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Dealing with Decision Fatigue

Mental exhaustion is part of a person’s life. Most of our exhaustion is felt when we’re overwhelmed with decisions. We wake up in the morning thinking about our daily tasks, “What should I do first?” or “Should I do x or y?”. Decisions increase tension and eventually create stress. Making a choice like what to wear to impress your clients, organizing a birthday party, working at home while babysitting your kids, or even juggling two jobs can be frustrating.

The best thing you can do when you’re tired making decisions is to change the way you see it. Modifying the way of thinking about willpower can change the outlook on decision-making. Dozens of decisions should be made, and it is very tiresome. That is where burnout or brain fog takes place. This article will help you deal with decision fatigue.

What is Decision Fatigue?

Decision fatigue is the exhaustion of the mind after a long process of decision-making. Our decision gets worse after overthinking ideas. It is also called ego depletion, which Roy F. Baumeister coined.

Professor Roy F. Baumeister is a social psychologist from the University of Queensland. He developed studies to obtain authentic happiness. Professor Baumeister stated in his study that making too many decisions can lead to poor decision making, and such may lead to negative consequences. 

For example, health care workers pull an all-nighter. Decision fatigue causes them to be less efficient, make poor decisions, and the quality of care they deliver may not be at par with the standards. 

Causes of Decision Fatigue

What causes decision fatigue? The main cause is making too many decisions over a length of time. There’s no time to think and to reflect on the consequences because there is limited time. Each day we are bombarded to make crucial decisions from what to eat, where to go, or what shoes to wear.

At the end of the day, we are still capable of these choices, even when we are tired. However, add that small tasks to more complex problems that need a solution and the strain to decide depletes us.

Signs and Symptoms

What does decision fatigue look like? A person may feel tired, stressed, and cannot focus. These are typical signs of fatigue. Physical fatigue may have also affected a person’s mental energy.

Here is a list of common symptoms that can arise as a person feels it:

  • Procrastinate: Bad decisions are a product of procrastination. “I’ll do this tomorrow”
  • Impulsiveness: People tend to be careless and select poor choices
  • Comfort zone: Resistance from change can lead to decision avoidance. “I’m not used to this.” It means you are stuck in your bubble, avoiding opportunities.
  • Overthinking: “What if this happens?” or “But what if it does?”. You overthink that you might fail and this stops you from making further decisions. 
  • Too many choices: Wasting time on unnecessary options is draining. Stick to the ones that apply to you and focus on your decisions.
  • Emotions: Emotions can overpower what the brain is thinking. You will realize some important decisions affect your feelings.

Effects of Decision Fatigue

In making decisions, willpower will help these circumstances. The effects of decision fatigue vary from person to person. Important decisions also decline over time. Willpower is connected to our mental energy which diminishes when decision fatigue occurs. We lose ourselves and can be impulsive. Some possible effects are listed below:

Trade-Offs

Trade-offs are small decisions we need to make that come with a cost. If we don’t have self-control in decision-making, it will be a loss of time and energy. It’s like bartering something negative hoping for a positive outcome. It is a product of compromise. When a person has decision fatigue, they probably can’t make wise decisions. They are reluctant to choose what is right and wrong. 

Avoiding Decisions

“I can’t do this anymore” and “I don’t want to deal with this today.” These are typical phrases when a person is experiencing decision fatigue. They can’t come up with better decisions because they are exhausted in a way that there is rejection.

One example of decision avoidance is procrastination which is briefly discussed above. Avoiding decisions on a personal matter greatly affects the brain. These can hinder very significant tasks.

How to Deal With Decision Fatigue?

Overcoming decision fatigue is easy once you have the knowledge and assistance. Jot down decisions that may or may not be applicable in your life. If you have a job that requires constant decisions, like designing and marketing, you will feel burnout. This will affect decision-making and lean towards bad trade-offs.

How do you combat it? Have you already given up? This mindset is negative. Instead, think about ways to combat it. Learn from your mistakes. Once you have a framework on what to do, just trust the process and commit to making it. Listed below are tips to get started:

Self-Control

Having self-control can eliminate the negative side of decision-making. For example, doing work as early as possible, controlling yourself by not saying bad words, or avoiding temptations. You need to learn how to stay calm when these situations arise. 

Every morning internalize your day, eat healthy meals, or listen to happy songs to boost your energy for better decision making throughout the day. Once a week make it a habit of engaging in physical activities. Also, having enough sleep at night could make a difference.

