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fun we are so happy to have you here today i know that winter break is at at our fingertips you know what i mean like we can feel it we can taste it you know it's it's right there so i'm really happy to have you all join us and still make that effort to keep on learning and getting prepared for what's to come so like we mentioned today's workshop is you know you've submitted your college applications now what you know what what are some next steps um and you know as we get started i know that the timing of everything might be a little bit hard for everyone but if you have friends that haven't been able to make it on this con who would really like information on this just know that it is being recorded um so you know definitely feel welcome to you know share the link with them we'll make sure to share the link of the recording with everyone afterwards so you are all able to access that um and you know just to get started i know that we are all very comfortable uh using zoom already by now but just little reminders here and there um if you have any questions or you have a comment that you would really like to share you know please feel welcome to raise your hand um we're able to go ahead and see you know kind of give us that notice and say that i miss it i know the founder will let me know and vice versa so feel free to do that again how denise had mentioned in the chat feel free to share any comments or thoughts that you may have you know we really want to hear from you and you know if there's any questions that you have like this is your time to maximize your resources right so that's you know paola myself you know a guest speaker that we have and then also denise so feel free to ask your questions and then last but not least you know if you have that question it's probably most likely that another person has that question so you're really helping them out um and if you feel maybe that you want to message them directly to paola or myself feel free to do that too if you don't want to put it in the chat for everyone we'll still answer those questions so just to kind of get us you know started and comfortable um as we go through the workshop today um so just as quick little introductions i know that we've probably shared our likes about you know different shows and everything like that um but just a little bit of background i'm betsy pena i am a program coordinator for the tgr foundation um i work out of the tgr learning lab or did pre pandemic um but it's in anaheim california so for those of us who are from out of state anaheim is you know southern california where disneyland is um so welcome everyone and i'll go ahead and pass it over to my colleague hi everyone thanks for joining the call my name is paola sotelo i'm a program coordinator for uc irvine early academic outreach program i'm also in southern california close to anaheim close to disneyland but even closer to the beach um so a little bit of the best of both worlds excited to be here yes so very happy to have paola join us today as my co-facilitator um so in case there are any questions maybe like uc specific or something feel free to you know put it in the chat i know that paula is very knowledgeable when it comes to that so um feel free and just to kind of give you all an idea of what we'll be discussing today as we go through um the slides i know that it may seem info heavy um but just remember if you're not you know rushing the right stuff down this will be made available to you but we're going to go ahead and you know start with rolling deadlines um we're going to go into college portals and you know probably some important key parts of each one of these academics um we're going to do a little bit of financial aid follow-up with you all and then we're going to end with resources um that may be for your whole family for yourself for your community and some self-care strategies so we know that we have a lot to go through and i'm actually gonna go ahead and pass it over to paola and she's gonna go ahead and get us started all right so a lot of you probably already submitted applications a lot of you are probably still working on them um but just know that deadlines are different depending on your state depending on what system you're applying to but one thing that we did want to mention is that what does it mean if you are applying to colleges with rolling deadlines um and so what does this even actually mean right so this means that there are no set application deadlines which means that you need to set reminders um so for whatever schools you're applying to that have um you know announced that they have these enrolling deadlines you want to make sure that you they're writing it on a calendar on a planner um sticky notes all over your computer whatever you need to make sure that you meet those deadlines you want to consider them in case you already um you know you really like this school you want to um you know go out of state maybe you got a fee waiver for them um but these colleges that are on rolling admissions you might receive your admissions decisions sooner um you know you can hear back from them maybe uh within two weeks it might take a couple um you know of months but all of these there are a lot of schools right now that have rolling admissions so if you already applied to some um but would like to apply to more you're always welcome to um if you didn't have the opportunity to apply um again they are enrolling admissions so they are accepting until they get um filled up so check the schools out we're gonna give you um a website later on where you'll be able to um look these schools up one thing we did want to mention though is that if you are applying to the university of california which is in the state of california or maybe you didn't even know but there are three campuses that still have applications open so uc merced you see riverside and uc santa cruz