MBHS Counselors Introduce College Bound Program to Seniors

This past Spring, juniors were invited to the “Just4Juniors” event, hosted by counselors to inform the rising seniors on the college admissions process. Now, the same group of students has been participating in the newly developed College Bound program, founded by MBHS academic counselors Elena Smith and Allyson Dexter, as well as MBHS college and career counselor Julia MacIntosh. 

Prior to this school year, counselors were hosting “College Cafe” sessions, which typically took place before school or at lunch. Because of the timing, however, most sessions had very minimal attendance by seniors. “We’d have like, one or two kids show up, maybe,” said MacIntosh. 

With the tutorial schedule in place, all students have a dedicated class period once per week to get additional help in various classes. This allows students to save their lunch periods and time before school, and instead go to the staff with questions during tutorial. “We wanted to be able to really target kids through tutorial… It’s been a way for us to utilize the tutorial time to hit these pockets of topics,” said Smith. 

There are currently a total of eight planned College Bound sessions; the first one was on Sept. 9, and the last will take place on Dec. 2. While there are eight total sessions, the last three are scheduled to be open workshop time, allowing students to have a dedicated space to work on college applications, especially as submission windows come to a close. Dexter said, “The timeline was created on purpose, based on the needs that [students] would have with the college application process.”

Another huge factor in the structure of the College Bound program is the sheer variety of colleges that MBHS seniors are applying to. Previously, as the counselors did their grade-level specific counseling presentations, information on the main types of colleges had to be short, brief, and simple to fit it all into a certain time frame. Because not every student is applying to every type of college, this became inefficient, and counselors began to notice that students weren’t gaining as much from the presentations as intended. 

Now, with College Bound, sessions are specifically focused on different types of college applications, enabling students to pick and choose the sessions that are relevant to them. On Sept. 16, the University of California application launch was hosted – on Oct. 7, counselors will guide students through the Common Application for private and out-of-state schools. On Oct. 21, the fifth and final lesson-style session, they will cover the California State University application with seniors. Students are able to, and encouraged, to request to attend the presentations that pertain to their college application needs. 

Aside from the academic benefits of College Bound, both students and counselors have already begun to see other benefits of attending the sessions. “I’ve had students tell me it feels good to have it broken down… versus looking at everything all at once and feeling like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a lot,’” said MacIntosh. Senior Abby Tuller said, “It gave me more confidence when doing things on my own… I learned stuff but the most valuable thing from it was gaining confidence in the topic.”

Counselors also shared that they have gotten to know their students more through this program, especially their majors, career goals, and post-college plans. Though it is only a few sessions deep, students and staff alike are already experiencing the immense benefits of this program. The College Bound is anticipated to carry on after the class of 2026 graduates, helping countless students through the stresses of college applications.