Trinity Preparatory School considers itself as one of the top college preparatory schools in Central Florida. However, the school is not using enough resources and providing enough college assistance to live up to its college prep name.
Students who have top-tier aspirations cannot wait until the middle of their junior year to start strategizing. With top 50 college acceptance rates dropping while the national average stays consistent around 65 percent, it is clear that Trinity needs to tailor its counseling strategy in 9th and 10th grade based on each student’s aspirations.
With the rise of the Common Application as the primary method of applying to college, applications across the country have skyrocketed. Many in our parents’ generation only applied to a couple of schools– there was no easy way to apply to college back then. Everything had to be done on paper and through the mail, a deterrent to students applying to a large number of colleges. In fact, according to Lee Bierer, a college counselor and nationally syndicated writer, in 1975, only 3.2 percent of students applied to seven or more colleges.
With the amount of readily available information online, students today simply have greater access to more colleges across the country. College applications have skyrocketed, resulting in application inflation at many colleges. Last year’s news was littered with stories of colleges including Harvard receiving their most applications in its history.
The new, more competitive college process has to be matched with aggressive college counseling. Overall, Trinity is doing a solid job in this department. Students are assigned a college counselor in the middle of junior year, with their first one-on-one meeting in January.
However, the college process starts well before a student is assigned a counselor. The college counseling office offers a variety of programs to help students find themselves before starting senior year and applying to college. The office provides advisory activities, strength tests, personality quizzes and panels with seasoned seniors, to name a few.
“We are purposefully not stressing [9th and 10th graders],” Director of College Counseling LJ Johnson said. “Our expectation is to do nothing to cause any angst and stress to the 9th and 10th graders who are acclimating to high school. The schedule is different, how they are moving around campus is different and their autonomy is changing from middle school.”
The college counseling department’s strategy is simple — support students without stressing them.
“The kid that wants to aim for MIT, Caltech, Stanford, we support them,” Johnson said. “But we support that in a way that we do our best to signal that that’s not expected for everybody. We don’t block it, we support it, but we don’t superimpose it on other kids. We are very careful to avoid doing that.”
This is a good overall strategy for the department; however, it is not enough in today’s competitive landscape and this philosophy ought to be expanded.
The solution is uncomplicated yet effective. Allow 9th and 10th graders to be assigned college counselors early if they want, and facilitate more one-on-one work from the start. This grants ambitious students the opportunity to start preparing for the ever competitive environment early, while not adding the burden of college stress onto every student.
These students will then have closer access to those that know the ins and outs of the college process. Students will learn how to most effectively take advantage of everything Trinity has to offer and how to leverage their outside interests into enticing resume points and essays. Preparing for the application process early certainly isn’t for every student — I am not sure if I would have chosen to prepare early when I started high school — but the headstart is invaluable to those sure about applying to top schools.
There will be obstacles. Manpower is an issue, and college counseling can add a burden on younger students; however, Trinity calls itself a college prep school. The school should prepare students for the road to acceptance into their dream college, and for the Ivy League schools and other top institutions, this entails making a plan early. It’s time to live up to the name.
