Written by: Jon Watson, High School Counselor
Schedule Changes for 2020-2021 Counselors will be taking schedule changes for next school year beginning in August 2020. We will be in our offices on registration day to assist students with schedule changes. Remember there are exceptions to schedule changes, and we are not always able to accommodate all requests. If you have any questions about this process please contact your counselor. Columbia University Summer Programs As the school year concludes and summer approaches, we know families are looking for ways to continue engaging and challenging their children in a safe environment. To that purpose, Columbia University is pleased to announce their Online Summer Immersion Program with 90 curricular options from art and architecture to creative writing and coding. High school students can also enroll in special lectures, clubs, and virtual spaces to meet other high-achieving peers from across the country and around the world—there’s something for everyone. They are waiving the application fee for your students with this code: HSIM220. You can learn more about the programs by visiting their website at: http://precollege.sps.columbia.edu/highschool/online or by contacting Anita Weiss at [email protected]. Deadlines are quickly approaching as our programs commence at the end of June. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Rob Franek and The Princeton Review: Free Resources Before you leave for your well-deserved summer break, I wanted to share with you a couple upcoming events that The Princeton Review has created for our students and families. Students at any grade level are welcome to join. All of these events are completely free. First, is a Rob Franek event on June 4th. Rob is the Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review, and he is a nationally recognized expert on colleges and higher education. Rob gives dozens of presentations a year to audiences of teachers, parents, and students. He has given keynote addresses at national conferences, chaired panels at the National Association for College Admission Counseling conference, and delivered commencement addresses at universities. Rob will cover the following topics:
Second, they are hosting an online HS Week, that will be filled with 5 different webinars, ending with an opportunity for students to take a free full length SAT and/or ACT practice test. Here is a schedule of events: June 14 – SAT, ACT, Both? Math Bootcamp - Click Here to Register June 15 – SAT Strategy Session - Click Here to Register June 16 – ACT Strategy Session | Click Here to Register June 17 – Five Key Steps to Get a Head Start on Your College Application this Summer | Click Here to Register June 18 – Getting Into Your Dream College | Click Here to Register June 19 – Take a free (timed) full-length SAT or ACT Practice Test SAT Registration | ACT Registration If you have any issues trying to register for any of the events listed above please contact your counselor. These are all great resources, and we are very lucky to be invited to attend these events at no cost. JUNIORS Just because Covid-19 has interrupted some of our daily routines, and limited our travel and gathering during this time, we still want you to be preparing for life after high school. If you are planning on attending a 4-year university there are still things you can be doing to prepare over the summer. If one or more of the universities you want to apply to is on the Common App, we encourage you to begin filling that out over the summer. There are multiple sections that need to be filled out, and the sooner you start, the easier your senior year will be. The summer is also a great time to get a jump start on your college essay. Almost every college you apply to will have some type of an essay, so you can either start in the summer or write college essays along with term papers…we suggest over the summer. We understand that traveling is limited at this time, but we encourage you to participate in virtual visits with the colleges that you are interested in. The summer before senior year is a great time to start narrowing down those colleges, so please participate in virtual visits, contact admissions representatives, or do some online stalking of your own. If you have questions about who to contact please reach out to your counselor. If you are looking to join the military or an ROTC program at a university, please start reaching out to military recruiters in the area. They will have all of the information you need to start preparing for a career in the military. If you are looking to enter an ROTC program, we highly encourage you to start talking to recruiters as soon as possible. ROTC programs are very competitive, and they view applications in waves. The first wave is typically towards the end of summer. For the best shot to be accepted into an ROTC program we encourage you to apply early. Applying for college and preparing for life after high school can be stressful, so do not hesitate to reach out to your counselor for assistance. We are not on our emails everyday over the break, but we will definitely try to get back to you as soon as possible. Enjoy your summer! SOPHOMORES You are about to begin the latter half of your high school career. This is an important time to start choosing courses that are going to set you up for success on college applications, and to best help prepare you for a career outside of high school. We encourage you to start exploring some colleges that sound interesting to you, or ones that you really want to go to. Look at their requirements, and what are some of the classes they want you to take while in high school. They will also tell you if they want you to take specific SAT Subject tests. These tests are different than the normal SAT, and they focus on one subject instead of multiple. The summer is a great time to start planning out when to take some of those tests (if they will even be offered). Speaking of the SAT…the state of Colorado has agreed upon a state-wide day to offer the PSAT/SAT tests that were originally supposed to be offered in April. This date is September 18. This will be a day where you will get to take the PSAT and get some extra practice. We will also be offering the PSAT/NMSQT in October, which is another opportunity for you to prepare for the SAT. We encourage you to start preparing for those exams over the summer. There are multiple ways to practice, and there are multiple companies that help students prepare. Please visit the SAT/ACT page on our counseling website. If you have more questions please contact your counselor. NJHS National Junior Honor Society-Service Before Self By: Reid Benfield, Vice President (9th grade) Throughout the 2019-2020 school year, National Junior Honor Society (NJHS), has made astounding success despite the effects of COVID-19. Although the club got cut short this year, the advancements made in the first semester and the first 12 weeks of the second semester made a large impact on the companies that were supported by NJHS. Throughout the time we were in school, once a month, on a Friday, NJHS would sell blizzards to the whole school as a fundraiser. Another very important fundraiser is World’s Finest Chocolate. This fundraiser allowed for each member to get a box of chocolate to sell to help NJHS raise money. This money did not just sit in the bank of NJHS, however. Instead, we donated over $2000 to organizations that help with water purification in Africa as well as the company, The Shoe that Grows, which is a shoe that fits many sizes and can be adjusted for kids who don’t have access to shoes. Additionally, we donated one of our blizzard sales to Jessica’s (President) sister who needed funding to go to teach kids around the world with the organization Global Glimpse. Interestingly, service is a very large part of what we do and what we have done over the 2019-2020 school year. As NJHS, we helped D’Evelyn with the Trick-or-Treat Street in October with many of our participants volunteering their time. In fact, this year we had over 600 service hours as a whole, and individually over the course of this year. Unfortunately, we were not able to carry out our plans of helping Stamp out Hunger as well as the Jeffco Action Center Garage Sale due to restrictions, but we are very proud of what we have done for the community here, and throughout the world! We are very disappointed that we cannot have our induction ceremony this year, but to all of you who were inducted, CONGRATS! We know you will be the next generation of NJHS and you will do great! The group of kids in NJHS at D’Evelyn strive to help the community, and follow the NJHS motto: Service Before Self. We want to wish you all a wonderful and well rested summer! We can’t wait to see you all again next school year. The counseling staff will be out of the office for most of June and July. We will do our best to reply to your questions and concerns in a timely fashion. Comments are closed.
|
Jon Watson Archives
April 2022
Categories |