HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S NEWSLETTER
The school year is off and running. What a great first week at Highland. We are excited for this school year. Reminder, the best way to keep up to date on events is to access the Highland Academic Calendar and the Highland Activities Calendar.
Highland Students & Families,
Welcome back to a new school year. Don’t know about you, but I really like the start of school: good energy, a mixture of nerves and excitement. Below are some tidbits to get you started thinking about how the college career advisors, CCAs), in collaboration and cooperation with the school counselors and our distinguished faculty, can be of service to our learners.
New
CCA
We are glad to welcome our new CCA, Alice Rowe. Alice comes to Highland from Irving and Franklin Middle Schools where she worked as their shared middle school CCA. She has made a seamless transition to Highland, knows many of our students already from her time in the schools, and will be a valuable resource to the Ram Family – students, families, faculty, and staff.
ALEKS
Assessments
It sure felt like we administered 2,000 ALEKS test last spring, but there are still students who need to take it, or re-take it. ALEKS is a McGraw-Hill product that assesses math preparation and readiness for some dual-credit math and science classes. If you / your student wants to earn dual credit this trimester for some of ISU’s Early College math or science classes, please be sure to sign up with the CCAs and prepare for ALEKS. Stop by the college career advisors with any questions.
Seniors
The
senior year is full, fraught, fun. We are here to help. Couple of things to
keep in mind.
·
Applying to college doesn’t
necessarily mean four years of college. We will absolutely help you apply to
4-year / bachelor programs, but we will also guide you to apply to two-year
programs, career-technical programs, internships, study abroad, and lots of
other opportunities as well.
·
Apply Idaho – Idaho’s platform that allows students
to apply to any or all of ten different Idaho colleges / universities /
training programs – opens October 3rd and is free. We will be going into
Government classes this trimester to help students with that application.
·
If
you want a school day to visit colleges, consider using the PSAT day –
Tuesday, October 25th – to do that. Seniors are not otherwise given
school excuses to visit colleges on their own, so bank your sick days (if you
have to) and schedule a college visit on October 25th.
·
FAFSA – Free Application for Federal Student
Aid – is a financial analysis tool (it is not a scholarship) that determines a
student’s / a student’s family ability to contribute to the cost of college. It
will open October 1st, and we encourage every student who plans on
college or training after high school to complete a FAFSA. And we stand ready
to help with that process.
·
The
Common Application is also called the Common App, and it is a platform
from which students can apply to 1,000 colleges and universities. You create a
profile, and from there can apply to a vast array of colleges (some of which
will ask for an application fee). Go to commonapp.org .
·
If
you would like to apply to selective or Ivy League colleges or any of
the national service academies (Navy, West Point, Air Force, etc.), two
things: 1) apply to selective colleges for admission and apply for financial
aid AT THE SAME TIME, 2) the application to any of the service academies should
begin at the beginning of the junior year. See the college career advisors for
more information.
·
Sequence of events: For most
state or public schools: 1) apply for admission, 2) be accepted, 3) apply for
scholarships. For selective schools: 1) apply for admission and apply for
admission at the same time. For out-of-state schools: stop by the CCA area and
we’ll do research together.
·
Scholarships. We have had a number of students stop
by asking about scholarships. For most Highland seniors, scholarship applications
will begin at the end of this calendar year, and the best way to earn
scholarship money is to Be. A. Good. Student. If you have athletic or musical
or theatrical or student leadership talent, there is scholarship money there,
too, but the easiest and most generous scholarship money comes to strong
students.
· Scholarships for career-technical education (CTE) or programs. There is good scholarship money for CTE trainings and programs, and you don’t have to have a lights-out GPA to qualify. But keep your senior-year head down, work hard, and the CCAs will help you research scholarship opportunities.
We can be found in the same area as the school counselors, and look forward to visits from students in every grade and with all kinds of interests and questions.
Best,
Sarah
May Clarkson
Alice
Rowe
College Career Advisors, C-36
