How You Can Help Your High School Counselor

School counselors are great people but they are very, very, very, very, very, very busy! Paper work, new programs, appointments, class lessons, and a lot of miscellaneous details fill their days. Having served as a high school counselor for several years, I would like to suggest some things that you can do to help your high school counselor.

1. Check your email! School counselors send out a lot of information to students informing them about events that will be coming up, scholarship opportunities, important due dates, and a whole array of things. Nothing is more frustrating to counselors than to send out important emails and find out that a lot of students do not regularly check their email. No matter the size of school, sending out emails is a time efficient method of informing people. When you get into the world of work, you need to check email multiple times a day. Also it is important to reply and let your counselor know information back to them that they need. CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
2.  Put important events/meetings on the family calendar at home so your parents will be aware of those dates. Events such as these are good to have on the family calendar: ICAN financial aid and career and college planning meetings; scholarship deadlines; dates involving graduation deadlines; financial aid priority dates for colleges; anything else that is pertinent.
3. Give your school counselor plenty of time to get you information that you need. They are very busy. If a deadline for a scholarship is March 10, be sure to contact your counselor at least by March 1 to let them know what you need. 

One last thing, your high school counselor works very hard and is by no means doing this job because they are getting rich! Let them know once in a while that you sincerely appreciate them and all that they do. That is some of the best “pay” they will ever get!

Steve - ICAN Council Bluffs Center