Guidance Counselors Help You Plan For College

by Lisa Sousa

When Do I Start Planning For College?

You can start as early as the first year of high school to plan for college. With the help of your guidance counselor, you can chart your future by choosing the right college for your personality, interest and abilities. If given the sufficient time and means to know you, your guidance counselor can provide adequate help to you in several different ways.

How Can My Guidance Counselor Help?

Guidence counselors can help you by the following ways to get you on the right track:

Determining Abilities And Interests: Based on your IQ scores as well as past and present grades, he/she can determine which subjects that you naturally excel in. If your grades and scores have not been too good up until the present, your counselor will work with you until he/she finds the skills that you might have. After your skills and abilities have been determined, your counselor will help you design your academic load to fit your interests and abilities. For example, if you are interested in the field of Journalism, your counselor might suggest that you may want to sign up for more advanced writing or English classes or encourage you to join the yearbook committee or write for the school newspaper.

Your Emotional State: Emotions might play a role in your future planning as well. It is generally part of every school curriculum to allow high school counselors to gauge your present emotional and psychological well being to determine your ability to handle certain amounts of pressure as well as certain types of study environments and other factors.

Family Interests vs Your Own Interests: Unfortunately, for many students, conflicts may arise when the student may want to study one thing in college while their parents want them so study something different; this results in the student having difficulty in determining their own future. In cases such as this, your counselor will act as a mediator to help you and your parents see eye to eye on your college choices and convince your parents into truly listening to what you have to say about your education.

Picking The Right College For You: Your counselor will help you determine what academic path to take in order to attain your degree. By working together, he/she will help you choose the right school for your needs whether it is starting with a community college and later going to a small university, going to a large institution after high school or perhaps other options such as international study.

Choosing The Right Career For You: Many students might not know what they want to do because there are so many options out there. By taking the time to know you, your strengths and interest, your high school counselor will be able to narrow down the career choices for you until you are able to zero on something that engages your interest while making the most out of your skills and abilities.

By making an appointment with your guidance counselor, you will know which direction to take for your future as well as going to the right schools. This will save a lot of time, money and headaches.