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What Your High School Junior Can Be Doing Now During COVID-19

by Melissa Brock | Apr 8, 2020 | Ask the admission office | 0 comments

I had a post all ready to go about “how to help your high school junior” — then COVID-19 hit. I almost chucked the whole post out.

It’s easy to see why — it was about tackling the ACT or SAT, making an appointment with your child’s school counselor and more.

Guess what? Your high school junior can still do most of this get-ready-for college stuff. Your fears that your junior will be way behind is natural. But there’s good news: Colleges and universities are now faced with a whole cohort of students who will have to play catch-up.

Things have changed, yes, but in many ways, they really did stay the same. Here’s how to help your high school junior right now!

1. Have your high school junior talk to his or her school counselor.

One of my friends is a high school English teacher. She’s been watching the progression of her juniors and told me that her school’s college counselor is holding Zoom meetings with families so they’re on track with financial planning, scholarship pursuits and registering for senior year classes.

Talk with your child’s college and career counselor — it doesn’t have to be through Zoom, but it’s a good idea to have a conversation over the phone if it doesn’t happen online. Here are a few things you may want to talk about:

High school schedule for senior year
AP or college credit classes
Colleges on your child’s radar and any others that the counselor would recommend
College admission questions
College application timeline questions
Scholarship and financial aid options — particularly local scholarships

Gather a list of questions ahead of time with your child and yes, join the call!

2. Start getting your high school junior ready for the ACT or SAT.

The April ACT has been rescheduled for June and the May SAT has been canceled. To put a positive spin on it, this means that your child has more time to study for the ACT or SAT. (Hurray, right?!) Here’s what he or she can start doing to get ready for either test.

Whether your child is taking the ACT or SAT (please know that one isn’t better than the other and colleges are good with either one), the most important thing to do is get familiar with each section on each test by studying for it.

Here’s a quick comparison between the two tests.

	ACT	SAT
Type of test	Achievement test that aims to pinpoint what you’ve learned in school.	Aptitude test that analyzes your verbal and reasoning skills.
Sections of the test	English, mathematics, reading, science and optional essay tests	Reading, writing and language, math, optional essay tests
Test length	2 hours, 55 minutes (3 hours, 55 minutes with essay)	3 hours (3 hours, 50 minutes with essay)

First things first. Suggest that your son or daughter does a diagnostic test. Time pressure is a huge factor on the ACT and SAT, so finding out how well your son or daughter can handle that is a great place to start. For example, if your son has trouble finishing the math test but does well in all other tests, that’s a good place to focus.

Make sure your child takes an official ACT practice test or SAT practice test to pinpoint weaknesses.

A few suggestions:

Have your child time each test accurately — yes, to the second! You can be a big help here.
Be sure your child takes the required break, just like the regular test.
Eliminate distractions.
Try to help your child simulate actual test conditions as much as possible. Have your kiddo go through all the tests in order to get a feel for what it’ll be like.

Once you’ve identified which test or tests will be a challenge for your son or daughter, it’s time to practice! You can find all sorts of mock tests online that resemble the actual test and you can also buy study books, too.

3. Make a list of schools.

In lockdown from COVID-19 right now? It’s a great time to bend your heads over a laptop and start doing some research. What are the characteristics your child wants in a school?

What’s on your own wish list? (You may have to be careful how you phrase this, depending on how open to your input your high school junior is.) Consider:

Academic programs
Athletic programs
Extracurricular opportunities
Location
Scholarship opportunities
Parent/family connections
Word of mouth that a school is excellent
Other factors that make that particular school appealing

Next, take a look at your child’s credentials and learn the colleges’ admission rates, median GPAs and SAT and ACT scores to figure out whether there’s any chance of admission.

Any school that admits only a small percentage of applicants is a reach school. A college should be considered a reach for your kiddo if her test scores and GPA are below (or at the lower end of) what a college typically accepts.
On the other hand, her GPA could align with that of accepted students. Bingo! You’ve identified a target school!
A safety school is one that accepts a high percentage of applicants. Your child’s GPA and test scores go above and beyond the qualifications.

You may want to start a handy spreadsheet to identify these schools and continue to add to the list.

4. Do a virtual visit.

So many schools are hosting virtual visits right now — they’re making their own and hiring companies to complete virtual visits if they didn’t have comprehensive virtual visits before COVID-19. It’s virtual visit time! Check out my post on technology tips during COVID-19.

Depending on the school, you might experience simple click-through photos of different buildings. On the other hand, you might encounter really cool interactive options that offer photos and videos plus 360-degree photos. Some of these sites really do a great job of appealing to visual learners!

5. Reach out to colleges.

Virtual visits can go beyond just a virtual tour of the campus. You can reach out to an admission counselor, financial aid officer, coach — anyone who normally would have been on your list for a regular visit. Call the admission office and ask whether you and your son or daughter will be able to visit with these people using tech options. Doing this gives you a more comprehensive look at what a college has to offer. Make a list of questions you and your high school junior would like to ask, including:

Campus life (including meal plans and housing)
Majors and minors the college offers
Admission requirements
The application process (including whether that will change due to COVID-19)
Cost of attendance and financial aid options

And yes, join your teen on this call! It’s just like a college visit.

