Even during a pandemic, the teachers have to keep working, but so do the counselors. The counselors are helping students with post-high school plans, sending links for Financial Aid, helping with the preparation to apply for colleges, and even going out of their way to search for the colleges doing virtual tours such as UC Davis, Sacramento State, Delta College, and other UC, CSU, and CC colleges.

Although they manage to get students all this extra information, counselors still face some daily struggles that we are distance learning for another couple of months. According to one of our counselors here in Weston Ranch High School, Mr. Farrell, he confirms on the counselors’ behalf that distance learning has created a barrier between the students and the counselors since some students do not check their emails regularly, but it is understandable.

“This time of year, we usually have workshops that help senior students complete the financial aid form, college applications, and we have guest speakers from different universities come to WRHS and met with seniors and provide information about their schools.”

However, this year, those in-person meetings will not take place, unfortunately. Mr. Farrell confirms zoom meeting dates for; UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, UOP, FAFSA General information, FAFSA Application tips, Dream ACT Application (FAFSA for undocumented students). So, if you are looking forward to visiting with any of those schools or seek some information about any of those topics, this would be the right way for that information to be provided to you and your peers.

A big concern for Farrell and the other counselors is the knowing or not knowing if seniors receive the information. As for knowing how many students receive this information, there is no real way of knowing.

“For example, we had a really good response to the senior conference summaries that we sent out to seniors, and I had over 94% respond to me and acknowledge they received it, and they also asked questions,” an optimistic Farrell said.

The main priority the counselors have for now is to make sure that the information has been sent to all the seniors. Whether it be via Microsoft Teams, email, or sometimes even NTI calls to parents, the counselors always want students to be aware of what is going on and ways to help them.