By Kelly Schoessling

Managing Editor

As seniors finish their applications and begin to sit back and wait for replies from differing colleges, timid juniors begin to visit the College and Career Center to introduce themselves into the process.

Although PHS does involve all juniors in Junior Guidance, a class period dedicated to discussion of applying to college and the utilization of naviance, not all students leave the session feeling confident about their future plans.

However, this year, PHS is introducing the College Readiness program, a total of six sessions of talking specifically about certain topics involved in choosing majors and colleges.

The upcoming sessions are led by Natasha Zhivotovsky, a counselor intern who hopes to help students will more confident about their personal application process.

“We do have Junior Core Curriculum or Junior Guidance where [counselors] do talk about the process in a broad sense, but most students just want to hone in on certain topics that relate to them, and that’s why we came up with [College Readiness],” said Zhivotovsky.

Counselor Rachel Brill also believes the contrast of College Readiness to Junior Guidance can be extremely beneficial to curious students.

“All of the same [topics are] discussed in Junior Guidance, but it’s all done in one period,” Brill said.  [College Readiness] is taking every small topic and getting hands-on and talking much more about it.”

Although College Readiness is a new discussion for this upcoming quarter, Zhivotovsky has already worked with groups of juniors in sessions to focus on majority concerns.

For example, Zhivotovsky had her students take a survey primarily based on what types of topics students were most hesitant about in the college process. Ultimately, the results stated most students wanted more information regarding financial aid and the application process.

However, College Readiness is not just focused on the topics surrounding college, but also the resources available to utilize for college, such as Naviance.

Although signing up for College Readiness does require students to be called out during class hours, Zhivotovsky states that their goal is for students to prioritize.

“If [students] have a test or a presentation, then that’s priority number one,” Zhivotovsky said. “We try to never take [students] out of the same class more than once.” “In terms of missing class, it’s not ideal but you get such a wealth of information that you might not get without spending a lot of time outside of school,” said Zhivotovsky. “I think there’s a balance.”

Students who are interested in signing up for the College Readiness sessions can contact their counselors for further confirmation.

Ultimately, the sessions aim to smoothen the transition process for hesitant students.

“We want [students] to feel more comfortable with the information that we give them,” Zhivotovsky said. “We want [students] to not to be scared of asking questions and we just want [students] to be prepared going into senior year.”