Counselors, here’s how you might give more application-related advice to your students without necessarily spending more time to do so.
1. Complete applications for the 3-5 schools that are most popular with your student population.
Not necessarily the most desirable or the most popular picks for “first choice,” but those that receive the most applications from your students every year. Create your own accounts and fill out the applications as if you were actually applying. You won’t be submitting them (obviously), but you will be completing the applications exactly as your students will do.
2. As you work your way through the applications, keep notes about three things:
A. Any part of the application you recognize as something students regularly ask you about.
If you answer the same questions every year from your students about a particular college’s application, make a note of it as you work your way through.
B. Those items that you found confusing or that otherwise gave you pause.
It might be a drop-down menu that didn’t have a choice you wanted, a question whose wording could be interpreted several ways, or even an error message that popped up until you figured out what needed to be done to get past it. What would you tell a student to do now that you know what you know?
C. Any insight you’d like to offer your students about a particular portion.
As you work through the application, you’ll inevitably think of things you’d advise a student to do (or not do) in particular sections. Maybe you’d remind him that your school is on the block plan and that he should mention that in a section about course selection. Maybe you’d tell him that the ROP program doesn’t appear in a particular menu. Maybe you’d explain that yes, he is in fact applying to a degree program and should check “yes” to that question. If you would advise it, keep a note of it.
At the end of the application, you’ll have several pages of notes organized from the beginning of the application to the end.
3. Next, spend a few hours typing up your notes into clear, readable directions.
Create headings that match the application headings and imagine your student reading your document while filling out the application, progressing line-by-line guided by your advice.
4. Give them to your students.
Every student at your school who applies to one of these colleges should receive the application guideline. Put them up on the school website or otherwise make them readily available.
“But I don’t have time.”
Counselors, especially those with large caseloads in public schools, are busy. But that’s exactly why this project is worth setting aside time to do.
If you can dedicate just a few hours of time for each of the 3-5 schools that are most popular for your kids, you’ll cut down on the time you’ll need to spend answering the same questions over and over again. You’ll create a document that is there with your insight and advice at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night when a student is filling out an app. And next year, unless a college completely redesigns its application, all you’ll need to do is update and refine each of your guides. The first version is the most time-consuming and difficult to create. But each year, you’ll work on it less while improving it even more. The work the guides will do on your behalf over time will far outweigh the initial outlay of time and effort.
Bonus tip: share the guides with your counseling colleagues at other schools.
It’s the right thing to do as we’re all trying to help kids. But maybe you’ll also inspire them to write and share their own guides.