The College Application Process

The College Process

One of our students walked into our room the other day and announced proudly “I want to go to college!” We were so excited for our student, but it was March of his senior year and he was about 12 months too late to start the process. A few questions quickly came to mind – didn’t he have a conversation with his guidance counselor about college last year? We have been talking about college in our speech and language groups – why didn’t he ever express an interest?

Many of the students we see struggle with executive function skills – task initiation, planning, organization, time management, the list goes on and on. Coincidentally, those are the exact skills you need when you want to take on the college application process. We think back to our own college application process and remember the process actually starts junior year. This instantly sparked the creative side of our brains; we needed to create more resources that help guide our students through the entire process. We also realized we needed to create a resource that helps support those potentially-lacking executive function skills.

The Conversation

The introduction to college should be fun and inclusive of family members. The process should start with a very honest conversation with their family members. We help our students generate a list of questions they should ask their parents. For example:

Can we afford for me to go to college?
Should I stay close to home or can I go away?
If I go away, how far can I go?
Will I need to take out student loans?
Does our family need me to work and go to college part-time?

Some of these questions can be difficult to ask, but become necessary before starting the actual college search process. We have had a few students even ask us to be part of the conversation, since they struggle to initiate conversations and/or are nervous how their parents might react.

The Career Search

We then have our students engage in a career interest survey. We always start this lesson with the explanation that they are not forced to pick a major and/or career. However, it’s definitely something they want to consider as they start to look at colleges. When looking back at our own process, we realized we were interested in pursuing a career in speech and language and therefore chose colleges that offered undergraduate programs for that career. We also knew that the field of speech and language requires a master’s degree which was something we also needed to think about down the road as that would include additional schooling. We discovered this information when we took our own career interest surveys and researched more about different careers.

One website we like to have our students browse when they are researching potential careers is My Next Move. This site has the students answer a variety of questions and then provides them with a long list of potential careers based on training and interest level. After you get the list this website also provides you with the opportunity to further research individual careers. Take advantage of these free resources!

The College Search

Then the actual college search begins. Many of our students are instantly overwhelmed by all of the options. We try to take it one step at a time. Start by going on the College Board website where they can “Find the right college for you”. The students can search for different colleges based on:

Location
Majors
Type
Campus Life

These options help the students realize different ways to search for colleges. Maybe the location is a priority to one student but campus life is important to other students. We sit with each student as they navigate the College Board website and find the right colleges to apply to.

Remember, this is a yearlong process that takes patience from the students, parents, and teachers. It is about a year after our students first start the college application process that they hopefully start receiving acceptance letters and are ready to make their decisions to commit to their college of choice. They are often experiencing a range of emotions as they make this very big decision. Once the decision has been made, we are ready to celebrate with them. The fun begins once they make a decision and get to share with their friends and family!

The College WebQuest

A new resource we put together has the students embark on a College Website WebQuest. This is a great activity to utilize after the students have decided on their college of choice. The WebQuest provides the students with the opportunity to navigate around their future college website and learn what the school has to offer in terms of academics, student life, campus life, etc. Some questions include:

List three clubs, organizations, and/or teams you would want to join at this school.
When does the fall semester start?
List five General Education Classes offered at this college
List the database the teachers will be using to post announcements, notes, assignments, etc. for your classes

There are many more questions on the WebQuest that really force the students to search and navigate around the website. We all know college is different from high school, but our students need to do some searching to come to that same conclusion.

The Disclaimer

We do not expect that 100% of our students will attend college. This process works for students who have expressed an interest and motivation to attend college. Some students go through this process with us and realize they are just not ready to start college right away and we help them find their path for post high school.

As Speech and Language Providers we try to integrate ourselves into the college application process as much as possible. We feel there are so many ways we can support our students through this lengthy process. We are always looking for innovative ways to incorporate this process within our sessions.

How do you help your students through the college application process?