Story by Kamillah Morales
Staff Writer
Photo by Sam Allen
Staff Photographer
Representatives from colleges located across the country have been visiting SPHS every Monday and Thursday since September and continuing into November. The representatives from a variety of elite universities and lesser-known schools can be found in front of the counseling center and are present to inform students about their respective schools.
The selection process is managed using Naviance, a web-based college, career, and life readiness platform. The various colleges will sign up themselves by requesting a time and date to come and meet with students.
The college visits do not just focus on prestigious universities. They represent a variety of schools so that students are informed of all the kinds of opportunities that are offered and learn what suits their future best. The visits can be very helpful for not just seniors, but for all grades to get a better sense of what traits in a college they might be interested in.
“It’s not just trying to pick the ones everybody favors, like USC, UC San Diego, Harvard, Barnard, all the big name schools,” SPHS Counseling Center Clerk Jorge Carreon said. “There’s a lot of other schools that actually you may not know about that could actually be the place that you do belong.”
Many students do not take advantage of the opportunity to learn about new schools despite college visits. Carreon believes that it is important for students to do more research on college and university since he has noticed the decline of students visiting the college representatives throughout past years, especially since students pay thousands of dollars for private college consulting despite resources designed to help at SPHS.
Senior Piper Whitman has attended the college visits all four years at SPHS. Whitman was able to meet a representative from one of her top schools, the University of Arizona, which she felt was helpful because it allowed for the representative to get to know her and what she enjoys. Because Whitman had already done research online, the rep’s presence did not hugely impact her application decisions. However, Whitman knows people who did have a change of heart after talking with the college representatives.
“The college visits give you a good idea of what you want and don’t want in a school, and especially if you already know a school you’re interested in is coming, it’s nice to talk to the rep because they really remember you and get to know you, and it’s good for your admission process,” Whitman said.
Additionally, on many Monday mornings, a representative from an arts college visits the art classroom to discuss the portfolio requirements for arts schools. Students who are interested in attending those sessions can be excused from their morning classes to attend.