 Hello, we are delighted to be with you today to offer a presentation from NCSSM Counseling Services. The primary purpose of this presentation is to give you information about the college and the college process as parents and guardians and as students. If students may be looking at this as well, we want to do everything we can to make the process for you as productive, as effective, and as non-threatening as possible. So we have included information in the briefest of all forms, but would love to invite you to contact us should you want us to give you more explanation or more information. As you're looking at this screen now, you'll see all the individuals who are on our counseling staff in counseling services at the North Carolina School of Science and Math. And under each person's name is the assignment breakdown of our students. So if you are a parent or a guardian and you're not sure to whom your student is assigned, if you'll look at that breakdown, you'll see exactly the person that whom you should call. I am the Dean of Counseling Services, so I have students with whom I work, but if you're one of those parents, you'll certainly know to call me Gail Hudson and I'll be glad to work with you. In addition to the folks staffed for the Residential Counseling Services, we have Jennifer Betts included. She is, she works with the online students, and if you're an online parent and you're looking at this, then you'll see Jennifer Betts there and you'll know that she would welcome your calling her as well. In addition, we'll work with you, so please let the residential or online counselor know and we're happy to help with this. As we work with students in the college application process, we pay special attention to all of the components of their development because a student can't really apply effectively without being having some self-awareness and as they develop in those areas of self-awareness, they think about, what do I need socially in a college? What do I need intellectually? Is this the school that meets my emotional and spiritual needs? So when we are working with students, we look at this holistically and try to help them understand themselves as well as how they fit into the process or how they fit with a specific college. Our office hours are Monday through Thursday from 8 to 7 and then as follows with the others. We're open until 7 o'clock at night in order to accommodate college representative visits. College representatives tour our area, so they come to us from 4 o'clock to 7 o'clock and we have them in small groups so that your son or daughter may be able to have a very intimate setting with the representative from Brown. There may be five individuals in that college representative setting and it gives them a great opportunity for our students to ask questions and ask specific things that are related to that individual and may not even apply to other individuals. We also welcome parents. If you'd like to come to some of those sessions, we send that information out to you and let you know exactly which college representatives are here on any specific date. So it's a great opportunity for students as well as parents. In working with students at NCSSM, we have a three point supportive process that is the counselor and those are the folks we've been talking about the advisor and an advisor is a staff person or faculty person working with students. Each person has anywhere from two to eight students with whom each individual works. So the counselor, the advisor, and then the student life instructor. The student life instructor is the adult who lives on the hall and that adult works closely with students in the residential setting. So those three individuals work closely with students over any issue and certainly over the college application process. We cannot make it without you parents. We need your input. We need to communicate with you and we have various forms of communication. We want you to be on the lookout at the first of every month. I'll be sending an extensive email, which is a collection of information, letting you know issues or details or information that is pertinent to that time. So look for that each month, as well as other means of information other means of communication. Then we certainly communicate by phone calls. Naviance is an excellent means by which we communicate with you. If you'll look there, you'll find in your child's account where your son or daughter has applied to college, what request your son or daughter has made. It's an excellent venue by which you can see information about colleges. If you're looking to see the percentage of aid given out at Columbia, you can go to that in Naviance and find out so much information about colleges. Parent Counsel, we try to attend that as Parent Counsel meets in order to share information firsthand. We also have a Facebook account, which you can find many, many pieces of information. I guess the most important thing I want you to know is that we depend on you and we rely on your letting us know what you want to know. So if there's an issue, a problem, a concern, whether it's specifically related to your son or daughter or whether it is something you think all parents might need to know. If you'll let us know, then we treasure that input because we want to be able to provide information that makes this process of applying to college easier for you. It can sometimes be a bit frightening. And when we're in the area of what's unknown for some parents, it's the first time going through this, whether it's financial aid or student essays or college questions. If you'll let us know, we're happy to help you through this process so you're not alone and we'll do all we can to work together to make it a successful and even rewarding process. Student communication is one of the main things that we strive to do on a high level. And we have to try to communicate with them through multiple ways. So we send them emails, which of course, sometimes students don't read, but we are always trying to provide them with information. We also meet with students