Sachem seniors are anxiously checking email inboxes as well as their regular mailboxes (currently buried under the snow!) for letters of acceptance for the colleges they have applied.
A few lucky seniors have applied early decision, early action or to colleges that have rolling admission and have secured perhaps one offer of admission for the fall. A significant amount of time, effort, planning and creativity was needed to advance from selecting a college to attend to mailing a final application.
Current juniors should have the college process on their radar screens. Right now is the time to sign up to take the standardized tests required for college applications. Most colleges accept the SAT, many also accept the ACT. Ask your guidance counselor which exam, or perhaps both exams, you should take. Junior’s recently received their detailed score from the fall PSAT. This preliminary SAT exam provided practice for the SAT.
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Each student received feedback on strengths and weaknesses on skills needed for college. Colleges also use the PSAT to provide information to students they feel might be interested in their programs. Many juniors are already seeing a few college cards and letters appearing in their mailboxes.
But what is the next step for high school juniors? Guidance counselors are seeing students and parents together over the next few weeks to review PSAT scores, chart out next year’s courses and plan for college. Please be aware that deadlines for SAT and ACT exams are usually about more than one month in advance. College Board SAT I test registration for the March 12, 2012 exam is Feb. 11, 2011. The ACT test registration for the April 9, 2011 exam is March 4, 2011.
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Can’t wait for your appointment? Start at the College Board website, where you can enter the site and use “My College Quickstart” using your access code found on your PSAT paper report.
The Sachem High School East and North guidance department websites offer comprehensive college planning tools. Both websites are an excellent place to start with the college information, search and application process.
A prime place to start exploring colleges is the Naviance Family Connection. Naviance is a web based service provided to all Sachem High School students. It assists students and parents with college planning. Students and parents can access this website from home.
Juniors should also start applying to summer programs. Many Colleges offer summer programs for a day, week or few weeks that are either residential or commuter to gain glimpse of college life, programs to study and what individual colleges have to offer. Programs are usually available on a college’s website under admissions. Stony Brook University offers several summer programs in biotechnology, engineering, mathematics, journalism and research opportunities.
High school sophomore’s also took the PSAT. Try exploring both the College Board website as well as The Naviance Website. Spend a few minutes poking around at colleges that might be “a good fit”. Then click through the “overlap” colleges. You might be surprised and what you find.
I would encourage all high school students and their parents to sign up for the “SAT question of the day” delivered to you either via email or RSS, found here. Try to answer the question, and you will be directed to the solution indicating if you chose the correct answer, how many responses there were for the day and the percentage of responses that were correct. The questions are great practice, and interesting to pit student against parent. The questions are selected from both the math and verbal sections of the SAT.
Stay tuned to Sachem Patch for more college planning information.
