by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Now that most of the smoke is clearing from this year’s college application season, there seem to be some things juniors want to plan on doing that seniors, for better or worse, didn’t have to worry about. Ready? Make sure to take the SAT, ACT, or both It wasn’t all that long ago many, many colleges decided maybe test scores didn’t matter that much after all, and went test optional, leaving it up to the student to decide if their test score really said very much about them. It turns out some colleges are finding their testing addiction tough to kick, so many are ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. This is a time of great excitement for all of you, but before you go any further, it’s important to know three things about selective college admissions. I cannot overstate the importance of reading this twice, thoroughly, before you move ahead—OK? Some colleges will find their applications are at an all-time high The number of students graduating from high school goes up and down, but one constant is the number of students applying to highly selective colleges—it always tends to go up. Even if it didn’t, getting admitted to colleges with a 6 percent acceptance ra ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Your applications are in, but college should still be on your mind. There is no letting up on taking tough classes; no giving up on writing essays; no slacking off on homework, and no telling the teachers how smart they are in the hopes your B will magically become an A. Fair enough, you think. At least you can stop meeting with your parents, now that the college choices are all made. Yes. About that. It would seem something has happened since you first carved 20 minutes out of your week to talk with your parents about college (You did do that, right?). To begin ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. Students looking at life after high school often consider college, and applying to college can sometimes be challenging. In Michigan, it comes as a surprise to many that some of those roadblocks exist in the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, the tests given each spring to high school juniors to assess student learning. M-STEP was considered one of leading-edge assessment tools when it debuted in 2014-15, but like all tools, it requires maintenance in order to stay sharp and effective—and when it comes to college access, there are three key ways M-STEP ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. The COVID crisis threw a lot of things into disarray, from families to schools to school counseling curricula. Eighteen months or online school/in-person-no-wait-online school first required counselors to figure out how to put their counseling curriculum online, then sent them scattering when some districts seemed to arbitrarily decide when to put school online, and when to hold it in person. In addition, many counseling offices put together post-COVID mental health programming that was needed to help students remember how to “do” school in person, and how to move ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. The US Department of Education (known as ED) has been in the media spotlight the last two weeks with an intensity that only compares to the FAFSA foul-ups of last year. Just when it seemed like ED was going back to business as usual, along comes a new president who actually isn’t a new president, and ED is getting more discussion than the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl appearance. As is always the case with such white-hot social attention, there’s a lot of news out there, a lot of gossip out there, and a lot of hoping out there—hope that ED is on its way out, and hope ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. National School Counseling Week is next week. I keep hoping this is the year when, like Labor Day, counselors don’t have to be the ones to remind the world about this incredible opportunity to thank their hopelessly overworked selves for everything they do, especially the things they do that no one notices they do. But it doesn’t look like this is that year, so let me instead not only remind you of this opportunity to remind others, but suggest how you celebrate it. Some holidays are basically a barbecue and ice cream, while others bring along opportunities to ref ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. I don’t see why some counselors have been put in charge of building the master schedule. It’s not like we had a course on this in graduate school. Still, it’s one of those things many of us have to deal with-- so, as we tell our students, it’s time to make lemonade on lemons. Here’s how you can advance your career and college counseling curriculum as you keep your boss happy by doing their job for them: Design (then require) a career discovery class Old school answers to career exploration—requiring all girls to take Home Ec and all boys to take Shop—scream both ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. “In your book, you seem to suggest students should think about college as early as eighth grade. Doesn’t that approach just expose them that much sooner to the stress and expectations of a complex process that can take the joy out of learning?” I could understand why the questioner seemed a little, well, hostile. She had spent a good part of her therapy career working with students and families who had gone about the college search the wrong way, the way the New York Times wants you to believe every student does, and therefore should, go about looking for a colleg ..read more

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D. It’s always dangerous to put your January 1 ideas down in writing. If I had done so last year, I would have predicted a FAFSA nightmare, an election that would take our breaths away, and a very different landscape for college athletes. Huh. Well, since it looks like this water isn’t so shark-infested after all, here’s where I think 2025 is headed in our ever-quirky profession: FAFSA Relief With so many College Board employees being “borrowed” last summer to fix FAFSA, there were concerns they’d head back to New York with the FAFSA keys in their back pockets ..read more