Growing up, everyone has dreams and aspirations. Once you are on the verge of completing your high school studies, these ambitions get a real chance to take their shape and run their course. However, this is also a confusing time wherein students often end up making wrong decisions, thus nipping several hopes in the bud. It could be challenging to find the right direction for your aspirations to blossom, and that is where counselor schooling helps.
Did you always, as a younger teen, hope to someday make it as an artist? Or were you one of the ones that loved spending time on the piano? Maybe you wanted to become a soccer player but did not know how to manage college education on the side. It is no longer difficult to choose the right college that would not only honor your ambitions, whatever they might be but also kindle the passion and take it to new heights. A college counselor can help you with just the right method to choose such a college.
While deciding to work with an education counselor, it is always better to start early. Some counselors would be willing to work with you right from your junior year. An expert counselor would need to spend time with you to understand your knack and your dreams and formulate a strategy to bind these together to find an institution that is the right fit for you. Your GPAs, your essays, and your letters of recommendation might be important tools for securing an admission, but the most important factor is your inherent talent. A counselor’s job is to bring out that talent and lay down a path for it to shine.
In the scenario where you have already graduated high school, and are looking for some help with college admissions, visiting a qualified college counselor is still not too late. Counselors often start working with students right before their freshman year and continue to guide them throughout their sophomore year. A counselor’s job does not merely end at helping you get admission to college, it also entails active coaching throughout your foundation years.
Typically, the services that a college counselor begins with include academic guidance, laying out strategies for success, the discovery of skills of non-academic areas, and evaluation of past academic performance. The overall focus on growth as a person forms the primary focus behind this core evaluation. As you proceed to work with your counselor, the services delve into the actual admission process, including testing consultation, helping you prepare your resume, essays, etc. The special touch by the counselor comes in the form of building your unique extracurricular profile and advertising it to suitable colleges. The final step usually comes with proceeding with the admission procedure with the shortlisted colleges.
Times are changing, and there is no room for a one-size-fits-all theory in education anymore. The concept of a student being the right fit for a particular college is obsolete. It is the era of deciding whether a college is a right fit for a student. Everyone is unique, everyone is special, and it is your counselor’s job to find that special spark in you, and showcase your talents at the right institutions that would invest in honing your skills, and walk alongside you as you set out to fulfill your dreams.