what the goings on are at the campus and what different programs they might offer in terms of college applications um most schools are going to be what's on the Common App so the common
application goes to hundreds of different schools you fill it out once it goes to wherever you send it uh the downside of the com application is it's kind of a long application it asks all kinds of questions so you might have short responses they might ask what classes you're currently in they might
say what grades did you have in those classes all of that is self-reported um they want to know what activities you've been in and most of the time with the common application for most schools there will be a supplement section so that supplement section A lot of times is what major are you looking to study are you looking to live on or off campus
and they tend to have a supplemental essay so you have your general essay that everybody gets and then most of the time with the supplemental forms there'll be a supplemental essay that Supple supplemental essay tends to be why do you want to attend that school that's very very common supplemental essay
question a lot of people form write their essays um you don't want to say I am so excited to attend Salem State and you're applying to UMass uh so you want to make sure you are putting the proper name in the proper essay even if you're using it like a form essay uh at
Bridgewater one of my favorite things was actually reading the essays I did very much enjoy them I read every single one and I will say the most popular topics so these are why I'd recommend avoiding is how much I love the beach and how peaceful it is my sports
accomplishment or injury or my grandparent passed away and this is what I learned and then I wanted to admit the grandparent and not the student so those are always the top three that I would read over and over and over again sometimes I'd read three or four or five
sports essays in a row um so you want to make sure you have a really unique Slant with some of those more popular topics that people tend to choose and you want to make sure it applies directly to you um so it might be about someone else but I don't want to admit your mom to college I want to admit you to college
the other piece to be aware of is remember I was going to be an English teacher my background is in English when I read essays is also looking at proper grammar and punctuation I have read essays that do not have a single period in them I have read essays that have no
paragraph breaks in them um I have read essays that read like text messages so it is a formal piece of writing and you should still be following formal rules of grammar um there is always a li uh way of utilizing creative writing within
those essays in a great manner um but to use the letter U instead of writing out U is not the most creative way to do so so making sure that you are following those rules of grammar when writing the essays is also really important um like I said always my favorite part of an
application you really do get a very unique sense of who that student is but you still want to make sure you're putting out a formal piece of writing with those essays because if I'm seeing four five six seven eight nine grammatical errors in a 250w essay um
that makes me question if the a for college level writing so something to definitely consider that essays do get read they don't just get slid into the folder especially if you're applying for more competitive programs essays are read they are read with intention they are read for Content but they can also
be read for grammar um so to really be aware of those pieces within the essay some schools will also ask for letters of recommendation a lot of times it's two letters of recommendation typically one comes from a counselor and one from a teacher we tend to say have a nice relationship with your counselor so
they can write you a great recommendation letter um and then pick a teacher that you have a good relationship with or it's in a Content area that you're looking to study so if you're thinking you want to be a nurse or a doctor you probably want to have a recommendation from a biology or a chemistry teacher soone who can
speak to your background in The Sciences some schools will ask for interviews as well so if you are going for a highly competitive program or a highly competitive School you could be asked to do an an interview since Co some of those are now on Zoom sometimes they are inperson interviews you mean a coffee
shop into your interview there so be prepared that you may need to speak directly to an admissions representative about why you deserve to have a seat in their particular class so be aware that some programs will ask for the interview component we talked about test scores already um some schools are test
optional some it's required some might be based off the program themselves so you do want to make sure you are focusing on your SATs um and that you are taking them so that that way you're not taking any schools off the table who may say yes we need a test score and then lastly um high school
transcripts are very important we need current transcripts that are and then final official official always means it's sent by the school directly to the school it's not supplied by the student if the student supplies it it's unofficial it doesn't count so you do need to make sure to talk to your counselor to make sure that those
official transcripts get submitted right now as freshman sophomore those gr grades and those years are very very very important senior year is less important than sophomore year because senior year we typically only see one marking period maybe two we don't see the whole year so it doesn't weigh as
