Student Services Bulletin

Volume 30, Issue 9

Student Services Bulletin

Inside this issue:

Final Exams

Class of 2015 News & Notes

from Guidance

11th Grade Essay Workshop Flyer

College Checklist for Juniors

7 NHRHS Scholar- ship Fund Inc. 8 June & Summer Calendar Dates

Northern Highlands Regional High School

June 2015

Final Exam Schedule

Time

Schedule

June 15 June 16 June 17 June 18

8:15—9:45 Period 1 Period 3 Period 5 Period 7

10:15—11:45 Period 2 Period 4 Period 6 Period 8

Final Exam Regulations & Procedures

Please refer to Mr. Occhino’ s letter that was emailed in May.

Please carefully read the following information about final examinations.

Please refer to pages 35-36 of the current Student/Parent Handbook for addi-

tional information regarding exemptions.

All students are expected to sit for their finals during the above dates. Students

should not make plans or commitments that would conflict with their availabil-

ity to take the examinations as scheduled.

NOTE: Buses will depart at 12:00 PM; there will be no late bus during finals.

Students who are unable to complete final examinations during the scheduled

time will be assigned an incomplete for the course in which the examination is

missed. The incomplete will be removed after the make-up examination is tak-

en.

Make-up exams will be offered on ONE DAY ONLY: August 6th at 9:00 AM or

12:00 PM.

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“Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll

Go!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in

your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction

you choose. You're on your own. And you know

what you know. And YOU are the one who'll de-

cide where to go...”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2015—YOU WILL BE MISSED!

We hope this information helps you to avoid the pitfalls into which some students fall.

Do your homework beforehand ~ Prior to leaving for college, get copies of the campus newslet-

ter, go online to chat with people on campus, and connect with your roommate.

Be realistic about your roommate ~ Don’t expect to find your soul mate. Regardless, you will

learn the life long lesson of compromise and accommodation.

Attend freshman orientation ~ This could be the only time you will learn all the ins and outs of

the system.

Join a sport, intramural, fraternity/sorority and/or activities ~ You will have fun, learn team-

work, develop leadership skills, and make new friends.

Before getting overwhelmed, seek out help on campus ~ Seek tutoring or personal counsel-

ing. Know your advisor and professors; check their office hours. Don’t take on too much too

soon; pace yourself to ensure success.

Take good notes in class and listen ~ Listen for clues like, “Keep this in mind.”

Be open to career choices ~ Explore all options and take advantage of all opportunities. Try new

things.

Keep in touch with your family ~ They worry and love you.

Remember your People, Places and Patients.

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Summer Office Calls

In order to streamline voicemail messages left for counselors and Child Study Team staff members during

the summer, we encourage you to leave a voicemail message at extension 500 beginning July 1, 2015.

This will allow our secretarial staff an opportunity to return your call in a timely manner and try to assist

you during the summer months. Counselors and Child Study Team members' voicemails will also direct

callers to extension 500.

Summer School

See your counselor for information about other area high schools that will be offering summer school

courses.

A Special Thank You

As always, the National Honor Society members volunteer innumerable hours of their time tutoring their

peers experiencing academic challenges. The School Counseling department would like to sincerely

thank all of the members who selflessly volunteered their time.

Attention Seniors

Please see your counselor in the School Counseling office to make sure you complete the graduation

survey in Naviance. We need this information for statistical purposes and to send your final transcript to

the college of your choice.

Final Senior Transcripts

Transcripts will be sent out within one week after the last day of school. Grades must be entered, tran-

scripts verified, sorted, and then sent to individual colleges. NCAA transcripts will be sent at the same

time.

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College List Development: June College Planning Tips ~ 6.2.15

From Peter Van Buskirk

www.BestCollegeFit.com

Congratulations rising high school seniors—you are about to officially become college applicants! It won’t be long before you are fully immersed in the application process. If all goes well, a year from now you will have the satisfaction of knowing your college destination. Getting to that point, however, will require care-ful planning and forethought. And there is no time like the present to get started!

Developing a college list that makes sense to you and your educational goals is critical to your ultimate success. The colleges that emerge on your “short list” should be good “fits”— places that represent the right “competitive playing fields” for you. They will be places where your academic credentials (scores, GPA) are at least in the top half of the credentials reported for the class entering this fall—and places where you will be valued for what you have to offer. The following tips are intended to help get you start-ed in developing such a college list.

1. Establish your priorities. Students often focus on college destinations without first thinking seriously about how such places might fit them. They are more enamored with names and reputations—and less concerned about whether the institutions actually make sense for them. Before you can begin to make a list of colleges you need to take stock of who you are and what you want to get out of the college experi-ence.

For example:

Why do you want to go to college?

In what type of learning environment are you most likely to function comfortably?

