It’s easy to get resource fatigue when, on a near-weekly basis, NCAN is bringing you the latest dashboard, report, brief, toolkit, or platform we think practitioners should be checking out. That said, districts, schools, and college access programs should
not overlook this Senior College Seminar (SCS) from College Is Yours. It’s a completely free, easily implemented
college counseling curriculum for seniors, and it can help to catch rising seniors up with the knowledge and milestones they need to pursue a postsecondary pathway next fall.
The curriculum is “designed to meet the scheduling needs of any high school” because it “offers educators the chance to build a college access curriculum that meets the needs of their students in a format that meets the needs of their school.” The curriculum
is “built with minimal technology needs and maximum flexibility.” The SCS has 37 lessons, each of which has formats for 10-, 20-, and more-than-20-minute delivery.
The lessons cover key college access topics like “What is College, and Why College?”, “College Searches”, “Letters of Recommendation,” and “Making a College Decision.” That’s just four of the 37 lessons; readers who want the other 33 can get them from
the link above.
This curriculum is so useful because counselors and others advising students can implement it completely or pick and choose lessons to shore up where students need the most assistance. The low “startup” effort here means this is a lighter lift than other
college access interventions.
I had the chance to interview College Is Yours CEO Patrick O’Connor via email. We spoke about the Senior College Seminar, College Is Yours, and some of his other thoughts about the field. The responses below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
NCAN: First, tell our audience a little about you and your professional background.
Patrick O’Connor: I’ve been a college counselor for 37 years, working with students and families from all walks of life, including work as a counselor at a community college. I’m the first in my family to graduate from college, and I served as president
of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. I also served as the first School Counselor Ambassador Fellow for the U.S. Department of Education, where my job was to keep the department informed of current issues in the field that
were of interest to school counselors.
Can you tell us a little bit about College Is Yours?
College is Yours is an organization that seeks to make college more accessible to all students and families. We’ve produced three editions of a college guide for students and families, and the latest one, College is Yours 3, was just released.
We’ve also produced a handbook for school counselors, College Counseling for School Counselors, which is regularly in Amazon’s top 10 for vocational guidance books. Our other work focuses on policy development to expand college access and professional
development in college counseling and advising. That’s where the Senior College Seminar comes in.
Your senior college seminar curriculum is an incredible resource, very expansive and detailed. Don’t take this the wrong way, but why put it out there for free to the field? Is this a labor of love?
Two reasons. First, while SCS is designed for all schools, my colleagues in underserved schools are standing on their heads to try and make their students’ college aspirations come true, and two of the things that are getting in their way are time and
money. SCS helps them create the time to talk college; I didn’t want money to get in the way of advancing that goal.
The second reason is more personal. The college counseling field has been very good to me, rich with colleagues who have been willing to share their insights and experiences with me in the interest of helping my students. SCS is one step I can take to
repay that kindness, and hopefully advance the profession.
We often hear about the student-to-counselor ratios that make postsecondary advising difficult at the K-12 level. Do you think a curriculum like this can be a “force multiplier” and help deliver advising to more students in less time?
Absolutely. School counselors do more than college advising, and they’re reporting a huge increase in the need for mental health counseling, due to COVID-related challenges. That leaves less time for college counseling, which can play an important role
in healing mental health issues. SCS allows counselors to provide comprehensive college advising that’s also customized to individual student needs, but in a larger group setting.
You’re a former president of NACAC. In which ways do you think K-12 districts and schools can and should work more closely with the districts to which they matriculate? In reverse, what kind of outreach should colleges and universities be doing to improve their pipelines out of K-12?
K-12s can benefit from the help of colleges by arranging tours of college campuses, bringing guest speakers in from college student service divisions to discuss college life, and getting data on the academic and cultural adjustments of their graduates
to college.
Colleges can reciprocate by being open to these invitations. They can also work with their colleges of education to develop meaningful teacher professional development that outlines how teachers can design classroom instruction to align with the goals
of college readiness. They can also work with their counselor training programs to make sure each program has a separate course focused on training in college counseling.
Of the 500 counselor training programs in the US, about two dozen offer a separate course in college counseling. This leaves the vast majority of school counselors with little or no training in one of their most important areas of service.
One of NCAN’s focuses right now is bringing college and career readiness practices to scale. Do you have any thoughts on the best levers for doing so?
This is one of the goals of SCS—to provide more information and guidance on college options in a setting that creates both efficiency and individualization. Some districts may find a need for a similar curriculum in earlier grades, including something
in middle school for districts where most students would be the first in their families to go to college. That curriculum would need to include ample parent education.
In terms of career readiness, it isn’t hard to envision some kind of Junior Career Seminar patterned after SCS, where students have the chance to explore their career interests and talents. Ideally, this would be paired with a chance to engage in job
shadowing and internships with businesses in local communities, so students could get a first-hand look at the world of work.
Do you have any thoughts on the current use of postsecondary outcomes data (like those from the National Student Clearinghouse) by K-12 practitioners like counselors and principals?
It’s great to see some meaningful data being generated on college outcomes, but I would urge caution before reading too much into the numbers. It’s one thing to know how many students complete their postsecondary plans; it’s quite another to understand
why students don’t complete their plans. It’s easy enough to assume money plays a role, but that’s not always the case. Community college completion rates are always held up as an example of where completion rates could be better, but there are all
kinds of reasons why community college students don’t earn a credential. Data analysis is important work, but proceed with caution.
Is there anything else you’d like our NCAN audience to know?
SCS provides a flexible framework for college advising, but it’s the members of NCAN and other groups that bring college dreams to life. Use SCS in a way that makes the most sense to you, but always remember that it’s the relationships with students that
get them to college.
Thank you, Patrick, for your time and this excellent Senior College Seminar resource!
Email to a Friend