heavily freshman sophomore junior year we see the final averages and so those years are very important we never see the final senior year grades when making a decision when I was at the foure school sometimes I was making admissions decisions on three years worth of curriculum freshman sophomore junior year so you don't want to wait till
junior year to buckle down and do well with your academics because at that point it might be too late for some of the more competitive schools and competitive programs you really do want to make sure that you are doing well right from the get-go freshman year so that that way you have the strongest GPA and the strongest opportunities for
admission into those competitive schools and competitive programs but also for scholarship as well a lot of times um schools will offer fee waivers so a lot of times that is income tied or maybe you came to an open house you went on a campus tour and they gave you a code so you could apply for free afterwards if
you don't have a free a fee waver so for Bristol we never charge a fee but for the foure schools most of them do it's typically 50 $ 60 $70 per application so if you're applying to 5 six 7 8 N9 10 schools uh it does add up very quickly in terms of those application fees so
just be aware that most fouryear schools do have fees the waivers tend to be tied to income and or attending events and getting those free waivers can I interrupt just for again sorry just for a few few things there
just specific to Norton um so for your transcripts and your letters of recommendation um that will all go through the um something called Naviance um which all of the students uh have accounts for it's also how you can do some uh career and major exploration as
well as some uh College kind of college exploration as well guidance counselors um we'll do a do a presentation for you your junior year the beginning of junior year and then we'll do a parent one as well explaining how that that all works so um long as you use the system and
stay stay within our deadine lines um we will get all of that stuff to the high schools uh I mean to the high schools to the colleges directly from from us um electronically uh with the exception of maybe a recommendation letter from somebody who's outside of Norton but we
we'll get all into that um it's a little bit more than than folks need to know here in terms of what we do with Naviance but that that would be one of the things we'll we'll be working on in your junior year and then uh our college essays the all of the students write their college essays
um the end of their junior year uh in their English classes and can be reviewed by their English teachers uh so you know we we try to work really hard to make sure some of those errors do not occur uh however sometimes kids will um rewrite their essay um over the summer
or parents will take a look and say we don't like that essay we're going to write another one um so if that's the case make sure somebody does edit it as Ashley had said because that's that's really important so again sorry to interrupt just wanted to kind explain how it's going to how it's going to go here in
nor so in terms of standard application you want to make sure you check all the college websites to make sure they are on a common app or on their own individual application like I said common application standardize one application send to as many schools as you want nice and easy um but so common
app will probably be your best friend uh for the majority of schools that you're applying to in terms of your application options the terms you're going to see very Reg regly or early action early decision rolling decision um and regular decision
so for those particular programs early action typically means that you're just going to receive your decision earlier in the cycle so a lot of times early action uh might have as early as like a November deadline but then you might get your decision Before Christmas uh so for me I definitely wanted the early action
because I just wanted to know I had somewhere to go um and took off some of that pressure and it didn't even have to be my top school as long as I had a letter from somewhere I was like okay I'm good I have somewhere to go I have a college to go to in the fall I'm golden um so sometimes it is nice to do the early action and you could get your
decision as early as December so it is very convenient for people um definitely tend to encourage it for students who are looking at for highly competitive programs like a nursing program a lot of times those will have November deadlines as well as for students who have strong
gpas who have strong applications um definitely go in early so that you're in kind of that first pool that they're looking at early decision sounds very similar to early action again you're still applying typically in November um however early decision is typically a
binding application so you put in one early decision file to your one school that you intend to enroll in and that is it um so is a binding application if they accept you you're basically saying yep you accept me I'm coming here so it
is a binding piece something to very seriously think about because you might receive that acceptance for early decision prior to seeing a financial aid package a lot of schools sometimes have ways that you can pull out if the package is not high enough um but is something to really think about when
thinking early decision that it is a binding contract when you submit an early decision application early action you can send as many applications as you want early action it is not binding you do not need to go there it simply gets you your decision sooner early decision