6. Have your high school junior laser focus on grades and updating that resume.

My high school teacher friend says, “Our school has asked that we focus more on our students’ well-being than academics, but that doesn’t mean they don’t learn anything. My juniors will finish Macbeth tomorrow!” She says she usually teaches Shakespeare by reading aloud but now uses YouTube clips, questioning and EdPuzzle to pull it all together. “My school and many others were lucky enough to already implement tools like Canvas, Blackboard or GoogleClassroom prior to this, so the challenges have been slightly less stressful,” she says.

She also told me this. “I also teach three sections of seniors, and they have divulged that they are dealing with an all-new style of senioritis. Now they struggle to get online to attend Zoom meetings because their bed is calling out to them. When attending school traditionally, the greatest senioritis temptations were to skip this chapter, do that assignment in study hall, or show up five seconds (or minutes) late. Now, classes take place in their living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms next to televisions and gaming systems. The temptations to do something else other than school is greater than ever.”

Yikes. It’s easy to see how juniors can fall prey to this, too. But just because school is taking place in dining rooms and living rooms and feels totally not like school, it’s more important than ever to keep academics top of mind.

Some teachers have optional office hours, so students are encouraged to make contact when they are confused or frustrated. Your junior can take advantage of this to focus on that all-important GPA and even get help formatting her resume.

Your high school junior might stay camped out on a tablet, phone or laptop all day. Don’t forget to encourage regular breaks — kids need to get up, take a walk or run and get the blood going again.

7. Have the scholarship and money talk.

Have you and your child had the money talk yet? It may be time. (Check out 5 Top Tips for Easing Financial Fears About Paying for College.)

Have you had to shut off the app to your retirement account because you really aren’t interested in watching it drop anymore? Even if you aren’t paying close attention to your retirement accounts, maybe you are paying attention to your teen’s 529 plan, custodial account, savings account — or wherever you’re stashing your child’s college money.

First, the good news is that your child is a junior and many, many experts expect the stock market to recover in a jiffy once the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is over.

There’s also good news for student loan borrowers. Interest rates have dropped to record lows. Federal Direct student loans may dip to 1.5% to just above 3% for 2020 student borrowers — possibly even lower.

The Federal Parent PLUS loan could come down almost 2%. Private student loans may start as low as 3%.

Finally, don’t forget to come up with a plan to tackle scholarships! The College Board offers a scholarship search tool you can look at together and it’s a good idea to talk to your high school junior’s guidance counselor about community scholarships.

Come Up with a Plan for the Fall

Your junior will experience a time crunch in the fall. High school juniors are a hard-hit group (after this year’s seniors, of course.) Your junior will have to squish in:

Any of those college visits you and your junior didn’t experience this spring.
Any academics and extracurricular activities he or she missed this spring will be pushed into the next academic year.
ACT/SAT makeup dates will have to happen in the fall or winter.

What other stressors will show up later? Discuss these changes with your high school junior so you’ll both know how you’ll tackle them in a way that (maybe) isn’t so stressful.

How to Write a Scholarship Thank You Letter Step by Step

by Melissa Brock | Oct 26, 2019 | Build relationships | 0 comments

Good for you for wanting to write a scholarship letter — or, if you’re a parent who wants your kiddo to write a letter — good job on asking him or her to write a scholarship thank you.

Scholarships can be a saving grace — in some cases, college, trade school grad school — might be impossible without one (or two or three).

Here’s how to pen the perfect message.

Why Write a Scholarship Thank You Letter?

Lots of companies, organizations and other entities give scholarships — and individuals do, too. You might not think that a faceless corporation would get a kick out of receiving a scholarship letter, but that’s just not true.

Let’s say you write to the board of directors and profusely thank them for your generosity, and you just might earn yourself more scholarships in the future. Maybe you find that a particular scholarship is renewable.

But it’s more than that. It’s more than just about what’s in it for you — it’s about building relationships with people and making a real human connection with someone or a group of people who has (excitedly!) proven their generosity.

When to write a scholarship thank you letter

You might think you only need to write a scholarship letter once you receive a scholarship. However, it’s a good idea to write a scholarship letter during any part of the scholarship process:

Immediately after you interview for a scholarship
After you do alumni interviews for admission to a particular college
Once you audition for a scholarship (music, theatre, etc.)
Once you’re evaluated in any way for a scholarship

In other words, anytime you actively do something to try to nab a scholarship, you need to thank someone for it.

Here’s a quick scenario. You interview for a business scholarship at a college with a professor that you know you’ll have in class someday. You send a thank you note and the professor sends an email back. The professor remembers you from the interview and gives you the scholarship because of your stellar interview — and who knows? Maybe because of your thank you note, too.

Furthermore, let’s say a college gives you a giant merit-based scholarship. Sure, it might seem like they give those to lots of students (liberal arts colleges often give out large merit-based scholarships to bring down their tuition costs) but consider this. Maybe you send a hand-written note to the admission counselor and lo and behold, another scholarship is available later — and since you’re such a kind, caring student, they recommend you for the scholarship first.

