As the starting of senior year looms closer with every passing day, up-and-coming senior students need to start asking themselves “What college do I wish to attend?”
This process is one that needs excellent deliberation, consideration and concentration, and should not be thought of lightly. These students must determine their futures within the coming year.
As guidance counselor for Demopolis High School, Debbie Nichols is also a senior advisor, and is instrumental in aiding students in figuring out their school decisions and preparing to take that big step into a larger world.
Nichols feels that students must begin these preparations as early as their freshman year, creating specific they keep their grades in excellent shape, continuing this for all four many years if feasible.
In their sophomore year, students must commence getting college entrance tests, like the ACT or SAT, starting with perhaps a lower rating, but gaining encounter to enhance that score on later exams.
“Colleges will accept your highest rating, so in case you don’t test well, it is to your benefit to begin a little earlier and work up to that required score,” said Nichols.
This testing procedure ought to continue till the university student is satisfied with his or her score, or until the rating plateaus and ceases to increase.
A student’s junior year is an excellent time to begin applying for scholarships and cultivating relationships with community service organizations and clubs to turn out to be eligible for more scholarships.
This time is excellent for this due to the fact it enables students to finish their applications ahead of other applicants, giving them a better chance of receiving scholarship funds.
In the course of a student’s senior year, he must start finalizing school choices, rounding them down to 3, four or 5, acquiring recommendation letters and references picked out and taking care, sorting out any final scholarship opportunities available to them and starting to develop a achievable thesis for their long term, an essay about their career goals to become utilized in applying for colleges.
The first factor a university student ought to ask when applying to colleges is whether or not or not the particular school fits them. What they wish to do? Who they want to be? In which do they see themselves four or 5 years into the long term?
“In selecting a college, a student ought to make a list of priorities about what is crucial to them as they appear for a university such as location (in state, out of state, close to residence, etc.), the size from the university, what the school provides academically (what programs and majors),” Nichols stated.
When asked about things students must not appear for in colleges, Nichols emphasized that “students ought to not apply just due to the fact their friends do. Again, it ought to be the proper ‘fit’ for each student, and not just because a group of buddies are heading there.”
Soon-to-be senior Annie Jones is a good example from the student Nichols describes. She has been preparing for that medical field since her early days of high school, and has currently narrowed her school choices to either the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa or the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and has currently begun applying for scholarships.
When asked how she decided, Jones replied, “It’s where my profession is. It is one with the few schools within the region that gives the resources my main requires.”
When deciding on one’s college, a student must think about all of these issues, but should also take time to believe about not just the educational side as well as the social enrichment that may begin in those years, shaping who that university student is going to be for the rest of his life.