Counseling News

One of  West Hills High School's goals is to create a positive community where all students feel safe and welcome. In an effort to support this objective, the counseling department presented the idea of “CommUNITY” to all ninth grade students. The purpose of our presentation was to leave students with the attitude that being a positive member of a community is important, the knowledge of the existing barriers to campus unity, and the skills to think through decisions and make good choices.

After each presentation, counselors worked with students to brainstorm different ways they could make West Hills a better place. We received great feedback from students such as, “pick up trash off the ground even if it is not yours”, “give compliments to others”, and “stand up for people that are being bullied”. We were very impressed with some of the responses that students shared with us.

We will meet with these students again next week to talk more about the differences between positive and negative choices as a follow up to our last presentation.

Last week counselors attended the California State University Counselor’s conference. While not much has changed since last year in the CSU system, we did learn some tips to help students for this years’ college application process:

* Apply broadly: last year, the average GPA for students admitted to SDSU was a 3.78. This is the highest in the school’s history. Begin to look into what schools are less “impacted” and have more seats for students. Some non-impacted schools are: CSU Bakersfield, Sacramento State, CSU Monterey Bay, and CSU East Bay. Keep your options open by applying to more than one school in the CSU system.

* If you are the first student in your family to attend a 4-year University, you can apply to certain CSU schools through their Equal Opportunity Program. This program is designed to improve access for historically low-income and educationally disadvantaged students. Please talk to your counselor if you think you may qualify for EOP.

* Students who are in foster care, or are a ward of the court, may eligible for financial assistance to pay for college.If you think your situation may fall under this please see your counselor.

This past week counselors attended the University of California Counselor's conference which was hosted at UC Riverside. The map to the left shows the location of nine UC campuses. It is always a great experience for us to attend college conferences because we are able to see the campuses that we are referring our students to, in addition to getting all the latest information about the upcoming admissions process. Please visit our college admissions page to get updated information about the UC Fall 2011 admission process. Next week, we will be attending the California State University conference and will have more information to share about CSU admissions.

As a senior, you should be very seriously thinking about your plans for next year. If you are planning on attending a four year college it is time to begin deciding which schools you intend to apply to. The next step is to determine what the school's admission requirements are and ensure you meet all of your deadlines. Missing a deadline is a definite way to be denied admission to a school. For seniors who are interested in starting their college life at a junior college, you also have some work to do. Just because a junior college is a few miles away, that does not necessarily make it the best choice for you. It is important to look into all of the junior college options in the San Diego area and find the school that is right for your needs. For example, did you know that Miramar Community College has an excellent Fire Science and EMT certification program that other local junior colleges do not offer? No matter what you decide on for life after high school, be sure to not let "senioritis" get the best of you. Senior year grades are very important not only for college, but for high school graduation.

We will be out in all senior English classes this Friday to give a detailed presentation on college admissions and life after high school. Please take the information you receive in this presentation home and read it thoroughly. Also, don't be afraid to ask questions during the presentation. We want to get as much information out to everyone as possible. As always, if you need help with all of these major life decisions your counselor is there to help you. You can always visit your counselor before school, break, lunch, or after school to get help with this next step in your life. We hope you all have a great week and we will see you soon.

Hi Wolfpack! On behalf of the WH Counseling Department, welcome back to school. These first days have been very busy for all of us, but we are excited to see your familiar faces and looking forward to getting to know all of our new 9th grade wolfpups. We are missing two of our staff members this week and are doing our best to meet with as many students as possible in a timely manner. Please be patient with us. We will see each student who wants to talk to us and we do care very much about each and every one of you.

Our current priority is to see students who are missing a class/es or period/s on their schedule. If you are looking to change an elective or a class because you have decided you don't like that class, please do not sign up to see your counselor at this time. We will not be changing schedules for this reason. If you keep trying and still have not seen your counselor, you can always email your counselor. That can be to great way to get a quick question answered without waiting in line.

We will be updating this section of our web site weekly to ensure that we communicate as much information with you as we can. Please continue to check back and get the latest information! Again, welcome back and we hope you all have a great start to your school year.