individually. In fact, that is how we spend the greatest part of our time. We have had large group meetings with the senior and junior classes. In fact, we've met with the juniors as a class twice already and met with the seniors as a whole class once. We also last week had small group meetings with seniors to talk about the college application process and we covered everything from Naviance to writing essays, they had time to ask questions. And so we feel like that was very successful based on the feedback we've gotten from the seniors. We have a group of students, you'll hear them call PCCs most likely, but they are our peer college counselors. And we're really blessed to have this group of students to work with us and they do so much to help get communication out to the students from writing newsletters to publishing summer opportunities to college representative visits to scholarships and just everything. And you see we also have a PCC newsletter which goes to every student electronically and also to all parents electronically. You can also find us on Naviance and you have the link here. You can also like us on Facebook and we have asked every student to like us on Facebook and here is the link to that as well. Okay, I'm going to talk to you a few minutes about Naviance. Every student and family of NCSSM has an individual Naviance account. I have included a link on this slide. It will help you get to Naviance. There are a couple of other ways to get there as well, but this is probably the quickest way. If you have any questions at all concerning your account, if you have any problem logging in or need your password reset, please contact our administrative assistant Ms. Pam Oxendine and you can see her email address as well as her phone number on this slide. Just to tell you a few features on Naviance, it's a great resource tool for when you're searching for colleges as far as careers as well as summer opportunities and scholarships. There's a supermatch college search where the student can go in and answer about 20 different questions in 20 different categories that will end up matching the student with the college and it actually gives you a bar graph of how well the student has matched to the college on individual characteristics. There are also some career exploration surveys and interest surveys as students are trying to determine what they may possibly want to major in as well as pursue as a career. What we encourage students to do is to complete these career inventories on their own time and then bring them into the counselor so they can have a further conversation regarding them. There's also a personality inventory, scholarships, summer opportunities, but the main thing that you're probably going to find that your student is using Naviance for is the college application process. This is the program which the students will be requesting transcripts from, putting in their teachers who are going to write the college recommendation letters for them and listing all the colleges to which they're going to apply. A few additional features on Naviance when you actually open it up to the home page, you will see important updates listed, anything that's going on in our office within the next couple of weeks. You will also see links to websites that you may find useful and the college representative visits, their schedules will be listed as well. So it's a good place for a lot of information. One thing I'd like to point out is that when you go into Naviance and check to see what has been sent from our office, you'll look under the office status. It's not a link, but I guess it's just a heading and if you see initial material submitted, I'd like for you to know what that includes. Every time we send out a transcript for a student, we also send out the student's entire senior schedule and NCSSM profile, the counselor summary letter that we've written for the student, as well as the secondary school report, which is also sometimes called a counselor statement form. Teachers also put their recommendation letters in Naviance and their teacher evaluation forms, but the teachers are responsible for sending those separately so they are not considered a part of the initial material submitted. The first test that almost all of our students have taken prior to coming to NCSSM is the PSAT, that's the pre-SAT. So again, as I stated, most of our students have taken that test in 10th grade year, which is wonderful, but they will have to be taking it again in junior year and all of our students here at Science and Math are automatically registered. The $15 fee for that year is already taken care of as part of the security deposit that everyone turned in prior to coming to their students coming to NCSSM. So the reason why they take it junior year and those scores count the most is that is the score that is used to help determine if students will be national merit semi-finalists and then from there eventually applying to go on to become national merit finalists, which is a scholarship opportunity. So if students do qualify and every year the cutoff score does change based on the average for that year, but if they do go on, it's wonderful and there's an application process that they have to complete and then they are considered for scholarships. If for some reason they do not meet that cutoff score, that is fine. There are other scholarship opportunities for which your children will be able to apply that are not attached to the PSAT. All juniors do take the SAT and they are registered. They will be taken again even if they already have taken it sophomore year and only junior year scores are used. So going on to the SAT and then I'll be talking about the ACT as well, those tests are used for college admissions. Some schools are going toward test score optional, however those are very few and most schools are still requiring either the SAT or ACT. So the SAT test dates we have listed here, those are the ones will be available at NCSSM for your child to be able to take here. When they register to take it, they do need to enter the test center code. You