3rd Quarter
- College Selection Workshops in class groups
- College planning meeting and course registration with counselor and student
For Parents:
- Tips From the Pros Meeting
(See Upcoming Events for March.)
SHOULD THIS BE DIRECTED TO THE CALENDAR?
College Anxiety
Most juniors know that a year from June they will receive a high school diploma and move on into another phase of life's plan. Most juniors are experiencing some anxiety about the need to do some exploring of options and some eventual narrowing of choices, and most juniors are at different places of readiness to absorb this information and act on it.
It has been proven that this type of exploring and planning is more effective when done in small pieces at the appropriate time. A little anxiety raises the level of readiness, and good information reduces anxiety. Therefore, the second semester of junior year is designed to help students explore colleges in "small pieces", to learn how to gather information and to act on it.
The same plan will be followed for parents. Your anxiety level may be just as high as your son's. Therefore, the Guidance Department will provide a meeting to give you information on the college decision process. The date for this meeting can be found on the Upcoming Events section of the Guidance Department WebPage. Also, in April and May we will have individual meetings with juniors and their parents.
College Selection Workshops
Your son will begin the college selection process by attending a workshop for two days in his English class at the beginning of the new semester.
The following topics will be covered: self-awareness activities, college characteristics, sources of college information, the admissions process, standardized testing, financial aid, researching colleges, decision making, and a timetable for the selection process. The workshop is conducted by your son's counselor. Students will receive the College Planning Seminar Packet which they will use during both junior and senior years. We encourage you to ask your son to see this packet, as the information may be very helpful to parents as well as to your son.
College Planning Sessions
The workshop in English classes will be followed by an individual meeting with each junior, at which time he and his counselor will create a college list based on the student's interests. The student should continue to research these schools using information he can obtain at home by writing to each school, using the internet or using the materials at school. A list of resources can be found on page 4 of the College Planning Seminar Packet. Each student and his parent(s) will review and revise the list in the fourth quarter meeting.
Factors Influencing College Admission Decisions
Degree of importance in college admissions as a percentage of colleges reporting:
| Considerable | Moderate | Limited | None/NR | |
| Grades in College Prep Courses | 84% | 11% | 3% | 2% |
| Class Rank | 42% | 32% | 18% | 7% |
| Admission Test Scores | 39% | 45% | 11% | 5% |
| Counselor Recommendations | 22% | 47% | 22% | 8% |
| Teacher Recommendations | 22% | 45% | 25% | 8% |
| Essay or Writing Sample | 19% | 33% | 26% | 22% |
| Interview | 14% | 39% | 42% | 15% |
| Work/Extracurricular Activities | 4% | 39% | 42% | 15% |
Source: National Association of College Admissions & Counseling
College Admissions Testing Schedule
Second semester is the time when juniors take the standardized college admissions tests (SAT and ACT). Students will usually take the SAT twice (in January and again in May or June) and the ACT once either in April or June. (Some juniors opt to take the ACT on both of these dates.) Seniors sometimes elect to take the SAT a third time and the ACT a second time.
Please note: for registration, please use SLUH's high school code on all test registration. That number is 263065. This is a number that is used on all test registrations, college applications, and financial aid applications.
Visiting Colleges
The best source of information regarding colleges is the campus visit. It is not too early to begin visiting colleges during the junior year. For most students, college is a word they have heard but something they have never experienced. Many of them have never been on a college campus and are only aware of college through television, family, or friends.
The best time to visit colleges during the junior year is during Spring Break. This will give you enough time to travel and see three, four, or five colleges at one time. After you son has had his individual meeting with his counselor, he will have generated a list of schools that you might want to visit. We would suggest that you visit schools of different types - a large state university, a medium size school in an urban setting, and a small liberal arts college in a small town. Since your son knows very little about the different types of school, it is good to look at all types. Below are some suggested itineraries. All of these trips are within six hours of St. Louis.
- U. of Missouri-Columbia, Rockhurst, U. of Kansas
- Knox, Bradley. U. of Illinois, Illinois Wesleyan
- DePauw, Indiana U., Vanderbilt, Rhodes
- Northwestern, U. of Chicago, Loyola or DePaul, Lake Forest, Beloit, U. of Wisconsin
- U. of Iowa, Grinnell, Drake
- Purdue, Notre Dame, Kalamazoo, Hope College
- Dayton, Miami, Xavier, Earlham
The procedure for visiting a college, as well as questions to ask while on the visit, are given on pages 10 and 11 of your son's College Planning Seminar Packet. Juniors are allowed to take two (2) excused absences for visiting colleges on school days.
Please see page 27 of your SLUH Parent-Student Handbook for more information.
Steve Bushouse, Vice President of Student and Alumni Affairs at Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana answered the following question:
How important is visiting a campus?
"You wouldn't buy a car without test-driving it first, would you? Visiting campus is the most critical part of the whole college selection process. College is a major investment in not only money but time and effort as well, so students must find a good fit between the institution and themselves. The only way the student can determine that is by actually visiting the campus.
"It frightens me that we still get students who enroll without ever having visited the campus."
Course Selection
Juniors should be aware of the following when selecting courses for senior year. Based on the information in the Freshman Section, a college prep curriculum should be balanced and challenging. The following are some guidelines for course selection for juniors:
- Senior year should be the most challenging of the four years in terms of course selection.
- Seniors should not major in one subject area but should take courses from at least four if not all five of the academic subject areas: English, math, science, social studies and foreign language. Most courses in senior year are semester long in length so a student does not have to take one course for an entire year.
- Advanced Placement courses are offered in Modern European History, Calculus, Economics, Biology, Physics, American Politics, Psychology, Probability and Statistics and Spanish.
