As our College Counseling staff at Saint Stephen’s continues their work with our students, I was able to find the time to sit down with Mrs. Schumann and ask her a few questions on the ins and outs of the college application process at Saint Stephen’s.

When I asked what she was most excited about this year she responded, “We are really excited for having almost 80 colleges coming this year to visit. Some of those colleges are using Skype to speak with us, which is great because our students wouldn’t be able to get the same information otherwise.”

This is good news for our students wishing to attend smaller or more distant schools as representatives can speak with our students who, without being able to Skype, would not be able to be able to make it to our school.

In a recent campus visit, a Clemson University representative hosted twelve Upper School students. This large group caught the attention of our College Counseling staff as it held nearly twice the number of students as our normal visits.

When looking at upcoming events this school year, Mrs. Schumann spoke of the upcoming start of our junior seminars: “We are starting our junior seminars in November, this allows us to really get to know our juniors as we begin our process with them. Also, we are adding a former Saint Stephen’s student to come back as a guest speaker to share their story with our Juniors.”

Beginning the College counseling process with the juniors is one of the first steps before weekly appointments as seniors. During these seminars, students are put into groups by their study hall period as they begin to learn the ins and outs of the Naviance college search program.

At times, our College Counseling staff holds giveaways in Assembly. The giveaways work like this: students are asked a quick trivia question and the first student to answer it correctly wins a prize.

Mrs Schuman gave her thoughts on the giveaways: “I think that it is fun to educate 9th and 10th graders on schools they may not know about. These giveaways also allow us to give out some of the cool college gear we receive during visits from representatives.”

These giveaways are another fun way the College Counselling staff inform students of possible colleges.