Westmont High School College & Career Center
Welcome!
The Westmont High School Career and College Center's mission is to assist students in career planning and exploration. We offer help in college application, financial aid planning, and preparing for whatever path their lives take after graduating high school. The CCC also facilitates College Visits and Career Talks throughout the school year as well as volunteering and employment opportunities. Kristina M. Canales-Padilla is the College and Career Specialist.
Kristina M. Canales-Padilla (she/they) is the College and Career Specialist at Westmont. She is a bilingual educator with over 10 years of experience in a variety of educational settings. Kristina started their career at Westmont High as a bilingual aide, supporting English language learners across grade levels and subjects. Now, Kristina continues to support students as they prepare for graduation, college, and beyond.
Quick Links:
Contact
The Westmont College and Career Center is open daily by appointment.
Students
Have questions about applying to college or how to research careers? Make an appointment for a 15-minute meeting here.
Parents & Guardians
Make an appointment, send an email at kcanales@cuhsd.org or call at (408)-626-3406 x 6144
Grade Level Information
Seniors
Senioritis: This is not the time to slack off. Colleges will see your final transcript this summer, and they do have the right to rescind (i.e., take back) their offer of admission if your spring grades drop significantly (gulp).
Update your Naviance account with your college applications and admission decisions! If you’re not sure how to do this then make an appointment and I’ll show you how. Planning on working, going into a trade, or taking a break after high school? We still want to know! Make an appointment for a 15-minute meeting here or pop in during your lunch period.
Complete the WHS Class of 2024 Senior Exit Survey. You will receive a copy of your survey once you've submitted the survey. Keep it for your records. If you are on Waitlist for a college that you would DEFINITELY attend if you get accepted off of the wait list, please fill this form out.
Apply for Financial Aid: FAFSA or CADAA. The deadline has been extended to May 2nd.
Keep applying to scholarships!
How to understand your financial-aid award letters: Make a spreadsheet to compare financial aid packages from multiple schools.
Appealing financial aid: If you’ve been accepted to college but the financial aid package isn’t what you’d hoped, read through this guide and listen to this podcast as you plan your appeal.
Making your final college choice: Plan visits to colleges where you’re accepted (if needed) in order to make your final college choice. And revisit your original Corsava preferences to see how your college options measure up.
What to do if you’re deferred or waitlisted: Review your application and determine whether you want to write a letter of continued interest.
Juniors
💻 Naviance Activities College Supermatch under Colleges is a college search tool within Naviance that makes it easy for students to discover colleges that are a match with their academic profile and a fit with what they're looking for in a college experience. You should also familiarize yourself with your Student Surveys and Requesting Letters of Recommendation from Teachers and Counselors.
Values Exercise (video): Spend some time thinking about your core values by working through this simple exercise. Your answers may help drive how you spend your summer ahead.
How to research colleges without visiting a campus: Learning more about colleges is an exciting and time-intensive process. Make sure to expand your search beyond your local public universities—and use your values as a guide.
Colleges That Change Lives: As you build your college list, consider this set of 44 schools that focus on providing a personalized, student-centered experience. Listen to this podcast, and check out upcoming events.
Explore colleges with 800+ lists: Use this fun online, searchable database from CollegeXpress, which covers everything from academic environments to school spirit.
Think about financial fit: Experiment with the Net Price Calculator to get a rough estimate of what you might likely have to pay for college.
Sophomores
💻 Naviance Activities: The Career Cluster Finder in Self-Discovery helps you identify your interests and discover career clusters that contain careers that might interest you. You can also start using the Journal & Resume on Naviance to keep track of your activities and accomplishments.
Build an awesome summer reading list that includes some biographies and memoirs: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is a must-read and can be found at your local library.
100 Brave/Interesting Questions + NYT Writing Prompts for Students: Commit to keeping a journal this summer, and use some of these questions as inspiration.
Freshmen
💻 Naviance Activity: AchieveWorks Personality® in Self-Discovery helps you identify your personality type by asking you to choose scenarios that best represent how you behave in real life. This tool will reveal your true personality and provide tips to achieve success, in a way that works for you.
Build an awesome summer reading list:- Start with picks from this recommended list for excellent teen reads. And consider asking your teachers what their favorite reads were in high school.
NYT Writing Prompts for Students: If you haven’t already, start keeping a journal and use some of these questions as inspiration.
Important Senior Tasks
Update your Naviance with the results from your college applications: Admitted, Denied, Waitlisted, etc. Also, set your "College Attending" so we know where to send your transcript. We need to collect these results for future classes. Use the quick Naviance guide provided here. If you need help, come by my office during lunch or make an appointment.
Complete the WHS Class of 2024 Senior Exit Survey. You will receive a copy of your survey once you've submitted the survey. Keep it for your records.
If you are on a Wait List for a college that you would DEFINITELY attend if you get accepted off of the wait list, please fill this form out.
Naviance Updating College Results.pdf
California Non-SSN Contributor Tip Sheet.pdfCollege Visits & Career Talks
College Visits and Career Talks will start up in September!
Check here (and check often) for the list of planned events this semester.
College Visit Wrap Up
Here are the colleges and universities that visited our campus! Did you miss one you really wanted to attend? Don’t worry. Here’s the information from the reps that came by.
You can call or email them with your questions. In some cases, it can be really beneficial to have those connections with college reps when it's time to apply! There might still be brochures and pamphlets left over from the visits at the College and Career Center as well. Come over and check it out.
Sign up for future College Visits your FlexiSched.
Counselor Letters of Recommendation
This is a good time to check in with your recommenders to make sure they know your deadlines. The Counselor Letter of Recommendation Request Form is CLOSED.
Counselors will not be accepting requests after November 17, 2023. This form will be closed to submissions after that date!
Teacher Letters of Recommendation are requested through Naviance.
˖⁺‧₊˚✦ If you know of any other event or opportunity for Westmont students, send it my way at kcanales@cuhsd.org ˖⁺‧₊˚✦