College Counseling

List of 7 frequently asked questions.

• Q: What is the goal of college counseling?

  College counseling success occurs when all parties work collaboratively to find the best college match for the student. Students will be encouraged to take advantage of the wide range of choices available to them.
  
  During the early years of their journey into high school, students will work informally and in partnership with the advisory system. Topics such as self-assessment, course planning, balancing an extra-curricular life, and standardized testing will be discussed. Formal college counseling begins in the winter of the junior year and continues up through your final college decision.

• Q: Do colleges know about us and do they understand our curriculum?

  An important part of a college counselors job is to establish relationships with college admissions and to explain to them what AOA is all about.  We attend many regional and national conferences, visit colleges, and work hard to establish a connection with the colleges in order for them to understand AOA and our student population.
  
  Each year we have colleges and universities visiting the AOA campus to meet with students and to learn about our school. We provide an overview and a school profile that describes our admissions process, our academic programming and graduation requirements.

• Q: Does AOA rank its graduating class?

  AOA does not rank its students; our class size is too small and this statistic would be misleading. Most independent schools do not rank their graduates, so this is a practice colleges are familiar with.

• Q: Test Prep? Should I take it?

  AOA actively supports test prep through our decision to have 9th and 11th graders take the PSAT and the 10th graders take a practice ACT. The results from the PSAT will help a student identify their areas of weakness and allow them to proactively strive to improve their experience and knowledge in those areas. Formal test prep is not encouraged prior to the junior year PSAT.
  
  It is less likely that a student will improve significantly in subsequent testing if their initial test score is high. Students are encouraged to read…read…read…as this has proven to help improve verbal scores. The library at AOA has a number of practice books available for student use and the college counselor can provide additional resources for the student to use. AOA has SAT and ACT prep available on campus through a test prep academy.

• Q: What are the most important components to a college application?

  Colleges will evaluate applicants in many different ways and place emphasis on different aspects of each application based on the school’s admission criteria and policies. Some schools are very holistic in their evaluation process while other schools will place more emphasis on standardized test scores and GPA. For all colleges, there is one area that holds true in terms of importance. The strength of a student’s academic record, the rigor of courses taken, the quality of the work completed, and the consistency and pattern of improvement from year to year are very important factors for any college application.

• Q: Are recommendations or personal references important?

  Recommendations from the college counselor and from teachers are considered important pieces to the college application. Student recommendations are written to provide a perspective that is unique to the student and as a valuable tool in the evaluation process.

• Q: What factors is financial aid based upon?

  There is money available to students for college and it is awarded in different ways. The FAFSA is a tool that is used by most colleges to determine if you qualify for aid based on parent income. Other forms of aid like a merit scholarship could be awarded based upon a strong high school transcript and /or standardized test scores. Each institution determines financial assistance on an individual basis.