is a binding contract a lot of schools will have what they call regular decision that's typically around the February March area then you typically get your decisions March and April um and typically May 1 is the deposit deadline for colleges so most colleges want their numbers by May 1st so that
way if they have to go wait list for programs they have the opportunity to do so before September rolls around rolling admission is typically what the community colleges operate on other than health programs like nursing and dental those have hard strict deadlines just like any other school um but if you're looking for biology business education
very much a rolling application um we will admit students in August for September so very flexible with rolling even for some of the fouryear schools for some of their less competitive programs very flexible with rolling simply means that we will review applications for that program until we
do not have any seats available very very flexible option we tend to tell students apply to a mix of reach safety and probable schools um so two or three reach two or three probable two or three safety so that way you have an idea of like yes these are schools I definitely
going to get into pending something goes crazy two or three that are yep like looking at their criteria looking at my criteria it's a good match I should get into those schools and then two or three that are reach of um I may or may not get into those schools I know that it
it's potential but depending on the pool I may or may not get a seat um so it is good to have kind of a mix of those the community colleges are always a nice option for safety school because we admit everyone to the Community College level um outside of nursing dental hygiene Health selective health programs
but anyone looking for Liberal Arts Engineering biology uh education English Humanities communication we will admit students um to those programs regardless of what the GPA or test scores are so the Community College again is a nice option as a safety school when I go into
presentations for schools I say I understand we might be your safety for financial reasons for GPA reasons whatever your reason are but it's a nice option to know that you always have a safety net in place um for where you're going to attend next hi to narrow down your decision uh
most common is looking at cost of attendance so we talked about that a little bit earlier but do not necessarily take one off the table this early in the game depending on what that sticker price is you don't want to start eliminating schools until you see what those packages come back as because for me when the packages came back
essentially sto phone Hill to commute was going to be the same as bridgew living on and so it was kind of like which one do I want to do more for my bachelor's degree so sometimes the packages do come out to be fairly similar the other piece is job
placements so where do you tend to see students get jobs after graduation do they have a high placement rate for students 6 12 months out of out of college those tend to be very very common reasons for why students pick schools but cost is almost always number
one was the cost of this program what my debt going to look like at the end of the program other pieces that do come into play are those co-curricular activities so the sports the clubs leadership opportunities the convenience of how close or how far it might be from home the culture and diversity um so if
you're looking for a very diverse campus and school is not very diverse then it might not be the right fit for you the opportunities for internships and co-ops so if you're looking for a co-op option um nor Eastern is always the one that everyone goes to for for co-op but in terms of internships most schools
will offer an internship office a career services office to assist you with internship placements so where are students getting internships are they getting internships in you know really strong Industries and really popular areas in really competitive job markets or are they doing more local internships those are the types of
questions to ask again the size how big or how small you think that school will be to satisfy what you need as a student and also the study abroad and student support services so for some student study abroad is very important for some it is not important at all some want the ability to study abroad for a year some
might want a semester some might say I want to go for three weeks in the summer so what are the study abroad options and where do students go for study abroad does everyone go to Italy England and France or are you looking to like go to Costa Rica or Japan somewhere a little bit different and do they offer those
types of Partnerships and programs with Support Services a lot of times that comes down to disability and accessibility Services um so if you've previously had a F50 for IEP for a learning difference how can that school then benefit you and make sure you're successful at the college level so the
IEP and 504 typically a K to 12 binding contract for that particular difference learning difference it does not translate right over to the college level you would typically meet with the disability services office you'd meet with a learning specialist they'd help build a plan there and then you would
present that to your professor so it very much becomes at the college level you advocate for yourself within the curriculum and within the classroom if you wait till November say yes I need assistance that does not retro to your September assignments so
