College & Technical School

Get to Know Yourself, Your Priorities, and Your Goals

• Use Naviance Self-Discovery section to learn about your career interests, personality, learning style and strengths

• Explore careers and majors on Naviance or College Board Big Futures

• Build your team - talk to your parents, family members, teachers, school counselors about how they can help support you in this process

Research

• Use Naviance SuperMatch College Search Tool to find colleges that may be a good fit; College Board Big Futures offers another great search option; see this additional resource on types of colleges

  • • Both tools allow you to search for colleges based on a wide-variety of criteria including majors, location, size, setting (urban, suburban, etc), activities and clubs on campus, and much more

• Attend College Representative Visits in the Counseling Office (sign up in Naviance) or stop by and talk with College Reps at the tables during lunch

• Visit College websites and follow them on social media to learn more about campus life

• College Visits - getting on campus is really the key to learning if you can see yourself living and going to classes there. Even if you do not plan to stay local, we are lucky to live in a college rich area so visiting York College, Penn State York, Millersville or Franklin and Marshall can help you start to determine what size of campus you'd like to be on or if you'd prefer a liberal arts college, a college in a more urban setting, etc.

  • • Stop into the Counseling Office for a College Visit form so that your absence can be Excused (be sure to do this at least 2-3 days in advance of your planned visit)

    • **College visits also fulfill an Elective for your Graduation Project** Stop into the Career Center for the reflection form 

Identify Schools of Interest

• Start creating a list of schools that meet your criteria based on the size, location, academics, cost, etc you are looking for

• Be sure to consider Reach, Target, and Safety schools

  • Reach - Your grades and test scores may be below the averages of accepted students, but you'd still like to be considered for admission

  • Target - You feel confident you will be accepted based on your academics and the admission criteria meeting or exceeding the averages for accepted students

  • Safety - Your test scores and grades exceed the those of typically accepted students; this still does not guarantee admission

• Be aware of admission rates and applicant pools. Schools that receive very large numbers of applicants (ex Penn State University Park) are more competitive by nature since there is only space for a given number of students in classes and on campus. Other schools are very selective academically regardless of the size of applicant pool (ex Columbia University, Yale, MIT, etc)

Application Time!

• Fall of your Senior year is when you will start applying to colleges

• Narrow your list to the schools you really want to apply to

  • Too many applications can not only by costly (consider application fees), but it may also make the process harder for you down the road when you have to decide which of your accepted schools you'd like to attend

• Review each college you'd like to apply for to determine their application process

  • Direct Application - The application is accessed directly through the colleges website

  • Common Application - The Common Application provides a platform that more than 1,000 colleges use as an application option; if you are applying to more than 1 college that participates in the Common Application, this may be a good option for you

• Be sure to know what each school requires for their application process

  • Transcript - Request via Naviance

    • • If you have not already done so, you will need to complete this form to allow RLASHS Counseling Office to release your transcript

  • Letters of Recommendation - talk to your teachers and/or school counselor that you are requesting a letter from well in advance of the application deadline 

  • Essay or Personal Statement 

  • Self Reported Academic Record - some colleges require you to report the classes and grades you have taken; you will need to access your Unofficial Transcript in Skyward in order to complete this

  • Test Scores - if a college requires that you submit your SAT or ACT scores, you will need to request them directly from College Board or ACT

• Consider the different types of admission (more info on the types and pros/cons can be found here)

  • Early Decision 

  • Early Action

  • Regular Admission

  • Rolling Admissions

• Application Fees - many schools offer fee waivers if the cost is a financial burden; reach out to the admissions office for more information. If you received a Fee Waiver for the SAT, you will also receive College Application Fee Waivers via the College Board (more info here)

• Create a personal email if you do not already have one for your applications and college communications

  • Your RL school email will be inactive upon graduation from Red Lion, so you do not want to use this when completing college applications

  • Be sure to check your email regularly so that you do not miss important application & admissions updates

• BE AWARE OF DEADLINES

  • Keep track of all college application deadlines so that you do not miss an opportunity