As the school year is in full swing, classes and sports aren’t the only thing on the minds of seniors; for many, post secondary plans are equally as important. To guide these students, DGS held a focus session during access on Sept. 2, discussing clear timelines and instructions on how to manage the college application process, sharing opportunities for non-college seeking students and ensuring students that they can contact the College & Career Center at any time.
To ease students with this transition, Colleen Pellino has joined college counselor Dan Mustari in leading the College & Career Center. Pellino’s addition provides students with additional insight, as she’s available to answer student questions.
“This is my first year here, so I’m new, but I’m trying to be timely with it. All of the seniors right now are meeting with their counselors and doing focus meetings with each individual student, which is important,” Pellino said.
For senior Kendall Kuntz, these individual meetings helped her gain clarity regarding her college applications.
“I actually had a decent amount of questions myself; I was like who do I get my teacher recommendations from? My counselor said usually kids just do whatever major they are doing, but he said it could be beneficial to email the colleges and see what they might look for in a recommendation letter, so that’s definitely a big takeaway,” Kuntz said.
She believes that she is better off, now that she knows how to navigate application platforms seamlessly.
A resource that can be utilized by many juniors and some seniors, is the opportunity for students to attend visits from college representatives. This year, the College & Career Center has and is hosting a variety of visits on Sept. 8, 11, 14 and 15.Senior James Anthony found this opportunity advantageous for his prospective applications.
“Doing the college representative visits was honestly really helpful, because I was able to look at schools I really want to go to. It just makes me feel more comfortable going into my senior year knowing that people from colleges who are going to be looking at my application know me and already want me,” Anthony said.
In her short time at DGS, Pellino affirms the effectiveness of the college representative visits.
“I’ve gotten student perspectives on it being a helpful experience … we try to meet with as many different types of schools as we can, geared towards our population and schools that our students like to go to,” Pellino said.
He further detailed the specificities of the visits, and what it entailed for his college application journey.
“They talk about what their school is and different aspects that they value, and it’s just nice to see someone from there talk. It was helpful because I got to talk with the representative personally, and it was very nice because the one I was talking to for University of Missouri Science and Tech, he talked to me specifically about how you can get scholarships and they’ll set you up with a Fortune 500 job,” Anthony said.
The College & Career Center is inviting representatives from Illinois State University and Illinois Institute of Technology on Sept.14, and Loyola University, Academy of Art, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Nebraska-Lincoln will be available to meet with students on Sept.15. Juniors and seniors are eligible to sign up on SchooLinks by Sept. 11.