How Should My Scholarship Letter Sound?

Your letter should take on a formal tone. The type of letter you send will convey how formal it is — a typed letter is way more formal than a hand-written card or email. It’s a good idea to err on the side of formal when you’re writing a scholarship thank you letter.

You may want to consider a formal letter once you’ve interviewed for a scholarship or when you’ve received a scholarship. On the other hand, you might want to pen a handwritten thank you note to an admission counselor for your visit to campus (this is another great thank you opportunity!).

Steps to Write a Formal Scholarship Thank You Letter

Let’s walk through the steps so you’ll know exactly what you’ll need to do — but don’t copy the one we include below word-for-word. Add your own touch — and maybe even a little pizzazz.

Step 1: Check the name of the recipients, write the salutation and first paragraph.

Here’s what you’ll need to collect before you get started:

The first and last name of the donor or organization that’s giving you a scholarship. Double-check — no, triple-check! — the spelling of any names. Quadruple check!
The name of the scholarship. Again, make sure you’re spelling it right.
The address, city, state and zip code of the scholarship donors.

Your salutation should start with “Dear” — no ifs, ands or buts. If you feel at all the desire to write “Hey” or “Whazzup” at the beginning of a scholarship letter, squish it immediately. You’re writing a formal thank you.

Your intro doesn’t have to be boring, though most letters you’ll see start with, “I’m writing to thank you for your generous scholarship.” Bland, huh? You can get a bit more creative than that, but remember — always start with the purpose of your letter.

Step 2: Write the second paragraph.

Get a little friendly here — if you didn’t in the first paragraph. First, talk about yourself a little more. Maybe you’re into martial arts or dance. Maybe you play the bari sax in your school band — scholarship donors are real people who want to know who you are. Explain why the donor’s investment means so much to you.

Can you think of other things to add? Of course you can. Make it memorable. If you did an interview with that person, add a personal touch, such as “I really enjoyed hearing you talk about your love of Shakespeare in my interview. We recently performed Hamlet at the community little theatre and I played Ophelia.”

Step 3: Write the conclusion.

Finally, you’ll want to end with a robust thank you and a promise to honor the donor’s or donors’ investments. This is the time to make your donor feel good and laud them with phrases like, “I wouldn’t be able to continue my education without you.”

Step 4: Add the closing and sign your name.

You’ll also need a complimentary close to sign off your letter. Use “Sincerely,” “Best wishes” or “All the best” for the closing. “Thanks a bunch,” probably doesn’t strike quite the right vibe.

Next, actually sign your letter — don’t just type your name. You’ll type your name under your signature.

Put it All Together

Now that you’ve digested all of that, let’s put all the parts together.

[Date] — be sure to write this out like this: October 25, 2019
[Mr. or Mrs. First and Last Name of Donor or Name of Organization ]
[Name of Scholarship]
[Address]
[City, State, Zip]

Dear [Donor Name or Organization Name],

First paragraph: Explain why you’re writing your letter.

Thanks so much for choosing me to be your [Name of scholarship] scholarship recipient. I was so excited when I got your letter in the mail!

Second paragraph: Talk a little bit about yourself and explain why the letter means so much to you.

I’m a ballet dancer and a travel enthusiast (my grandparents have taken me to 26 countries around the world). My love of travel has spurred me to learn two other languages — French and Spanish.

I’m planning to major in English and get either a business management or a communication studies minor. I really want to be a journalist someday — and my major goal is to write for The New York Times. I plan to write for my college newspaper, but I’m not quite sure which school I’m attending yet. I’ll be sure to make a decision soon, after I wrap up a couple more college visits.

Third paragraph: Wrap it up and thank the person or organization again and explain that you’re going to “take good care of” the donor’s investment.

This scholarship helps me achieve my dreams of becoming a journalist and I’m so thankful to you to help make that happen. I hope one day I’ll be able to pay it forward and help another student in need.

Sincerely,

[Sign your name here]
[Your name]
[City, State, Zip]

Wait — What About the Envelope?

Put your letter in a #10 business envelope with a Z-fold (YouTube it if you’re not sure what that means — it means that you’ll fold your letter once and then back again), and if you want a polished look, you can was design one using tools like Canva’s envelope maker.

Write your address in the upper left-hand corner. You might be wondering if it’s okay to handwrite this part. It sure is.

Put your recipient’s name, the name of the organization and address in the center of the envelope. Finally, put a stamp in the upper right-hand corner. Your letter shouldn’t be overly thick because it’ll just have one sheet of paper in it — so you should only need one Forever stamp.

Write the Best Possible Scholarship Letter

One question you might be wondering: How long does this thing have to be? Luckily, not long. A scholarship letter can be just three short paragraphs like the one above — but make an effort to be sincerely thankful and try your hardest to make a connection, just like you would if you were sharing a handshake and thanking the donor in person.

You might not know your donor’s name right off the bat if the scholarship is coming from an organization. However, do your best to find the name of the person in charge, such as the CEO of the organization that’s giving you the scholarship. It’s much better to put a person’s name on the letter rather than sending it to a large corporation — you wouldn’t want your efforts to be wasted.

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