Taking control of our decision-making is essential. You will be given tasks and decisions throughout the day, these significant choices will impact your lives. Make sure that the product of those choices will not be in vain.

Simplify Choices Throughout the Day

Dress as simply as possible, this could take away excess stress on decision making. Being simple has benefits in your personal lifestyle. This will have effects on the ability to make decisions.

Follow the steps of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. As you have seen them on television, they have both individualized their wardrobe. They don’t wear loud colors and designs. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, only wears gray clothes for presentations every day. He chooses simple clothing which enables him to spend his energy on more important tasks. Simplify choices that deserve your energy and leave the rest as secondary.

List Down and Prioritize Tasks for The Day

List down on a piece of paper the things you want to be done on that day. For example, jot down your errands in a week, like going to the grocery, washing the car, and gardening. Prioritize what is important. Making decisions is hard and can lead to decision fatigue. Take control of these and avoid making decisions that you will regret in the end.

If you have resources like books and published research, take time to read on prioritizing decisions. There is what we call a prioritization matrix in which you write a task, its difficulty, and overall score. From this data, you can follow it according to prioritization.

Learn How to Breathe Once in a While

Take a break and have a snack. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t waste your time on things that are not worth it. At the end of the day, you are responsible for your own decisions.

Jonathan Levav studies behavioral decision theory at Stanford University. He researched parole decisions in judicial decision-making. Judges were placed on several decisions in a day. It involves a long session with 1,000 parole decisions made by eight judges in months.

It shows that taking a break with a meal helps judges to have faster parole decisions. They ate a full meal with glucose content. Decision fatigue can be eliminated once a person is well-rested and with energy.

You can breathe once in a while by taking time to yourself. A good bath can help release stress and fatigue. Try to enroll in yoga exercises and hobbies you love. Having a healthy mind and soul keeps you focused throughout the day. 

Be Grateful on Good Decisions

Decision fatigue takes a toll on our self-control and willpower. It drains our brain energy, making it hard for us to focus. Stress is the number one side effect of decision fatigue. Poor choices are the product.

Celebrating good decisions in a day could make better results and have a clear mind. For example, you had an excellent presentation at work. Treat yourself by having a glass of wine or watching a good movie. Congratulate yourself on these milestones; you deserve it.

Monitor Your Mental and Physical Health

Planning ahead of time can be a trick to make a number of decisions easy. It is a daily struggle, but you have to be on track to reach your goals. “Am I still doing a good job? Can this affect my mental health over time?” Ask yourself if you are still okay. If this doesn’t positively suit you, learn to stop. Rejecting a decision is not bad.

Keep track of your emotions. Level it to your criteria and list down ways to improve yourself. Try to monitor your sleep pattern, appetite, and mood. These can help you organize your mental health. 

Conclusion

Decision-making is a daily event and a task. You make options every second or minute. Joggling them from left and right is laborious. In conclusion, taking a rest, eating healthy foods, and organizing tasks can eliminate decision fatigue.

Do you suffer decision fatigue? You can visit the website of the Kentucky Counseling Center (KCC) here.

Private Scholarship Management Suggestions

You, your family, school, or organization have an idea to create a scholarship program to support students. This is wonderful way to assist students pay for educational expenses. In many cases the scholarship application requirements, application review process and how funds will be disbursed to the student’s college or university are topics which results in long hours of discussion to resolve. Following are some suggestions to make the process straightforward for the members of the scholarship committee.

Reconsider the Use of Standardized Test Scores for Award Decisions – Due to the current COVID crisis numerous colleges and universities have an optional SAT and/or ACT policy as part of the application process. Looking at the student’s high school transcript, Grade Point Average (GPA), letters of recommendation and resume will still allow for a full review of the student’s college potential.

Consider Relying Upon Federal Student Aid (FSA) Criteria – Many of the questions you may have about what would be a preferred enrollment status, the minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) to require for a renewal award, how to handle a student illnesses, dropping classes, academic challenges that might take place, all have built it answers from the rules and regulations related to Federal Student Aid (FSA). These are the requirements students must meet for funds they receive from completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Scholarship committee members can find a lot of the answers to these questions by reviewing a college’s financial aid web page. It would also be a good idea to schedule a conversation with a college’s financial aid administrator to ask for input on how your potential or current scholarship requirements could be aligned to best serve students.