With what kind of people do you want to live and study?

What are 3-4 things you want to make sure you accomplish by the time you graduate? What will make yours a successful experience?

How important are cost and affordability to the equation?

The answers that begin to emerge from this reflective exercise are important to framing your college se-lections. They will give clarity to your priorities and, more importantly, provide the filters through which you process the information you uncover about colleges and universities.

2. Identify the “essentials.” You are bound to respond to a range of stimuli as you learn about schools. For example, you might be sensitive to the proximity of an urban center or the presence of a “big-time” sports culture. Climate or access to outdoor activities might be important to you. Where does a social life fit? Are you determined to go to a large university because you have spent the last four years at a small high school? Oh, and then there is the question of academics and learning environment. Clearly, you’ll have a lot on your mind as you look at colleges!

The above factors are among the many that will have a place in your decision-making. They can’t carry equal weight, however. As you think about the factors that might influence your choice of a college, con-sider the hierarchy of importance. Is a given factor essential to your success? Very important? Or, would it be nice if it could be satisfied by your selection? Be careful not to let the “would be nice” factors drive your decision-making.

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3. Let your list grow. Right now, you are limited by the things you think you know about colleges and those impres-

sions tend to be pretty superficial. It will be the things you don’t know that make it difficult to make good decisions

about possible destinations. The good news is you are still early enough in the process that you have time to explore

and thoroughly research the possibilities. While you might be feeling some angst about the need to come up with a

short list right now, time is still on your side.

4. Go “window shopping.” As your summer plans evolve, be sure to include time for college visits—and not just visits

to the campuses of the schools you know. Check out research universities and liberal arts colleges. Explore the differ-

ences between public and private institutions. Compare urban campuses with those in suburban and rural areas.

Learn what you can from personal observation, not hearsay. As you “try on different sizes,” look for patterns. Do you

find yourself responding consistently to similar characteristics on different campuses? The broader the perspective

you are able to establish now, the easier it will be to identify places that make the most sense for you at the end of

the summer.

5. Focus on places that are “target” schools for you academically. The popular notion about college list development is

that a good list should include a sampling of “reach,” “target” and “likely admit” schools. Subscribing to this notion

sometimes gives rise to a proliferation of applications to high profile, “dream” schools at the expense of smart deci-

sion-making. The accompanying rationalization may sound like, “Well, how will I know if I can get in if I don’t try?”

This logic is problematic in two ways: 1) it implicitly diminishes (in the mind of the person who espouses it) the value

of any school that is not in the “reach” category and 2) it can be incredibly limiting by creating blinders with regard to

more appropriate options. Be careful about building your list around highly selective schools. The odds of getting into

places where the probability of admission is low don’t increase if you apply to more of them. Moreover, including such

schools on a college list will distract you from presenting well at places where you might otherwise have a reasonable

chance of gaining admission.

While you might allow yourself a dream school (or two), it is best to build your list around target schools—places

where your credentials would put your probability of admission in the 40-60% range, places where you will be valued

for what you have to offer. There are never any guarantees in the selective admission process, but putting yourself on

the right competitive playing field will be critical to your eventual success as an applicant.

6. Eight is enough. By September, you should be ready to whittle your list down to a workable number. If you have

been thorough—and thoughtful—in your research you should be focusing on no more than eight applications. That

number might include 1-2 dream schools and 1-2 places where you are likely to be admitted. The rest should be target

schools.

Keeping your list at eight will require discipline as you will be tempted by colleges that want to make the application

process easy for you. They will offer fee waivers for applications submitted while visiting their campuses and fee waiv-

ers for applications submitted online. Some will recognize you as a V.I.P. or “priority” applicant if you apply by speci-

fied deadlines in September. Others will send you applications that are all filled out for you. Yes—they have captured

information about you from various sources and made it easy for you to apply. You simply sign and return the form!

The bottom line: stay focused on your priorities and your list. The more applications to which you commit, the hard-

er it will be for you to stay on top of each one—and the more likely you won’t be able to present yourself in a com-

pelling fashion to the schools that are most important to you.

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June Calendar Dates

June 4 Senior Awards Night—7:00 PM

June 15-18 Final Exams

June 18 Last Day for Students

June 19 GRADUATION—6:00 PM

Summer/Early September Calendar Dates

August 6 Make-up Final Exams—ONE DAY ONLY

August 7 Registration deadline for September 12 ACT

August 21 Late registration deadline for September 12 ACT

August 26 Freshman Orientation

August 26 Tour for students new to the district—3:00 PM

September 1 Welcome back—First day for staff

September 2 First day back for all students

September 10 Back-to-School Night

September 12 ACT Test Administration

September 17 Bergen County Director of Guidance Fair at FDU

September 24 Senior College Night