The High School

Counselor’s Page …

 

Financial Aid & Award Letters

After sending in the FAFSA form, students should receive a Student Aid Report (SAR). It needs to be checked over and careful attention should be paid to instructions that come with it. Once the SAR and all other required financial documents and forms are sent to each of your student’s potential colleges, you will just need to sit back and wait to find out what the schools will give you to assist in paying for college.

When a college sends you an award letter, compare it to that of other colleges. Look to see how much the student and the family are expected too pay--including any loans that are offered. Use this information in deciding which college would be best for your student.

Award letters usually say you need to accept or decline their offers within a set amount of time. If you are still considering this college, accept the parts of their offer you are interested in using. Later, if you decide you don’t want it, you can turn them down.

Keeping that idea in mind, be sure that when a school offers a scholarship and you have some interest in attending, you should apply for it whether you know for sure you will attend there or not. It can later be declined. Most colleges also have alternates, so the scholarships will be used by someone.

 

SCC-Milford Open House

24 High Tech Programs, Associate’s Degree in 18 months, national reputation for quality education and 98% job placement are just a few of the things SCC in Milford has to offer. Check out their campus at their open house on Sunday, May 2nd from 11 am to 4 pm.

Several other colleges have open houses in the spring, so if you have a college in which you are interested, check with them to see if they are planning one. These make great first-time tours for juniors and their parents, but are usually open to students of all ages.

 

Campaign Cam

Compete for a chance to win one of 45 awards when you enter your short video. Express what you think about an issue that matters to you as our country approaches the 2004 elections by producing a video documentary. The video must offer a variety of perspectives and points of view. This contest is open to teams or individuals in middle school or high school. For complete rules, go to c-span.org/classroom/2004vote. Entries must be received by May 17th.

 

United States Military Academy Nominations

Students interested in attending any military academy must apply to be nominated by a state senator or congressman. There is an extensive appli­cation process. Candidates who intend to enter acad­emy classes starting in July, 2005, must apply by October 31st.  Applications are available in the high school counselor’s office.

 

Scholarship Searches

Every year, I try to emphasize this basic advise: NEVER PAY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP SEARCH. There are plenty of places to look for scholarships on your own and no agency can guarantee that your student will receive a scholarship. I am warned about scholarship scams over and over again, so I try to pass that information on to you. If you have to pay for the search, it isn’t worth it. Please be careful!

The Internet is probably your best bet in finding scholarships. Start with the website at educationquest.org and see where it takes you. There should be links to many other sites. This takes lots of time, so juniors should be starting with this now! Also, look at the fine print and the “About Us” spots on web pages you visit. Lots of companies like Target and Monsanto have scholarships available on their websites.

If you don’t have access to the Internet at home, go to the public library or make arrangements to use the computers at school.

 

Interesting Career Fields

I’ve recently received information on several interesting career fields about which people may not have much knowledge. There is not room here to describe them all, but the names pretty much tell what they are about. The fields include Industrial or Construction Management, Industrial Engineering and Aviation Maintenance Technology. Give me a call or come in for more information.

College Credit Classes

available to juniors & seniors

Plans are underway to offer five college credit classes available to students in their junior and senior years during the school day. Students in good standing may sign up for these courses. Four of the five classes will be taught through the distance learning network. These classes will be offered for credit from Southeast Community College. Students will have to pay for the credit, but will be able to earn 12 credits through these courses by taking one course each semester of their last two years of high school. This amounts to approximately one semester of college credit without the other costs associated with living away from home on a college campus. These credits transfer and count toward most degrees at most colleges in Nebraska.

Psychology and sociology will be offered to juniors and seniors. English Composition I and II will be offered to seniors only. Conceivably, seniors could take all four courses in one school year. The psych and soc teachers will be provided by SCC and are unknown at this time. The English Comp teacher will be Mrs. Cording. She currently teaches the same courses on Wednesday evenings during the school year at Thayer Central.

Both psychology and sociology are offered at Thayer Central from our staff, but not for college credit. Students have often taken psychology during the summer from Mrs. Koester for college credit and will continue to be able to do so.