will not be able to find it in the drop down menu because the SAT is offered only for our students. So they need to enter the test center code manually so that they'll be able to register here. So with the SAT as well as the subject tests, the ACT is offered on these test dates that are showing on the slide and the ACT is available to the public so they don't have to enter the test center code manually. That should be available for them to find in the drop down menu on the ACT website. So what we recommend for our students is of course to take the SAT for our juniors in the spring and then as seniors in the fall. Of course they can take it as frequently as they would like but we do recommend that they try to get you know a few test dates in to give themselves the opportunity and colleges the opportunity to see which scores may be higher for them. We do recommend ACT with writing because some colleges will take the ACT with writing in lieu of the SAT with subject tests. When they do take the ACT please make sure that they are registering to take it with the writing portion. Going back to the SAT real quick the subject tests some colleges do require the subject tests for admission purposes as well as placement but if they're requiring it for admissions that means they need to have those scores as part of their application process. We suggest that students take the subject tests as close to the end of whatever subject they have just completed. So for example if they have just finished physics if they would like to take the physics subject test to go ahead and do it at that time. So math two is one that we do recommend a lot of our students take and is a good standard to go by and then any other subject in which they feel they may perform best on. So if a college says any subject tests we will accept just have your student go back and think okay which subjects would I perform best in and have them choose those two. They can sit they can take up to three subject tests on one test date. Of course they cannot do the regular reasoning test and subject tests on the same day but they can take up to three subject tests on one test date or they can spread it out if they want to do just one test at a time that's certainly fine if they feel like they'll perform better that way. We always recommend for our students and their families to look at each application at each college application and admissions requirements to find out exactly what is required so that they're not over testing or at the last minute rushing to try to figure out which squeeze in the test that is required to meet their application. Two more things I do want to add colleges will be super scoring your students scores. If your student took several SAT subject tests or a several SAT reasoning tests they'll be looking for the highest math the highest verbal and the highest writing. Those are the scores that will be on the transcript however they still will want an official report coming directly from College Board. With ACT they'll be doing the same thing as well. They will look and see which one is in your child's favor either the ACT or the SAT but they do want to see all test scores to try to help your child out. And the last thing I want to add if you do qualify for fee waivers or if you're not sure if you qualify for fee waivers please contact Ms. Oxon Dine and we can help you figure out if your child would be able to qualify for those because then they can get a fee waiver for the SAT the subject tests the ACT and up to four college applications. We want to share with you that we have college representatives from all over the country and even internationally as we have some from England who come over to our school Monday through Thursday from 4 30 to 7 o'clock. Now if you check Naviance and or Facebook for the schedule you'll see each college listed for each day. When your child is applying for college a really good way to get to know the college or university that they're applying for is to do a college visit. So in order to do a college visit what you want to do is make an appointment with the admissions office and extended weekends that we have here at NCSSM or spring break or even winter break are great times to visit. Please note that students may be excused for two absences per class per trimester for college visits. So now I'll share with you articulation agreements. And articulation agreements are classes that your student may have may be applicable for college credit. So as you see the schools that are listed here they're also listed on our website so if you just look you can look on the main website and just type in articulation agreements and then there'll be a link to each of the universities where you can see the specific requirements. So one thing I want to bring your attention to is that Oglethorpe University is actually not within the UNC system it's actually in Georgia and coming soon we have an articulation agreement with Western Carolina. So for example if one if your child is taking AP biology one two and three this is specific to North Carolina state would fulfill biology 0181 which is Intro to Biology at State. The advantage of articulation agreements are that they may allow your son or daughter to enter college as a second semester freshman or beyond. Generally the requirement is just to maintain a B or above in the class. Academic programs may have additional information for you as well but if you check our website you'll see the specifics of each particular school so please make sure you visit and make sure you like this one Facebook. So now I want to share with you different types of applications for college. So we have early action versus early decision and you can see there's a link here as well to give you additional information but you're probably wondering what is the difference. So early action is basically applying early for college and you have the option of applying to as many schools as you might as your son or daughter might like to apply to and then with early decision it is a binding agreement. So it's an agreement where you would agree if you're accepted to that college that you would make a promise that you would go to that particular college or university. What you'd need to do is you would sign an agreement, your son or daughter would sign an agreement and your child's counselor would also sign an agreement that everyone is in agreement that the early decision is okay for this student to to use or apply. So basically those are the two differences between early action and early decision but again you may want to look at the link for further information. