Guidance Department provides multitude of resources

One place on-campus can help students with nearly any problem and can provide the resources needed to succeed: the guidance department. At the present time, the guidance department has four counselors and an adolescent therapist.

This year the ratio of students to counselor is 348:1. It has been important to the school board to keep a lot of counselors on hand. They can provide students with everything from a new class schedule to assistance with personal issues to finding a tutor for even the hardest subject.

Alinna Satake has been a counselor at the school for five years. She said guidance has two main goals: to make everyone feel safe and to have everyone know what options are available to them after they graduate high school.

“For the majority of our students options after high school will probably be two or four-year college,” Satake said. “Making that information accessible in a variety of ways such as how to prepare for community college, how to prepare for a four year university and all of that is what we normally do.”

Every fall and spring, counselors visit English classes and inform the students about the upcoming year and how to get prepared for grade specific events and requirements. Other than the presentations, guidance also runs other events around campus.

“We will handle all the classroom presentations,” Satake said. “All the schedule and course selections, we do all the testing: PSAT, STAR tests, AP. That all gets handled through our office.”
During senior year, students visit with their counselors frequently for Naviance check-ups and other college planning. Senior Priyanka Arunkumar has found herself in the guidance office quite often since the beginning of senior year.

“This year I’ve been using the guidance department to see which colleges I should apply to,” Arunkumar said. “My counselor, [Eileen] Allen, has been really helpful. She called a couple colleges for me to answer my questions.”

Senior David Adler is also appreciative of the guidance department during his last year.

“Guidance is really helpful this year,” Adler said. “They remind me of my due dates [for colleges] and help me get everything done on time.”

The guidance department gave presentations before school began to help seniors apply and have been giving them during tutorials to help seniors apply. They also put helpful information on the school website.

“We work really hard to update the guidance website regularly, so students should definitely utilize that,” Satake said. “We also offered three separate workshops on applying to private schools. We’ve done two workshops on college essay writing and then of course we meet with every senior individually to go over their college lists and make sure they’re on track for graduation and all of that.”

Some students have outside consultants—some charging as much as $360 an hour—for college search and applications, and Satake believes that paying for such services may not be necessary.

“We hear a lot of students considering hiring college consultants outside of school,” Satake said. “However, everything a private consultant could do is right here for free. We can help students create a college list; we can help proofread essays. We’ve got a good group of people here who are really dedicated to their jobs.”

The guidance department can assist with a multitude of problems, and they do it all without charging hundreds of dollars per hour.