Navigating College Application
Dear seniors,
Welcome to your senior year!
This will be an exciting and busy year for you, as
you complete your high school academic requirements and solidify
plans for the next phase of your education.
The purpose of this Handbook is to help you navigate
the college search and application process. Selecting prospective
institutions of higher education, choosing a major, gathering recommendations,
writing application essays, dealing with applications, applying
for financial aid are among the tasks you will juggle this year. It
is therefore important that you plan ahead, and that you are well
organized.
There is an abundance of information available on
the Internet, on Naviance / Family Connection, in books, through
agencies that represent educational groups, and through the various
institutions you might contact. A lot of websites that you
might visit market educational products rather than provide the
kind of objective information you require. It is therefore critical
that you access quality information to help you make the important
decisions you face.
Our goal in putting together this handbook is to
help direct you to some good sources of information. We also
want to familiarize you with some important terminology and concepts. For
example, you will find here definitions for a number of terms related
to different types of applications, institutions, and forms you
will have to fill out to complete your submissions to colleges
and universities.
Please keep in mind that higher education is a rapidly
changing field, with policies, courses and admission requirements
continually changing. This handbook is therefore a guide
only. It cannot be used as a substitute for dealing directly
with the agency concerned. You are encouraged to direct questions
about institutions to those institutions. Don’t be
shy about contacting universities directly to ask questions about
courses, admission requirements and financial aid. They welcome
such enquiries. The educational field is a market place. You
wouldn’t go and spend a large amount of money on any product
until you were sure you were buying something that will meet your
needs, and that you were sure was a quality product. So do
your research, ask lots of questions, read the relevant literature
and make sure you get the best educational value for money.
Finally, be sure to discuss your plans with your
guidance counselor. We are here to help guide you through
this critical process.
Good luck!
Greg Bishop, Jo Loiterton, Cheryl Travers
High School Guidance Counselors
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