The fifth class is currently in its second year of being offered for college credit through Nebraska Wesleyan University. This course is AP Calculus, traditionally taught at Thayer Central for many years. Again, the tuition must be paid by the student or his/her parents. It is comparable in cost to the tuition of SCC since Wesleyan has reduced its price for this course. Students will, as always, be able to take the same course without earning college credit or paying for the tuition. Students can also earn college credit for this course by taking the next level of calculus at UNL and earning a C or better. They are then granted credit for both calculus classes. Mrs. Lukert is the teacher of this class and can answer many of your questions.

 

Costs & Other Considerations

The cost of the tuition is about $190 per 3 credit hour class; books will cost extra. Students will not be charged for books for the calculus class since the school owns them. Students will need to sign up for the SCC classes before the end of the semester. Tuition will also have to be paid at this time. It is reimbursable if the student decides not to take the class. Signing up for college credit for calculus is done in the fall.

Here is a comparison of costs for some 4-year colleges/universities in state:

 

            UNK           UNL         Wayne         SCC

1 credit         $213.00                  $381.00                    $174.00                  $63.00

3 credits       $639.00                  $1143.00                  $522.00                  $189.00

 

These costs are approximate because there are also fees associated with taking classes and tuition will very likely go up at all colleges. From this, you can see that the credit from SCC is a lot less than most other colleges. Other community colleges are probably similar in price, though.

            The four SCC classes are 3 hour classes, meaning students attend class approximately 3 hours a week for one semester. Therefore, they will be taught on M-W-F. The classes will not meet on T-Th and the student will most likely have a studyhall during that time. Calculus meets everyday.

            Students can get a jump start on college by taking these courses. However, there are a few other things that should be considered in pursuing this path. I have been told repeatedly that UNMC (the med center) will not accept AP credit and also wants to see the college credit earned while the student is in college. So taking this route could affect your chances of getting into professional programs at UNMC. This could be true of other professional schools, like law school and optometry school. You will need to check into this if you are planning to go into one of these professions.

            Students going into nursing could greatly benefit by taking these courses because they are often required before you can start nursing school. Many students take some of these classes at SCC before starting nursing school, so you could get them taken care of in high school. There could still be other requirements that you will have to meet. Check with several of these schools to see where they stand in regard to this if you want to be sure. They all have their own requirements. Most other courses of study such as business and education don’t have many restrictions on earning credits in this way, but it is always the option of the institution granting the degree on whether to accept this credit or not. As stated before, most colleges in Nebraska will accept these credits and they will work toward most degrees.

 

Grading

            Grades for these courses will not affect your high school GPAs, but they will affect your college GPAs. You can take the English course for dual credit, but my recommendation is to take as much English as you can. That means taking the English offered by Thayer Central and if you want the college credit, also take the SCC English. If you take the course for dual credit, the grade will affect your high school GPA. Remember, you will more than likely have limited access to your teacher for these courses since they will not be at the school.

 

How to sign up

            When you are registering for classes for next school year, you will need to clearly indicate on your registration form that you want to take these classes. Write “DL Soc”, “DL Psych” or “DL English Comp I & II” on blank lines on your form. Remember that each class is a semester class, so it takes 2 classes to fill a period for the year. They do not both have to be DL classes. If you want to take calculus for college credit, there is nothing you have to do until next fall and that will be taken care of in your class.

            We cannot guarantee that these classes will not conflict with other courses you want to take. But, we will try to construct the schedule so that required courses don’t have conflicts with them. As always, we try to fill as many requests of as many students as possible.

            Later this semester, we will provide you with the needed forms to sign up and pay the tuition at SCC.

 

Other DL Classes

Other distance learning classes may also be available during the school day. The above-mentioned classes take precedence in scheduling and room availability over other classes. The schedule of other classes is not yet available. There are some that are high school courses, including some in agriculture.

 

Questions

            If you or your parents have more questions or want to talk about your situation in particular, feel free to contact me (Mrs. Larson) or Mr. Kiburz at the high school. The phone number is 768-6117. You may also contact Mrs. Koester, Mrs. Lukert or Mrs. Cording about questions concerning their individual classes. Mrs. Cording teaches at Deshler High School and lives in Hebron.