Reconsider Your Definition of Financial Need and Tuition Only Awards – In many cases numerous government and private scholarships are designed to assist students that have a financial need based upon them qualifying for a Federal Pell Grant. Due to this dynamic many college financial aid administrators end up not being able to place all the funds on a student’s account because more than one fund is attempting to pay for exactly the same student expense.

An example is a student having three or four sources of funding all restricted to tuition and fees. This can have the opposite intention than what the government and private funding sources had in mind. I have seen numerous schools be required to not place the funds on the student’s account due to this restriction. If financial need was defined as any student that is not meeting their entire college Cost of Attendance, then the student would have more of a chance to benefit from the financial award. This would allow the funds to be used for tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses.

By Kenneth McGhee, Director DC Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG) Kenneth.mcghee@dc.gov

Types of Personality Testing

Have you ever wondered what makes the people around you behave the way they do? What makes you, you? 

We are taught to believe that labeling people isn’t fair and we should avoid doing that at all costs. However, in many cases being able to figure out what type the person we are talking to is can help us better understand their needs, desires, and even attitude toward life. Being a square peg in a round hole never worked for anyone.

High school years are when the majority of people curiously begin to discover themselves, what they like and dislike, how they behave in different situations, what truly motivates them, and what puts them off. As counselors, it’s our job to know the various methods for identifying our students’ unique personalities so we can learn how to relate to them. 

16 Personality Types

The most popular personality test in 2021 is the 16 personalities MBTI test. According to it, a person’s personality type is an acronym made of four letters. Each letter corresponds to one of the 8 distinct preferences a person has. If, for example, a person’s four preferences are Extroverted (E), Sensing (S), Feeling (F) and Judging (J), their personality type is ESFJ. All possible combinations of the four preferences yield 16 different personality types.

The total of eight letters are grouped in 4 personality categories, as follows:

  1. Introversion/Extraversion: How people expend energy
  2. Sensing/Intuition: How people receive information
  3. Thinking/Feeling: How people make decisions
  4. Judging/Perceiving: How people see the world

No psychological type is better than the other. All personality types have their strengths and weaknesses, and each person has a unique set of equally valuable characteristics. Understanding your distinctive personality archetypes is useful in many aspects of one’s life including relationships, career and learning.

Multiple Intelligences

In 1986, Howard Gardner, a graduate of Harvard University and a developmental psychologist, developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences. He believes that intelligence goes way beyond IQ tests as they fail to explain the wide variety of human abilities. According to Gardner, in order to capture the full range of skills and talents a person possesses, we have to understand that there are multiple types of intellectual capacity including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic.

Basically, each person is a mixture of different types of intelligences, with some naturally prevailing above others.

Here is a small summary of each type of intelligence: 

  • Visual/Spatial Intelligence people are good at remembering images and are aware of surroundings.
  • Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence people are naturally good with writing, speaking, and memorization.
  • Logical/Mathematical Intelligence people are driven by logic and reasoning.
  • Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence people have good motor skills, are aware of their bodies, and love movement.
  • Musical Intelligence people are musically gifted and have a “good ear” for rhythm and composition.
  • Intrapersonal Intelligence people are adept at looking inward.
  • Interpersonal Intelligence people thrive at gatherings and enjoy social interactions.
  • Naturalist Intelligence people appreciate and are highly sensitive to nature. They can “see” how nature works.

Learning Styles

Learning styles is a theory suggesting that utilizing different methods of learning helps people memorize and understand things better. As a counselor, you should be well aware that all students are unique and each one of them perceives information in different ways. The three most practical senses in learning environments are sight, hearing, and touch. The VAK model categorizes these sensory methods of learning as Visual (V), Auditory (A), and Kinesthetic (K) learning styles.

While most people have a dominant learning style, it’s worth mentioning that nobody has just one learning style. Everyone uses each of the learning styles to some degree. Some are stronger in one style while very few individuals are blessed with mastery in all styles.

The reality is that we all have a “custom” learning style that is, to an extent, a combination of Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic learning. It’s essential to figure out the strength of a student’s learning styles as they relate to each other. This allows you to focus on maximizing their learning potential. Recognizing a student’s distinctive set of strengths also helps you seek learning opportunities that will cater to their specific combination of learning style strengths. In recent years, many educators have started using knowledge of learning styles (and multiple intelligences) to improve teaching methods and in doing so, reach learners of all types.