you need to make sure that if that is something you want to take advantage of you're taking advantage of those opportunities earlier rather than later to ensure that you have the best opportunity for Success when the classroom comes in September again just kind of recap navigating the emission decisions early
notifications early decisions regular decision early notifications is early action that a non-binding decision typically you'll get that usually December January early decision is binding they accept you you're going there depending somehow the numbers
don't work out on the cost of attendance there's typically a loophole option for cost of attendance reasons regular decision is the regular deadline that everyone's asked to apply by you make sure you're in by that deadline so is reviewed for that particular pool for that particular seat and then you become
rolling fill until there's no seats available in the program some programs and some schools may have a wait list so they might say you're right on the borderline we're not quite sure if you can handle our curriculum we're going to wait list you and wait to see those
students for May 1 how many of them accept the seat and how many decline the seat that's why they ask for a decision by a certain date so then they can look at their program in English and say we still have seats available let's take 10 more students off the wait list so weight lists May mean you do get the
opportunity to enroll at that school my brother deposited somewhere else got off a weit list ended up going to school he got off the weit list on weight lists do happen and weight lists do pull students off the wait list but you shouldn't then guarantee that you're going to be pulled off a wait list it means you're not
accepted you're not denied you're kind of in a holding area while they wait to see kind of how their numbers fall so if you are on the weight list for your top school you say okay what's my backup plan if I'm not pulled off a weit list weight lists can also happen for particular programs especially programs
like nursing so typically there's more nursing students than nursing seats available pretty much every nursing program will hold a weit list everyone's applying to multiple nursing programs every nursing program will probably hit their weight list to some extent so that holding pattern could be for the school
itself or could be for a particular program within the school so they might say yes you're admitted to the program for biology but you're weight listed in nursing so there are options within that weight list between the program and the school and then deferral means your application is still in review and
they're requesting additional information so if you were to apply to Bridgewater for early action we typically did not deny out of our early action pool we would would defer you into our regular decision pool what that means is right now what we're seeing is a little bit too low so if you've only
sent us freshman sophomore junior year grades we now want to see Senior Year grades if you didn't send us any test scores we'd like to see test scores so it's essentially telling you we're not ready to admit you yet send us some additional information so that we can see how you're doing senior year so we can see how your test scores are so we
can make the decision then so again a weight less and deferral isn't a deny it means that both times they're weighing for more information High to pay for college so the way it tends to work is you should always fill out your FAFSA so FAFSA is number one fill out a faf FAA everyone
takes the FAFSA CSS profile used by the private schools most private schools will use the CSS profile for their restricted and endowed scholarships essentially when you see a financial aid package it comes out to a few different areas so one is Grants and scholarships that is free money for the student you
do not need to pay it back free money is great money you want to see lots of Grants and scholarships then you might see loans so loans are typically subsidized or unsubsidized so typically if have to take a loan who tend to say take the subsidized loan usually with the subsidized loan you're not paying the
interest on the loan whereas the unsubsidized loan you're paying on the loan and the last piece is typically work study so you are working on campus you're earning a paycheck you can choose whether you want to use that payment from your work study job to pay for books or to put towards your tuition
payment or you could use it to go out on the weekend to a red so scheme they don't tell you how to use your work study payment it's a job you earn that money but the idea is that hopefully you're using it for expenses for college what's nice with the work study is they do have to work around your class
schedule so you can say sorry I can't work Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 12:00 I'm in class and they have to not schedule you Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 12 because you are in class so as opposed to going to your outside job and saying Market Basket I can't work 10 to 12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I'm in class um they're like but we need
that shift covered so it it is a very different process for having a job off campus versus having a job job on campus the on campus job always has to work with your class schedule the off-campus job can work with it but may be a little bit less nice and willing to like work
with your campus schedule with your classes if after all that packaging comes out there's still a remaining balance um there's a few different ways that can go if you have any type of college savings that could go towards it or you might have to take a private loan
