“What college do you want to go to?” Classmates and adults have frequently asked me that question during my time at the high school—and I’ve only been here for seven months. I’m a freshman.
After receiving a bad grade or hearing about a sibling’s college decisions at dinner, I have a hard time not thinking about college.
I was applying to a Brown University summer program at the beginning of spring break. I had little time to write my essay for the program because I was working on major assessments for school. I was stressfully writing about biology, my favorite subject and why it interested me while my friend calmly read a book by a pool. I felt like I was applying to college.
I could not help but stress about what I would do if I did not get in, because, as I thought more about how good this summer program would look to colleges, the more important I thought it was to get in.
“We have kids who go through this school, whether they started in pre-K or ninth grade, who don’t get super stressed about it,” Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy said about the college process. Killy said he sees other students who are somewhat stressed and very stressed. “It’s a big range.”
Students’ thoughts about college and questions from adults and classmates can trigger feelings of uncertainty. Hearing and talking about college feels impossible to avoid, but we can make it easier for freshmen to deal with these thoughts. If ninth-graders met with college counselors a few times during the school year, they could feel less uncertain about the college process.
Freshmen frequently meet with their ninth-grade advisors—faculty and staff who are assigned to a group of about five freshmen. These meetings can be helpful for freshmen to figure out schedules or academic challenges, but ninth-grade advisors aren’t necessarily equipped to give freshmen the best advice for college.
I, for example, want someone to give me a strong sense of how the classes I plan to take as a sophomore may impact my college application.
Freshmen don’t need weekly meetings with college counselors, nor should they be thinking about college after every time a teacher hands back an assignment, but an infrequent sounding board in the form of a college professional is a step in the right direction to reduce our anxiety.
We would know what we actually need to do for college, not just guess or rely on advice from our parents or the internet. Having a college counselor do as little as confirm that you are on the right track could go a long way for a freshman who is worried about balancing school work, athletics and extracurriculars.
Director of College Counseling Emily Livelli told me in an interview that the college counselors will go to each freshman seminar class to help the students “set goals” this year. The single period for college goals would replace normal seminar class—a period in which grade deans teach students about social justice. The seminar session sounds to be too unstructured for people who are both interested in the college process early and not actively thinking about college, but I will wait to fully judge the session until I take it.
Some students don’t think about college until junior year. On the other hand, there are students who, in ninth grade, are focused on getting into their “dream school” and try to make everything perfect for their college application. They join every club, study every spare minute they have and take more hard classes than they can handle. They can often chip away at our community because they spend time alone for their own benefit only.
If college counselors gave college-stressed freshmen some tailored advice, they may be able to stop shaping every part of their lives for college because the counselors may very well show them that they don’t need to do so much. If ninth-graders who don’t think about college receive some tailored advice, their lives will be at least a little less stressful come junior year.