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about financial aid today. First of all I want to bring your attention to the FAFSA and the CSS profile. The FAFSA is the free application for federal student aid and this will be available for you to complete after January 1 because you're going to need your tax returns to complete this document. I don't know of a school that does not use this form so this will be a very important form for you to complete and you can see the website in which you will access that. Some parents believe that they don't need to complete this application because they feel that they will not meet the eligibility requirements for that. I strongly encourage you to complete this as even if you are not eligible for any financial aid based on your family's financial situation if that were to change in the freshman year of college then they would need that information to see if you were eligible. In addition to that some private schools as well as even some public schools require the CSS profile. You'll need to know if your college requires this so you will be able to go on their website and look at their financial documents that they require and then it will alert you if they do need this document. Unlike the FAFSA this document it does cost to complete it and it does cost to send to each college. Unlike the FAFSA as well which is after January 1st the CSS profile can be completed at the beginning of October. And these two documents will help colleges assess what financial aid package to give you. On the next slide I wanted to talk a little bit about how financial aid is determined. So basically you take the cost of education so it's more than just the tuition it's the cost of living it's the the package that you get for the dining services books all of those things add up to the cost of education or some some places will call it cost of attendance. And then the school to come up with your financial aid package will subtract your estimated financial assistance. So for example if you were to get the SunTrust scholarship they would subtract that amount from the cost of education. And then they'll put in what they believe that the family can contribute based on the information that you've provided through the documents that I just explained earlier and that will give you the students financial need which is also called the expected family contribution. So that's a little bit about how the schools put your financial aid package together. I wanted to lurch you to some opportunities to learn a little bit more about the financial aid process and attaining money for college. The counseling office is going to offer a financial aid workshop on Thursday, January 23rd from two to four. And we hope that you'll be able to come. That will be the beginning of an extended so we're hoping that you can make plans to drive up to pick your children up that day and come join us for two hours worth of information about financial aid. In addition to that in your local area there is also a FAFSA day and that's going to be on Saturday, February 22nd and you can go to the link to register for that beginning after October 15th and most of the locations for the FAFSA day where you can learn more about that will most of them will be at your state employee credit union. The question that I often get asked is how can you find out more information about financial aid and how to obtain money for college. Each school has a net price calculator on its website. The net price calculator is to help you understand about a ballpark figure of how much it would cost to attend that college. It's going to ask you to enter in different amounts of financial information as it does vary on each college website and by entering in that information you can get a general idea of what it would cost to attend that university. In addition just to learn some more about how to find money for college on the Naviance website there is a financial aid checklist. I came up with this checklist with the help of our peer college counselors last year and it is a wonderful checklist that will take you through each and everything that we feel like you can do to find money for college. So it even starts off by letting you know that to take time each week to apply for scholarships because there's so many out there how to do a spreadsheet to keep up with the scholarships you're applying for and then it takes you through how to find local scholarships how to find college specific scholarships we give you some website links on how to find general scholarships as well as mentioning the FAFSA and the CSS profile for which I mentioned earlier as well as other things and hopefully after you have gone through that checklist and done each thing on that checklist you have really done a wonderful job of finding the money that you need for college. In addition on Naviance we also have another resource our peer college counselors do a wonderful job of researching scholarship as well as posting information for scholarships that I received information on and those are posted in the scholarship list and right now I checked yesterday we had 44 scholarships for parents and students to look at to see if you would like to apply for them. We also have a national scholarship search that is through the Naviance website itself so there's two different ways for you to look for scholarships on the site. That is the conclusion of our information. Please let counseling know if you have any questions about this information or need further information. Thank you so much.