Students need more college and career preparation throughout all years of high school. To improve the system, the College and Career Center and counseling department should consider emulating other high schools’ programs, publicizing announcements on more student-friendly platforms, beginning individualized college counseling from freshman year, and extending the academies’ internship opportunities to all students.
To preface this argument, we recognize the hard work of the staff in these departments—the school could benefit from additional staffing to facilitate these changes.
First of all, other high schools provide more support for their students. For example, Evergreen High School has a partnership with Prompt, an accredited college application and essay writing program, to help prepare their students for college. This program has both free and paid options that MHS should take advantage of. Similarly, Henry Gunn High School has an elective course called analytic college writing for upperclassmen that is dedicated to honing students’ writing skills for everything from college application essays to resumes—students are meant to leave the class with completed college essays and skills for their future careers.
In addition, Palo Alto High School schedules a wide range of college visits nearly every month of the year, while MHS only has college visits in the first few months of the school year. Not to mention, Los Gatos High School students can use the school’s Follow Me job-shadowing program to shadow professionals from a wide range of careers, from healthcare professionals to real estate agents. MHS could mirror this by starting a similar program with professionals in this community.
To help students take advantage of any current or future resources, communication is key. The primary methods of communication are currently the College and Career website, emails, and ParentSquare. However, platforms like Instagram foster more student engagement.
The @MHS_CCC_J15 Instagram account could be much more effective if the account is more active and up-to-date. It should be more publicized in the general @mhstrojans Instagram account, and students should be encouraged to follow the account from the beginning of high school; the account currently has about 180 followers out of over 3,000 students.
Moreover, the counseling department should begin college and career preparation from the beginning of high school that targets students’ specific needs. While students should be proactive and schedule counseling appointments themselves, schools should step in for the first two years of high school to get students on track with post-high school plans.
On this note, many counseling visits in freshman and sophomore year are focused on the four-year plan and high school credits. However, many freshmen enter high school clueless about how to achieve their post-high-school goals and need guidance on more than how to fulfill basic graduation requirements. Instead, counselors should discuss how to handle college applications, financial plans, scholarships, and internships. Students would be much more successful with this type of support, especially if their socio-economic disadvantages limit other resources, like private college counseling.
The school could also look to expand some of the academies’ internship perks to all students by working with initiatives like PilotCity that help students connect with project-based internships.
All in all, students need to work harder than ever in this current competitive climate to get into college. According to an article in the US News and World Report, “the number of submitted [college] applications rose by 21.3% between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022.” Therefore, we urge MHS to take inspiration from other schools, provide more resources, and improve communication.