College Counseling

Caseload Management, Family Outreach and Support, Applications (Common App, SUNY, CUNY, Resumes, Essay Writing, etc), Naviance Database, Standardized Testing (PSAT, SAT), Financial Aid (FAFSA, CSS, IDOC), Scholarship and Opportunity Programs (HEOP, EOP, Posse, etc)

Learning and Exposure:

College Readiness Curriculum , College Trips, Admissions Reps Visits, College Fairs, Special Events and Workshops, Transitions to College , Generation Rise!

Post Secondary Strategy and Alignment

College going culture and mindset , Early College and Career Awareness , Partnership Building (w/universities, scholarship programs, admissions officers, college readiness programs, etc), Academic Looping/ Feedback, Alternative Placements

What Programs Does the College Department Offer?

College Readiness Senior Seminar: A mandatory, credit bearing and graded class for all of our seniors to walk them through the college process

College Readiness Junior Seminar: A class that all Juniors participate in during the Spring of their junior year. It is coupled with a career component in the Fall season

"First Wednesdays": Monthly programming that focuses on 9th and 10th graders and offers fun and engaging lessons or activities around college awareness

Generation Rise! A new program for students in 9-11th grade who will be the first in their family to go to college or who are part of another underrepresented group on college campuses (Black or Latinx, LGBTQIA, english language learners, etc). Generation Rise offers enrichment, access, and support for students college going plans within a small community setting. Learn more here (English) Learn more here (Spanish)

Individual Student and Family Counseling: All students are part of a tailored meeting process with their assigned counselor starting in the spring of Junior year. Individual counselors will meet with students and families one-on-one and help tailor the process to the student's specific needs and goals.

Parent/Guardian Meetings and Workshops: Families are a key part to a successful college process! We offer bi-monthly, quarterly, or semester based meetings for families based on grade (the older grades meet more frequently). In these workshops, we present information and updates and make ourselves available to answer any questions.

Day and Overnight Trips: The College Team helps plan a series of trips to college campuses both local and regional with the underclassmen visiting colleges across NYC and Juniors heading to an east coast area for a multi-day spring overnight trip. *Please note that covid has temporarily halted or changed these plans

Special Events and Celebrations: We organize various events and celebrations to bring awareness and to build up our college going culture at BP!

Important Websites

Naviance Family Connection

*Naviance is our main hub for building up to the college search and for students actually completing applications, building their lists, and submitting documents

Student Login Information

Username: Email on file with BPCS

Password: If you have never logged in before, please enter your BP email under "username" and click "reset password". A temporary one will be sent to your email

The College Board

*The College Board houses everything SAT related, allows students to practice for tests, send scores to colleges, etc. Their search tool "Big Future" is very useful for crafting lists and they also manage the CSS Profile financial aid formFinancial Aid

College Search Resources

We recommend starting within the Naviance platform and using BigFuture, but there are other great options as well that provide other angle and lenses.

College Board bigfuture.collegeboard.org

College Navigator http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator

Colleges that Change Lives http://www.ctcl.org/

College Greenlight www.collegegreenlight.com

College Data www.collegedata.com

Financial Aid

To be awarded aid of ANY kind (grants, loans, institutional aid, etc) a senior must fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Make sure you visit the official and direct site at fafsa.ed.gov and avoid any websites asking you for fees to complete this form.

For underclassmen: It's never too early to get a better sense of what your family will be expected to contribute to college. It is important to note that the financial aid estimator only calculates your estimated need, not how much of that need will be met by each school you apply to.Use FAFSA4Caster to learn more.

All colleges and universities are required to have a Net Price Calculator on their website. A simple search will allow you to get a better sense of what families will pay to attend a specific university or college.

Many colleges require additional forms beyond the FAFSA to award you the max amount of money. The most common one is the CSS Profile. Check if a college on your list requires the CSS Profile here and begin the application process here.

Testing and Test Prep

The two main college entrance exams are the SAT and the ACT. Colleges will consider either test equally. While the College team encourages students to consider the ACT or take an ACT to see how they do, the Prospect School's network focuses primarily on the SAT.

Brooklyn Prospect provides SAT prep for all of our Juniors starting in January of their Junior year and leading up to the March school-day city-wide SAT Administration. Last year's test prep with Bespoke Education was highly successful with the vast majority of students increasing 60-100+ points. Due to Covid, we will need to adjust our plans this year for the Class of 2022, but Juniors can still expect to receive a high quality prep program.

Students in 9th, 10th or the fall of their 11th grade looking to get a head start, can check out any of the online platforms to practice their test prep skills.

SAT

ACT

khan academy (SAT, FREE!)

method test prep (SAT or ACT)

kaplan (SAT or ACT)

the princeton review (SAT or ACT)