Left/Right Brain Dominance

The two sides of the brain are known as hemispheres. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and deals with logical thought and linguistic function. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and deals with abstract thought and spatial orientation.

In 1960, Neuropsychologist Roger W. Sperry developed the right – left brain theory. He believed that the human brain is dominant on either the right or left side and that each side of the brain controls different types of thinking. Some individuals utilize both sides of their brains equally but most people demonstrate a greater tendency to think in a certain way.

The majority of people are left-brain dominant. The typical modern day school environment tends to favor left-brain thinkers who follow logical thought and practical action, while right-brain thinkers, who tend to be more imaginative and “outside the box”, are sometimes forgotten. Schools and counselors need to understand that both types of individuals carry high value to society and therefore it’s of high importance to encourage their interests. 

Cynthia Halow is with PersonalityMax . PersonalityMax is the brainchild of Cynthia Halow, an MA in Psychology with a strong passion for Jungian teachings. The site launched back in 2007 and since then has been constantly evolving and adding more refined tests to its portfolio. PMax has been active for over 14 years and its tests have proudly been taken over 3 million times. 

Annual Survey of Parents Finds 63% of Students say their post-high school plans are returning to normal

The pandemic caused havoc on the college admissions process as Colleges were unable to use traditional recruiting means to reach students. Many students upended their plans and the traditional tours of colleges were cut all together for them. Financing that College education also took on more angst as many parents jobs were lost or put on hold. A new study conducted by Discover Student Loans shows things are beginning to return to normal for many students and their parents. Some findings from the survey:

  • Sixty-three percent of parents say their child’s post-high school plans have returned to what they were before the pandemic.  
  • 40% of parents say their ability to help their child pay for college has improved since this time last year.
  • Nearly three-in-four parents say they will pay for half or more of their child’s education.  
  • 43% of parents say they won’t limit their child’s college choice based on price – up 10 percentage points from 2018. 
  • However – 63% of parents remain concerned about having enough money to pay for their child’s education.  
  • 38% of parents say paying for college is their child’s top anxiety about attending college – followed by applying for scholarships and aid (30%) – all of which outranks choosing a major and tackling more difficult classes. 

Families are working together to find a plan to pay for college.  

Over half (59%) of parents say the pandemic caused them and their student to have more candid conversations about how their family will pay for college. While 41% of parents don’t feel like they started saving early enough, up from 37% in 2019, most are planning to leverage a mix of resources to finance college. 

When asked how they were going to finance college, 61% of parents say the pandemic has not impacted how they plan to pay. Scholarships/grants (47%), savings (45%) and student loans (37%) continue to be the most popular financing options among parents. Notably – 11% of parents report they will forego saving for their retirement to help their student pay for college.  

“It’s important that parents and students discuss how the cost of college is getting split in a way that’s realistic and comfortable for all involved”, says Manny Chagas, VP of Discover Student Loans.. “Utilizing free online tools and resources, like budgeting calculators and planning calendars, can help families make smarter college financing decisions.” 

About the Survey 

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from a Dynata (formerly Research Now/SSI) survey conducted on behalf of Discover Financial Services. The survey was conducted online; fielded from May 10 – May 15, 2021 with a total sample size of 1,000 US parents of college bound students. The margin of sampling error was ±2.53 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.  

Advantages and Disadvantages of an Ivy League Education

Your students have a significant decision on deciding which schools to apply to. And if they are a high-achieving student, they are likely to apply to an Ivy League school.

Everyone is aware of the “Ivy League,” a group of eight private schools defined by their membership in the same collegiate athletic conference. The Ivy League includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania. But what holds these eight schools together is more than their athletics—it’s their commonly shared world-renowned academics, prestige, and—obviously most anxiety-inducing— exclusivity, as evidenced by their low acceptance rates.

So how will your students know if one of these universities would be the right fit for them? Is attending an Ivy League even worth it?

In this article, we’ll look at some of the benefits of attending an Ivy League, while digging into some common doubts.

 

Advantages of being part of an Ivy League Education

World-class peers and faculty

The very environment of each of these prestigious universities is such that you will be surrounded by exceptional students in the classroom, food hall, and dorm. Not only each student selected to an Ivy League university has excellent test scores and academic performance, but also most Ivy League undergrads are also proficient in extracurricular activities and actively engaged in their communities.

Such kind of a fantastic student body leads to an enriching academic and social experience for all students.

