Junior year is obviously a crucial time for students as they start to explore and plan for their next steps after high school. Below are a number of tips and resources to support juniors and their families in this process.
Counselors: The guidance counselors are are always here to answer questions and support students. We work with students daily in guidance seminars, one-on-one meetings, over email, phone, and video chats. Please do reach out to your guidance counselor with any questions. We want to connect with our students!
Guidance Seminar and Google Classroom: From Q1-Q3, all juniors will have guidance seminar which will include lessons on the college application process. At the end of Q3, juniors will be invited to a personalized google classroom for their individual guidance counselor, which will contain materials related to guidance and teacher recommendations.
Junior College Planning Timeline: Review our Junior College Planning Timeline for a checklist and important links.
College Search Resources:
We've created a Junior College Process presentation to step juniors through the college search process. These materials are reviewed in guidance seminar, and can be accessed below:
Junior College Handbook Presentation
MEFA
MEFA College Admissions for Juniors Webinar: Pre-COVID we would have MEFA come do a presentation for parents of juniors on the college search process. They have now made all their presentations virtual, so you can watch them on your own time. This is a great soup to nuts overview of the admissions process. You can find other videos as well on their website.
Teacher and Guidance Counselor Recommendations:
In the Spring of Junior year, students are encouraged to ask 2-3 teachers to write recommendations on their behalf. Students will also need to request a letter from their guidance counselor by filling out a Data Portfolio. Documents and directions will be sent to juniors by their guidance counselor in Google classroom. Before you request a letter of recommendation from a teacher, you MUST have a CONVERSATION with them first!
After you have politely asked if they would write a letter on your behalf, and they have agreed, follow the steps below:
1) When requesting a recommendation from a teacher, please fill out the google doc linked in your counselor's google classroom and share it with that teacher. You can obviously make multiple copies to share with any relevant teachers.
2) Put in a recommendation request in Naviance. Please review the video directions here.
When putting in the request in Naviance, make sure you are clicking that the request is for ALL of your colleges (again, see the video). Unfortunately, it defaults to the 2nd option where you can select just some of your colleges. If you click ALL, this will allow us to send the teacher rec to any of your colleges, including ones you may not have added to your list just yet.
Career Exploration: There are some great online resources for doing some career exploration during this time.
For prospective DI or DII college-bound athletes:
Students planning to play DI or DII sports need to register with the NCAA. More details can be found here.