How to Ensure You Will Not Get a Scholarship and Other Items Relevant to October
by Dave Goldberg, M. Ed., IRHS Counselor
Okay, this is an easy one. We're in the maturation stage of the scholarship season, not quite an infant any more, not quite an adult. Deadlines are looming on everything from your child's submission of college applications to the money aspect of applying for scholarships.
Frankly, as a high school guidance counselor, I am so worried about this stuff, you don't even know. As parents, nearly all of you have had to go through interviews in order to secure the position you now hold. Similarly, your child needs to secure that interview, now, with his or her high school guidance counselor. Specifically, if your child is a National Merit prospect, Early Decision applicant, Common App kid or applying for a scholarship, you had better make sure your child is known by a guidance counselor.
Why? Simple, because I'm writing your child a letter of recommendation and I need to know your child. We understand that your children are busy with AP stuff, leadership activities, prepping for one last ACT exam, work, sports and plays. But just think. All that work your child is putting in, if not expounded upon with sincere and deep understanding by a letter writer, will go for naught unless the meaning is conveyed to the writer and the reader.
Teachers are mostly absolved of this unique quandary. They have had the luxury of working with your children and know their proclivities, the humor, the insight-fulness and the sacrifice. Frequently, a counselor hears nary a peep from the top students because, well, that group is approaching perfection in their quest toward self-actualization. Abe Maslow would be very proud. Counselors on the other hand work often with the primal screamers among us.
The inside scoop for parents is that, it's not enough to lay down a 4.000+ and nice SAT or ACT scores. Your child can have it all together but if I can't expound on it, then the letter is a perfunctory recitation of the GPA and test scores, hollow, and the reader is reading it thinking, "This counselor really doesn't know this student." And then the notion that your child has created a distinguishing high school career is diminished.
And you thought that was bad. In a worst-case scenario, and this is insider information that's shared around a water cooler, the admissions counselors are reading between the lines of that dull recitation of GPA and test scores and they are thinking some bad thought about your child, like they were caught doing something and the counselor cannot reveal it due to liability or someone got off on a technicality. They believe it's a wink-wink, nod-nod situation, a regular slip of the grip. This is Shakespearean in its complexity. It's like a misunderstanding on Three's Company (1977-1984).
Chrissy, your resume is puny. (Three's Company)
And then they deny your kid. And everyone primally screams Kerrigan-like, WHYYYY?
Counselors from small, private and expensive prep schools get a big advantage because their counseling ratio is like 50:1 so every student is known and wondrous in their achievements, giant fish in small ponds though they are, even the most miniscule achievement is trumpeted. You've met this blowhard before at the party: "I graduated 6thin my class...etc." Yeah, and there were like 38 seniors. Big deal. Our Top 50 crush that #6,
and his classmates. Bottom line, tell your children to be effusive and gushing to their high school guidance counselor. Let your children know that a wimpy resume and coyness will lead to a mundane and chalky letter of recommendation-leading to no scholarship, no Harvey Mudd, no love in the scholarship committee war room, just a simple no-thanks letter to your child sent in a mundane and chalky envelope.
We're in it to win it, people. Your school guidance counselor doesn't play this game to see disappointment on your child's face. No senior here among our top 50 is hoping for middle management. So, it is important to be known and respected. Carnegie told us in 1936 how to win friends and influence people. Please share that tome with your busy 12th grader and let's all get to know each other. For 11th graders, you will be reacquainted with the AzCIS system next week during your 11th grade English classes. Take advantage of that independently and proactively from what your counselor asks of you. From that system, you will build a resume and get some direction on where you're heading after high school. That page is:
https://azcis.intocareers.org/materials/portal/home.html
Seniors, you can have a go at AzCIS too. This is the state-mandated Education and Career Action Plan (ECAP). Every student in Amphitheater Public Schools is going to do this, so jump in with both feet. The water's fine!
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