These schools don’t just attract the best students, but some of the most world-renowned faculty as well—winners of Pulitzers and Nobel Prizes. Because the materials of Ivy League schools allow them to offer small seminars taught by top-notch faculty, even to newcomers, you will have direct access to brilliant researchers and academics.

As a Harvard student, you will be able to choose from a range of freshmen seminars such as “Broadway Musicals: History and Performance,” personally directed by Carol Oja, the Chair of Harvard’s Department of Music and Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic.

At Yale, you can take the freshman seminar “What History Teaches” with Pulitzer Prize winner and renowned historian John Gaddis.

That’s one of the significant differences between Ivy League schools and large public universities. The more prominent public universities no doubt have excellent teaching staff, but they may have comparatively less time with students, and be more concerned with publishing, issuing, or researching. More prominent Ivy League universities like Cornell and smaller colleges like Dartmouth alike put more emphasis on teaching.

Lifelong Ivy League network with World-class people

You will not only benefit from interacting with other excellent students and teaching staff during your four years of college. Your peers will go in several directions to pursue a wide variety of careers, indicating you will have access to a top-notch network for the rest of your life. Your network will also include the many notable faculty and alumni.

The advantages of such a network can begin as early as freshman year. At Yale, the Office of Career Strategy connects students to internships in various disciplines through Yale parents, alums, donors, and employers who are eager to hire Yale students.

Talking about Princeton, you can find similar internship opportunities in the United States and abroad through the International Internship Program. Every Ivy League school university will provide you with an alumni database that you can access to help find your dream internship.

And if there is a particular field you would like to attend, getting into an Ivy League may give you a good push-up. Harvard is known for having a robust entertainment industry network, organized as “Harvardwood.”

Research also proves how Ivy League graduates are overrepresented in leadership roles in the business, art, corporate and political worlds. One study showed that nearly a third of Fortune 500 directors and CEOs graduated from elite universities (note that these universities were not limited to the Ivy League).

Availability of resources

Ivy League schools command a considerable amount of resources. With their vast endowment funds, each of these schools can easily afford to offer research funding, Broadway-level performance spaces, massive libraries, and the support you need to start your distinctive extracurricular group, academic project, or small business.

Also, each Ivy League school provides a unique set of offerings, and you should consider which of these schools commands the resources that best fit your interests.

Ivy schools will have access to eminent faculty and studio space at Brown University if you are a potential visual artist. If you want to pursue a foundational education in social science and humanities, you would like to attend Columbia University for its Core Curriculum or Yale University for its Directed Studies Program. Or, if you are someone who likes thrill in life and access to hiking trails, skiing, or cabins, then you can rent through their college; Dartmouth might be a perfect fit.

Name recognition

People often talk that there isn’t much value to an Ivy League diploma other than the name. The truth in this statement is that “the name” does carry some value. Besides, serving as an entry point to the alumni network, an Ivy League university listed in your resume can help you get your first job out of college, as well as internships and other tremendous opportunities while you’re in college.

Ivy League schools took up half of the slots in the top ten of the 2019 Global University Employability Ranking, compiled based on the perspectives of job recruiters.

While research shows being a part of a selective institution may not positively impact student education, job satisfaction, or well-being, attending an Ivy League or comparably elite university has been found to have a measurable positive effect on future earnings for some students populations.

Attending a university with a 100-point higher average SAT score (most Ivy Leagues fall under this category than most other schools) has been found to increase future earnings for women by 14 percent. And another study showed that students from low-income backgrounds who attend elite colleges on average earn more than those from low-income backgrounds who attend less prestigious schools.

Attending an Ivy League college can also provide students with an edge if they decide to apply to graduate school.

Disadvantages of Attending an Ivy League School

Very Expensive tuition fees

One commonly held assumption about Ivy League schools is that they are expensive. Tuition and board for these schools are not cheap. In 2019-2020, the average sticker price of tuition and fees at an Ivy came to $54,414.

But while this number is undoubtedly high, it is also somewhat misleading, given that these schools generally have large endowments and can offer generous financial aid packages to all students with financial needs.

For example, while Yale’s cost of tuition and fees in 2019-2020 was $55,000, the average price for all Yale students, after factoring in financial aid and grants, came out to just $17,000, with the intermediate need-based scholarship offered coming out to $55,100. At Brown University, the most recent average financial aid award was $42,445, and at Princeton, that number came out to a whopping $53,100. Every Ivy League university needs blind, meaning that the ability to pay for college won’t hurt any student’s chances for admission.