to compensate the difference um so we always say take the federal aid First Take what's in that package first before going to a private funding source and we always say you know apply for outside grants outside scholarships everyone has a scholarship like Walmart has a scholarship the youth basketball team
has a scholarship everyone's got a scholarship um when I was in school I applied for an aay competition through Mr Tux I don't use tuxes um but it was n competition and I got that scholarship and I also got two tickets fway Park and I was probably more excited because I had never been to Fenway Park and I got
to go down on the diamond um more than I was about the, that came with that scholarship so everywhere has scholarships uh so definitely take advantage of all the scholarship opportunities it might be writing a 100 letters and 100 essays and what everyone wants is that one big $50,000
scholarship that everybody wants but if you do 10 $1,000 scholarships you're still getting $10,000 it's just in smaller increments and typically those smaller increment ones they do tend to award more because they can divvy up the money to more students so sometimes it
is in your best interest to apply for for the smaller scholarships as opposed to the larger one so this is just going a little bit more detail over FAFSA so FAFSA for 2526 was supposed to release this year for December 1 um they keep changing that
date on us they did do some updates to it in the last year so last year's FAFSA did release very late um so the Hope was that it would not release quite as late as it did last year typically hopefully by the time you're seniors the Fafa will
be releasing October 1 like it typically does right now it's been on this December timeline with the changes to the program we ask everyone to set a FAA ID the student as well as the parent and guardian everyone does have to have an
account and then typically the previous year's tax returns are used to file the FAFSA so if you are having any issues with the FAFSA um us at Bristol we can assist you with with the FAFSA filing a lot of schools will do FAFSA workshops to make sure everything is being filled
out correctly because it is so important to make sure this document is correct so it's going to the schools correctly so that they can try to award the highest package possible um but we try to help students at Bristol fill out FASA if they're overwhelmed by it and I know a lot of high schools tend to try to assist with this process as
well in terms of college success what it's really about is initiating participating and advocating so so students should be initiating for themselves of what do I want to do for the rest of my life it's a loaded question to ask a 17-year-old what do you want to do forever um but that is
kind of the starting process you know what do I want to do what am I looking for what do I want the next four years or two years or six years to look like for me they need to be an active participant in the process they should be the ones asking questions to College counselors they should say okay these are the schools I really want to tour
what types of programs are thinking about be an active participant in what that process looks like and part of college is really learn to advocate for yourself whether that be I have a learning difference and I need assistance with the classroom and getting accommodations in place my
counselor and my parents have always advocated for me but now I'm 18 I have to advocate for myself in the classroom it could be I'm having trouble with my roommate what do I do how do you have that discussion with your roommate it could be I am deathly afraid of talking to people but I'm going to be an
orientation leader so it really is about challenging yourself in these multiple different areas but initiating the process being an active participant in the process and then advocating for yourself once you're in college in terms of Bristol just to give a little bit more background about us
we're a very accessible school we have five locations Fall River alabar Taunton New Bedford as well as a large online presence students can mix and match their classes across those campuses so they could take two in time and two online if they want to be a full-time student some programs like business and
psychology you can pretty much take fully online if you're looking for a program like nursing or dental hygiene they're going to be all in person and Fall River so it really kind of depends on the student in the program what that looks like and we do offer full and part-time options for students we're highly affordable right now now we're
free you can't get much more affordable than that um as well as various transfer options so that's everything from Mass transfer so transfering from us to a four-year School within the um or the State University system is a very seamless process as well as the support
services that we offer especially in the disabil services area in terms of cost comparison again like I said right now we're free uh but in comparison local public university you're looking at about 13,000 for a local stem institution about 43,000 local private
40 4,000 and that's just tuition in fees that does not include your housing um just to be aware of that piece of it as well this is just a tuition fees column it does not include housing room and board in terms of join the missions and articulation agreements with Bristol we have over a 100 different agreements
with schools um I was talking prior to everyone joining about the new one we have with ston Hill um so that is our newest articulation agreement so it's completing two years with us having satisfactory completion for all your classes always being in satisfactory academic progress they're going to guarantee a mission into Stonehill as a
