Many times parents find that their guidance counselor at school is overwhelmed. They are unable to truly help guide them through the high school years. Or if you are homeschooling, you know that you are your own guidance counselor. In these instances, it would be helpful to have a plan to be your own guidance counselor. You can create a notebook of information that you can rely on during this time.
How do you plan out your student’s high school years as you are heading toward college applications? If you’re a paper person, I suggest you create a planner or spiral notebook. You can use this to store your thoughts and ideas as you research and brainstorm.
(Note: If you’re not a paper person, just do the same thing. But instead, create folders and notes pages in note-taking software. Try Google Drive, One Note, Evernote, or some other program.
Five Sections for your Guidance Counselor Notebook
Here are the sections I would create in your notebook. I will go over these separately below.
1.) student’s resume
2.) test scores: PSAT, SAT, ACT
3.) transcript planning/courses and credit
4.) college search
5.) scholarships and internships
Student’s Resume
The first tab I put in my notebook is for the student’s resume. During high school, one of the things that you should do is help your student find activities and organizations to connect with that help him develop a sense of who he is and what his interests are. It will be much easier if you will begin keeping a list of these things when they are in 9th grade instead of waiting until 12th grade to try to remember what all he or she has been involved with in high school.
On your list, you will want to put things like honors, awards, part-time jobs, clubs, leadership positions, service opportunities and volunteer work, mission trips, and travel. anything that your student did outside of their academic time in school should go on the list. I would advise you to help them try to dive deep into an area rather than trying out four different ones each year during High School.
Here is a link to a blog about creating your student’s resume that will help you get started. In this tab in your notebook you can keep the following:
- List of contact information and ideas of different organizations that your student might connect with during their high school years
- Draft of the beginning of the resume
- Notes that you need to keep about your student’s activities, clubs, mission trips, volunteer work
- Volunteer hours log – especially if you plan to submit this information to the Presidential Volunteer Service Award or any other place that might require a log of hours. Most colleges that I have seen do not specifically require a log, but it is a good idea to have a list of how many hours you have served so that you can review it before you summarize it for college applications
Test Scores: PSAT, ACT, SAT
The second tab that I would have in my notebook is for information regarding standardized tests including the PSAT, SAT, and ACT. Things that you could put behind this tab would include:
- List your child’s current test scores as they continue taking the test throughout High School, including a breakdown of the subsections – how they scored and which ones they need to work on the most
- Any contact information for tutors that you come across that you might consider using for help
- Websites with free or paid tutoring help
- List strategies for each test and things that you want to go over with your student regarding the tests to help them succeed
Transcript Planning / Courses and Credit
In this tab in your notebook, I would put information for planning courses and credits during the high school years. Things that you might include in this section would be:
- A page for each grade: 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. list classes that you are considering for them
- Websites for online courses or local co-ops or hybrid schools that offer classes
- Ideas that you might have for AP classes, dual enrollment at the local or online colleges, courses, and honors courses
- Information for how you will do your transcript if you are homeschooling – accredited or not, weighted grades or not, etc.
College Search
In this section, you should add information about the different colleges that your student is considering or that you want them to check out. You can use my college research blog post series to help you research colleges and record the information that you find in this section of your notebook. You might even want to try opening up an application to college yourself and see what types of things they are asking for. Just don’t submit it. You may also want to go visit some of these colleges. You will want to record things like:
- Number of undergraduate students
- Where it is located and how far that is from your home
- What majors they offer that your student might be interested in
- Information regarding college applications and scholarships
- Deadlines for applying to each of the above
- The list of essay questions for the Common App, published annually in the spring
Scholarships and Internships
As you go through the high school years you may come across scholarships that you hear about that are in your local area or websites that you want your student to apply to. For the most part, the highest amount of scholarship money that you will be offered is from the actual colleges themselves; however, you may be able to stack several scholarships together and gather enough money to help out with additional living expenses that you might have at a college.
Also during the high school years, you may find that your student has a particular interest in a field and would like to try to pursue a summer internship before they head off to college. There are internships for high school students and you will need to spend time researching them. You can find them by searching for “summer internship high school” and the field that your student might be interested in, like science for example. Or if you are unable to find any internships in a particular field, you may be able to find a place where your student could shadow someone in that field for either a day or a week during their summer. This can go a long way to help your student get a sense of what a career in that area would look like in the real world.
- Lists of ideas for scholarships and internships
- Local contacts for shadowing opportunities
- Details on test scores or essays required for any scholarships you’ll be pursuing
I hope that this helps you with some ideas of how you can be your own guidance counselor and help your child succeed in high school.
P.S. – Did you find this post helpful? Maybe you have a friend you could share it with.