And if your child does graduate from an Ivy League with loans, they’re likely to go on to make more money than their peers who attended other colleges, meaning they’ll be able to pay off those loans sooner.

The amount of need-based financial aid many Ivy League students receives and the ultimate return on investment helps explain why U.S. News ranks seven out of the eight Ivy League schools in the top twenty of their “Best Value Schools” (Cornell, ranked at #23, is just outside of the top twenty).

Crazy Competitiveness

Many parents worry that sending their child to an Ivy League will mean sending them to be a small fish in a big pond. The freshman year of college can indeed be an adjustment period for students who are used to leading within their high school classrooms or those encountering imposter syndrome and worrying they can’t compete with their peers.

However, your child will soon realize that she was admitted because the admissions committee knew that she would excel in an environment where equally engaged academic leaders would surround her. In general, there’s a sense at Ivy League universities that instead of competing for a few plumb internships, educational opportunities, or, eventually, jobs, there is room for everyone in the student body to thrive. 

A non-representative student body

Ivy League schools have a reputation for admitting legacies and other students who aren’t representative of the U.S.’s socioeconomic and racial diversity. They have also been criticized for failing to support undergraduate students of color. And a group of Asian American students recently sued Harvard for discriminating against them with their admissions policy.

While the Ivies still have a long way to become more inclusive and supportive institutions, they have made strides in recent years. Previously mentioned generous financial aid policies allow these universities to offer financial support to students from low-income backgrounds. The undergraduate communities at these schools are also becoming more racially diverse, with the majority of Harvard’s incoming class being nonwhite for the first time in 2017 and 55 percent of students accepted into Cornell’s class of 2023 identifying as students of color.

Low student to faculty ratios

 

While most Ivy League universities are not considered “small,” with undergraduate enrollment ranging from around 4,000 at Dartmouth to over 15,000 at Cornell, the level of resources they offer means that your child may receive more individual, personal attention than they would many other colleges. The Ivies have a low student-to-staff ratio, with Yale’s the weakest at 5.4 students to every staff member.

At an Ivy League school, your student will also have access to various academic and student life advisors, tutors, and one-on-one relationships with professors. Residential advisors may be more involved and supportive than they would be at other schools, with Yale’s First-Year Counselor Program and Harvard’s Proctor Program giving first-year students the chance to foster relationships with exceptional upper-level students who can help with the transition to college.

Conclusions

Gaining admission to an Ivy League university is never easy. That adage about the most challenging part is getting in isn’t entirely accurate either, but should your child be accepted at one of these schools, a wide range of benefits will be available to them. If your child will be served by what an Ivy League university can offer, applying is worth the effort.

 

Chirag Arya is the Founder, AP Guru

High School Counselor Timeline

This is a general timeline of activities and tasks. The counseling department and/or you in particular don’t necessarily do everything listed. Depends on your duties and grade levels.

JULY :

Update transcripts with summer school grades and finalize/change schedules.

Summer registration for previously enrolled and new students.

Meet with senior students and parents who need all or extra credits to graduate.

Check the transcripts of your students against their schedules to make sure they have what they need to graduate. Make a list of those that need credit recovery.

Check schedules for special populations (IEP, ESL, 504 students) to make sure they are properly placed. You will need info from their caseworker or access to the IEP.

Create an account on Send U and Common Application. You will receive emails to complete recommendations and upload transcripts through these. You will need to upload the most recent school profile.

Assign NCAA Eligibility Center Administrators and check master course list.

AUGUST:

Schedule changes per school policy.

Register New Students.

You’ll need a school profile to put in with admissions/scholarship applications. Lots of them ask for a copy. NACAC and College Board have tons of examples.

Get students set up with credit recovery and notify the credit recovery teacher.

PSAT Sign Up.

SURVIVE!

SEPTEMBER

Q1 Progress Reports.

Attend College Board Counselor Workshop. Register on their website. SAT, AP, CLEP,and PSAT info and updates. They also do a different workshop strictly for NEW counselors that is really good.

ACT College and Career Readiness Workshop—FREE to attend. Register online to attend.

Financial Aid Meeting Seniors, Night Financial Aid Overview for Parents.

Class Visits All Grades—Intro and General Info.

AP Testing Registration.

OCTOBER

Q1 Report Cards.