junior and I believe they're taking 50% off the tuition so it is a huge option and opportunity for students who are looking to save some money on the first two years get some of their general education classes done and then transfer over to a private school we have articulation agreements up like that
where it's very generalized and then we have some that are very specific for certain like engineering programs or Psychology programs that maybe we don't have in this area but URI has so some of those programs are very specific articulation agreements and some are broad like the mass transfer program so
Mass transfer is the program with the UMass and state universities so essentially anything that's transfer based engineering biology education communication chemistry business um you do your first two years with us you do your general education in introductory courses in that major you finish with us
get your associates degree your 60 credit slide on over to the bachelor's degree at that school you need 120 for a bachelor's degree so 60 plus 60 equals 120 they guarantee that those credits come over as long as you get a Ci or better as long as you get 2.7 GPA or
higher cumulatively you're guaranteed admission into the school you don't have to pay an application fee you don't have to do an essay you just have to do the applications on the transcript it's that easy to do the transfer process in terms of our students we see the bulk of our students transferred to Bridgewater and
UMass Dartmouth um our third most popular is UMass ammer so we definitely do see students really transfer within the public sector very highly on the private side where we tend to see students is Southern New Hampshire University um that tends to be more for our 25 plus population who may have work
lives fames kids um they have a very large online program and so therefore we see a lot of students gravitate towards them because of the online specialty and we also see students go to like Brockton School of Nursing mcphs labber because again more nursing seats more nursing
students and seats available so we see a lot of students applying to other nursing programs externally as well in terms of bristle outside the classroom we have the option for developmental coursework so if a student maybe isn't quite ready for college level work we can give them paired
classes so that that way they're still taking statistics but they're taking a paired class so they're getting support within statistics we have a variety of different learning Commons and learning Labs so those are typically our libraries we have them at every campus and so that has everything from writing
tutoring to working with a librarian to schedule how to look up research projects how to cite scholarly articles all those pieces that kind of are that transition from high school to college writing and learning our display services that we spoke about previously making a plan and
providing that to the professor our career and transfer services one part of that office is okay I'm doing my two years I'm going into the field how can we best prepare you for that and then the other side is transfer of okay you're done for two years where are we going to next to finish off the bachelor's degree all of our campuses do
have mental health counseling available so we can do short-term counseling and then if needed refer out for external counseling for long-term counseling every campus has an academic advisor the students with that academic advisor their whole time so they are really able to develop a relationship with them and
they can help figure out you know where do I want to go what type of program am I looking for what type of career do I want they can have those conversations repeatedly with that same advisor and then we also have Specialty Service areas such as our Multicultural Center and our student Veteran Center
in terms of the enrollment process at Bristol um is as simple as sing an application we are not a common app School our application takes less than 10 minutes we ask for you the hardest question in our application is what do you want to study that's where everyone gets tripped up the most is what do you want to study everything else is where
do you live what's your phone number what's your email are you a Massachusetts resident do you want to be photographed yes or no are you okay with text messages yes or no everything else is very very quick and easy everyone gets stripped up on what do you want to study um so that is probably the like
hardest question on our application we start students in September January and June so fall spring and summer start for all of our programs we're open enrollment which essentially means you just need to finish High School to enroll into that program outside of our health programs so nursing and dental
hygiene in particular are highly competitive we receive more applications than seats available typically for nursing we're looking upwards of 200 applications for 96 seats for dental hygiene we're looking at 80 plus applications for 20 2 seats for nursing last year average GPA was right around a
3.7 for a dental because I'm the reader for dental it was a 3.97 highly highly competitive programs um at our community college in the Health Sciences so those are competitive entry the rest of the programs are open enrollment you finish high school you can enroll into them that does include
programs like biology and Engineering we do ask students to apply for FAFSA especially if they're looking to take advantage of the mass reconnect and mass educate the free call programs you do have to have a fasta on file as far as supporting documents are concerned all we ask for is the official
