Capturing College in a Class

Last Spring marked the launch of a new College Guidance Seminar for students in Grade 11. In this conversation with the college guidance office, Director of College Guidance Mal Goss and Associate Director of College Guidance Joanna Upmeyer discuss the need for the new course, the evolving landscape of college admissions and the broader role of college guidance at AFS.

Q: How do you see the college guidance office at AFS fit in with the broader curriculum?

MAL: This last year was the first year that we had the College Guidance Seminar Class, which happens in the spring for 11th graders. This class was really born out of a desire to help them understand the college process more clearly, to equip them with the tools to navigate that process and to reinforce the idea that college is not the end goal, but a launching pad that can help you on your journey, just like high school, just like extracurriculars, just like hobbies.

Q: As you just mentioned, you both are co-teaching a class that has just entered the curriculum at AFS — the 11th Grade College Guidance Seminar. What was it like making the college process an explicit part of the curriculum at AFS?

MAL: What’s tricky about this class is that there is no prerequisite. In other disciplines, you can go into your classroom with a set expectation of what students should know. When I was teaching 11th grade English, I knew what happened in 10th grade English, I knew what skills they learned, I knew what books they had read. But when it comes to college, there’s so much to know, and to learn and to be misguided in and to do deep dives on. So our goal was to figure out the right balance of work for those students who are the youngest of three or four kids who’ve already done a college process and those students who are maybe first generation and their family does not understand the process in as much detail and everyone in between.

Q: It sounds like the class is structured to be very responsive to student’s needs. How do you make sure that the right content meets the right group of students?

MAL: I think like any class, you start relatively broad and you see what resonates with the students. Not everyone’s going to know everything. Some of our activities in the beginning of the semester were asking very meta questions like the history of higher education or why it looks the way it does — which very few students know about.

JOANNA: One thing that was really successful was that we started the class with a chalk talk activity — what teacher doesn’t love a good chalk talk? And we opened up the floor and asked everyone to share the big questions around the process: How do you feel about this? Because our hope was that this class could make the college process a more collective experience rather than an individualized stress.

And I can’t speak for every student, but I know that there were some students who walked away saying: “It’s really helpful to see that other people feel the same way that I do about the process,” whether that’s excited, or anxious, or overwhelmed, or feeling like they don’t know enough. We wanted to set that foundation, that no matter how you feel in the class you aren’t alone.

Q: The college application process plays a central and often stressful role in high school students’ lives. How do you, through the class and otherwise, try to reduce that stress?

JOANNA: I think some students can feel very overwhelmed because it can be such a long and multi-step journey; they feel like there are a lot of hidden variables and secrets. But we want to remind everyone that the things you can control are where you should focus your energy.

For example, Mal spent weeks and weeks this summer going on trips and networking with different college admissions officers, getting to know these processes from college counselors and hearing the inside scoop. Being up to date on these trends is really important so that we can give that information to families. And we plan to incorporate this into our class and keep a lot of it very hands-on and practical. Many colleges are just now starting to ask for what’s called a “self-reported academic record,” so we’re guiding students through how to create one of those. We’re helping students navigate what sort of majors might appeal to them, which will ultimately help them to choose what schools they want to apply to.

MAL: Likewise, I would say the personal essay is even more important now than it was in the past, which is a product of a few things. Almost all colleges have become test-optional, and many will likely remain that way indefinitely, so that is a data point they can no longer use. The impact of so many students being academically capable at the colleges they apply to — even, and especially, at the very selective and highly rejective colleges — is that colleges really need to rely on thinking about what kind of community member a student will be; much of that can be found in the essay through what they decide to write about, how they write about the topic, the tone they take.

We have students read through example essays and we talk about what's working and not working in them and do some brainstorming exercises to help them come up with topics and think through what story they want to tell in their essay.

Q. What impact has the new seminar had on the process?

MAL: I feel as though it’s definitely moved to make the process smoother and more integrated into the rhythm of school life. For example, the college process officially begins with an 11th grade kickoff college night in November. We assign them a counselor in January, but they also have to meet with their counselor before they sign up for their senior courses. That way, we can talk about their course selection to make sure they are fulfilling graduation requirements, but also to look at how their course load matches their target schools and really get that college conversation going.

JOANNA: I think faculty and advisors have been very supportive. A lot of people think that the college guidance process is all in this office, but it’s really a team effort from the advisors, the student’s teachers, yes the counselors, but also the parents and the students themselves.