PSAT testing for juniors and sophomores—normally done through sign ups and students pay a fee. There are fee waivers. Pre-administration session saves LOTS of time. Two national test dates. Enters them in National Merit Scholarship competition,

Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership (HOBY)—For 10th graders—application process.

Seniors State ACT Re-take.

Oct. 1st FAFSA opens (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)—Students must complete to get financial aid for college.

FAFSA Help Workshop for parents.

AP Testing Registration.

NOVEMBER

Lots of college apps and scholarships becoming due at this time.

ASVAB testing.

Start transcript, schedule, and grade reviews in preparation for spring course registration.

Start planning spring course registration.

DECEMBER

Lots of scholarships due at this time.

PSAT score return.

Spring course registration planning.

Diploma Order Forms.

JANUARY

1st Semester report cards.

Lots of college scholarship deadlines.

Course registration planning for next school year.

New students & schedule changes per school policy or if failed fall classes.

Semester Teachers—Don’t forget to give out 504/IEP/Gifted/ESL info to teachers to any students who have new classes.

Check senior graduation status and transcripts for correctness—re-rank in February.

FEBRUARY

Course registration activities—Usually course requests need to be checked over with a full number of credits before spring break so admin can present staffing needs to district.

Lots of college scholarships due.

Q3 Progress Reports.

MARCH

1. Q3 Report Cards.

Check seniors 3rd quarter grades.

Local scholarships start coming out.

Check diploma order form excel to determine which awards/honors students qualified for.

APRIL

Q4 progress reports.

Start Awards Day planning and data collection.

Senior transition survey Google form—Plans after high school, where to send transcripts, phone numbers to be reached.

Local scholarships due.

Start next year’s schedules once master schedule is completed (may not happen until summer).

Update NCAA Eligibility Center Master Course List.

Hound the seniors!

MAY

AP testing.

Add the weighted quality points to students who took AP tests.

ACT score return.

Awards Day & Senior Decision Day.

Work on schedules.

Retainees and summer school candidates.

Double check transcripts before grades go out.

SURVIVED PARTY!

JUNE

1. Work on schedules.

Double check senior transcripts & post final rank.

Send final senior transcripts.

Send NCAA and NAIA final transcripts.

Send final transcripts through Common Application.

Double check underclassmen transcripts & re-rank.

Move/update records.

This information was adapted from information posted by Ashley Sievers, a High School Counselor in Tennessee, to the High School Counselors Group on FB

Articles Scheduled for 2021/2022 LINK for Counselors

We took your feedback on subjects you want to see covered this school year and have come up with a great slate of articles for this year. Here is a summary of articles that we already have in-house and more to come as well:

Scheduling and Social Justice: Your Underscored Power – By Sweety Patel, Counselor at Carteret Public Schools in New Jersey

Students with Disabilities: How to Get Them Ready for Postsecondary Education – By Hawa Allarakhia, Graduate Assistant in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, USF

Why and How to Evaluate the Quality of a College’s Major – By Carolyn Kost, Counselor and Author based in Palm Beach, Florida

ELL and College – By James Paterson, Former Counselor of the Year Montgomery, MD (a large Washington, DC area suburb) (This will run in the Spring 2022 issue)

Best Strategies for Searching for Scholarships – By Rebecca VanderMeulen, Counselor at St. Elizabeth High School in Wilmington, Delaware

Applying to College: 7 Tips for a Stress-Free College Application – Shanell Leggins, Associate Director of College Guidance, Archer School for Girls, Los Angeles, California

Careers to Consider: Data Science and Occupational Therapy: Healthcare and Data Collide evermore during the past 18 months – By Dr. Jeffrey T. Gates, Senior VP for Student Life and Enrollment Management, Utica College

Accelerated Medical Programs for High School Students – By Elizabeth Drucker

Accelerated Law Programs for High School Students – By Elizabeth Drucker (This will run in the Spring 2022 issue)

Study in the UK – By Ryan Astor, Client Success Manager, Sannam S4, Inc.