transcript that's it your official High School transcript that's all we need um one when you're applying so we can see if you're Exempted from placement testing 2.7 B minus or higher you don't have to take any placement testing you go right into freshman level classes and then one that's a final showing the graduation date we will give credit for
AP and clap scores so typically with the AP scores it's a three or higher on the exam we get the AP score report we give you the credits just like that super easy super simple um it is based off the AP exam though so if you get an A an AP Bio but only two on the exam you will
not get credit is based off the exam if you are taking dual enrollment or early college classes at another school so say you're taking class at Massy or CCI and you passed it and you want your credits to come over we can transfer those credits on over for you we do also offer
dual enrollment here at Bristol um so students especially Juniors tend to take the most advantage of the dual enrollment program allows you the opportunity to see what college class is like earn college credit um maybe gete in a particular program explore a particular major you're thinking about
there's a lot of benefits to dual enrollment um but you do have to be a strong student right to take on essentially AP level coursework a lot of times those classes are asynchronous online which means you're almost in kind of a self-study and you need to really pce yourself for those particular
classes once the student admitted we do all our acceptances by email um again we check first do you need to take placement testing or do you have an exemption it's 2.7 or higher for the exemption we ask you to set up your Bristol account we have an orientation that is mandated that orientation can be
done online or in person and then right after that orientation we will set you assign you your academic adviser to meet with you schedule your classes so we do try to streamline things as much as possible um and try to make it as easy and harmless as possible to submit the
application again just to Circle background to mass transfer it's a really great option for students to consider it's the com the collaboration between the state schools um at the community college the UMass and the State University level uh essentially the difference between the state universities and the UMass the state
universities go up to graduate level degrees the UMES go up to doctorate level degrees but both will Award with Balor degree we have everyone do the general Education Foundation curriculum and most students will elect the a to be degree pathway the associates to Bachelors again that's that minimum be
average you're guaranteed your admission you transfer in as a junior no application fee super super easy process to do so um and we like to see our students take advantage of it and then you can let me know if you
have any additional questions thank you so much Ashley um if there's any questions please throw them into the Q&A or the chat um while we're waiting on that I just wanted to again thank you Ashley for taking time out tonight and and going
over all of this um and for parents I know I I don't think I hit record so I'm gonna s to say what I said before which is this is kind of Step One um for freshman and sophomore families just to you know get an idea actually did a great job of s of outlining all of the
pieces that are involved and we try to do it a little bit at a time so we're not we're not giving you a fire hose um you're see year or junior year so you know this is step one um junior year we'll have both for um for the juniors themselves in school but also for for
families we'll have kind of a part one of the application process which goes over a little bit more of what what Ashley did here but more specifically around the search process how we use Naviance and some other tools to help um students do a search uh give some tips and tricks around around those things um
what needs to be done St to think about about you know the recommendation letters and so forth and then part two will happen um in the spring of junior year where we really get down and dirty around the application process and what you need to do common app and what the students are going to need need to do to
link in Aviance counts and Common App and all the things that go with that um and then um we have a senior year we do another kind of overview of the application process for maybe those who are not not doing it junior year but we we like to encourage people to start
that process the summer of junior year makes their senior year so much more enjoyable we also offered two um financial aid nights uh typically one in the fall and one in the spring for Junior and senior parents to attend um we have admissions reps come um we have
um what are the on the spot admission days for for a number of places as well so there's a lot there we have a um on our on our website in our department we also have a a college application kind of or college um process it's it's the
entire booklet um that really um takes you again Soup To Nuts through every every different piece from even like first generation all of the all the different factors how to how to use the NCAA portal if you're looking to go to college plays college sports so there's
a lot that we that we do um this is just step one and Ashley did a absolutely phenomenal job I don't see any um questions or in the in the chat um this will be up on the website within a week or so um and uh people can access it
there so um