The Post Pandemic Implications, By Heather Couch, Counselor at Batavia Middle School in Ohio

Supplemental Essays – By Brittany Maschal, Owner/Founder of Brittany Maschal Consulting

Careers to Consider: Communication Sciences and Disorders – By Mary T. McDermott, Ed.D., CCC-SLP, is the Program Director/Asst. Professor, Communication Sciences & Disorders at Gannon University

Work Study – By James Paterson, Former Counselor of the Year Montgomery, MD (a large Washington, DC area suburb) (This will run in the Spring 2022 issue)

The Myth of the Full Ride: Understanding Aid Opportunities – By T. Stone Yeatts, Admissions counselor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro

SAT-ACT Post Pandemic – By Evan Wessler, VP of Method Test Prep

Not Sold on College – By Dawn Marie Barhyte

Sophomores – By James Paterson, Former Counselor of the Year Montgomery, MD (a large Washington, DC area suburb) (This will run in the Spring 2022 issue)

Scholarship Watch – By Scholarship Owl

How to Help Your Students Parse Any Prompt(including the new Common App Prompt) – By Kim Lifton, President, WOW Writing Workshop

Special Transfer Section

Transfer Credit – By James Paterson, Former Counselor of the Year Montgomery, MD (a large Washington, DC area suburb)

10 Famous People Who Transferred

Community College to University: Frequently asked questions from a Student Services team member – By Julianna Olsen, Disability Resources & Student Life Director at Brunswick Community College

Transfer Up – By James Paterson, Former Counselor of the Year Montgomery, MD (a large Washington, DC area suburb)

Two new scholarships for your students

We have recently been made aware of a couple of new scholarships available for your students. Here are the details on both:

  1. Digital Monk is offering your students the opportunity to exercise their writing skills and compete for a $500 scholarship award.

They would like to hear your students thoughts on ONE of the following topics:

– What is the Future of Online Learning?
– Comparison of Online Learning and Traditional Learning
– Should Online Learning Be Encouraged?

The article must be written in the English language and can’t surpass 500 words. Only one application is permitted per person (that is, they should select only one topic and send one article).

Eligibility Requirements:

To be accepted for participation, your student(s) must meet the general entry terms:

– Graduate, postgraduate, and undergraduate students of an accredited college or university of the United States.

– High-school students enrolled in an accredited US college or university in the Fall 2021 semester.

– An eligible applicant must be a citizen or a legal resident of the United States.

– Must provide your written essay by the deadline of November 1, 2021.

All essay submissions should be sent to: scholarship@digitalmonk.org

Scholarship

2. The Kaplan Group’s annual $1,000 scholarship is available to any undergraduate or graduate student pursuing a business or law-oriented degree program with a GPA of 2.5 or higher.

Applications for the scholarship are due August 15, 2021

Full details of the scholarship can be seen here:

The Kaplan Group Business Scholarship

Changes to FAFSA that make completing it a whole lot easier for families

There are five major changes coming to FAFSA. Here’s what they are: 

  1. The FAFSA is getting shorter: The number of questions on the FAFSA form will be capped at 36. This is a significant reduction from the current 108 questions. Some tax information – like tax returns – will also be automatically imported going forward, which will simplify the process for federal aid applications.
  2. The Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is being replaced: Currently, each student is assigned an EFC based on factors such as family income and number of household members. This will be replaced by the Student Aid Index (SAI) to make more clear to students that this number is used to decide on an appropriate amount of aid, rather than requiring their families pay a specific amount of money. The SAI can also be negative for low-income students most in need of aid, which isn’t the case for the EFC, which can only go as low as $0.
  3. More people will soon be eligible for Pell Grants: Pell Grant eligibility will no longer be based on EFC, but instead on gross income and family size. Students currently excluded from eligibility for drug-related convictions as well as incarcerated students in prison education programs will also become eligible for Pell Grants, as will people who qualified for student loan cancellations in the past.
  4. The time limit for Direct Subsidized Loans eligibility is changing: The current federal student aid rules limit eligibility for Direct Subsidized Loans to 150% of the time a school says it will take to complete an academic program. This will no longer be the case, and students will be able to get aid for as long as their schooling actually takes. This doesn’t mean Direct Subsidized Loans are unlimited, though. You can still max out your loan eligibility.
  5. Financial aid administrators will have more opportunity to offer aid during national emergencies: More flexibility will be provided to offer additional aid by taking into account prolonged periods of unemployment during a disaster.

What this means for students and parents

Because these changes make the FAFSA easier to complete, it may mean more future college students and their families fill out the forms and become eligible for federal financial aid. The EFC rules change that makes it easier for schools to identify students with substantial financial need may also open up the door for more people to get an affordable college education.

This information was provided by Credible. They offer a listing of private loans here.

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