are still accepting applications until december 15 11 59 pacific time so if you're in california or out of state and you're still interested those three campuses still accepting applications in terms of the csus which is the california state university all campuses are still open until december 15th so if you haven't applied or maybe you were a little bit shy just know that there are still opportunities for you to do so um if you're out of state and you want to come hang out here in california with us we welcome you to submit your applications and you still have plenty of time to get those in on the right hand side bottom corner we do have a website called niche.com and you're able to look up the campuses that are on those rolling admissions so go check the website out see what campuses are still available they might have your major so you know do your own research but this link will be sent out in the email after so that you have access to that we wanted to do a kind of a quick check-in um and so if you go on www.menti.com and use the code that's at the top um we wanted for you to answer this question so how do you like to keep your login information organized do you use uh your phone and you keep it in your um notes on your phone do you use a physical planner or do you use a google or a word doc so we're going to give you all a couple of um you know a minute or so to go ahead and use this website i know that denise just dropped the link in the chat with the code so go ahead and and take a minute to do that so we can see where everyone is at so how do you keep organized and then if you're having any tech difficulties you know either put in the chat or let us know um see how we can help you out but we'll go ahead and see how this looks for us today if not follow feel free to let me know to um switch it over to the to the web browser all right sounds good so let me see where everyone is at notes physical planner or google dog [Music] so i'm going to go ahead and switch to the web browser and go ahead and see that there you go there we go all right so mobile so your notes on your phone is in the lead physical planner comes second and then third google docs so that's a pretty good mix i would say that if you're doing all three even better um i think that doing it on your phone um is the easiest as you have you know you basically take your phone everywhere so wherever you are you're able to pull up this information but good i'm glad you're all writing it down somewhere it is important to keep as organized as possible especially because you're going to need to create login accounts for every single one of the campuses um that you apply to so you're going to be creating a portal so if you apply to 10 campuses that means that you potentially will have to create 10 portals and so you want to make sure you have all this info written down give me a thumbs up if you've already had to reset your password at least once if you don't have a reaction you can go ahead and you know just tell me thumbs up in the chat but how many of you have already had to create or reset your passwords all right i see a few thumbs up and that's perfectly okay but again make sure that you write it down right so that you're not having to reset your password every single time that you're trying to log into your account and so this is just going to help you stay organized and the reason that you are being asked to create this these portals is because this is how campuses are going to communicate with you um so every single campus you create your portal and you should be going in every single day to see if there is any messaging that these campuses have provided for you my rule of thumb is if you have time to check tick tock you have time to check twitter instagram you most definitely have time to go into your portals at least once a day to see if there's anything that you've uh missed or that they've um you know relied to you and so um we are going to show you a screenshot of what one of the portals could potentially look like and what kind of information could be provided on these portals again um this is how they communicate with you um so they're able to um you know let you know about your admissions decision maybe they will let you know about they'll have a preview for your financial aid award package and then um i was just going to mention too i think we're having a little bit of a tech difficulty so i'm just going to go ahead and re-share the presentation um while we go ahead and get to that portal slide yeah it's zoom y'all 2020. this is where it's at um but uh uh as misty or asbesti or betsy gets that um going um like i said you might receive a preview for your um financial aid award letter you might receive your admissions decision on there um your to-do list right maybe you haven't completed your um your financial aid application so they're requesting that from you so a lot of things could be on these portals um and just remember that every single campuses uh portal might look different so where your financial aid might show up on the top left hand corner of one portal might not show up on the same place and in a different one so here's a screenshot of betsy's um portal she's currently getting her masters yay betsy um so um on here you can see right the to-do list on the right hand um on the right-hand side you can see um you know like resources that are available uh maybe account history if there's any dues that you need to pay um so everything that you need is going to be on these portals and it's essential for you to create them to be organized um and to check these on a regular basis the easiest way to get booted um from your the campus that you're interested in is to miss a deadline so if the campus requested your transcripts you know but you haven't checked your portal for two weeks and the deadlines this friday guess what you might miss that deadline and there goes your admissions potentially right so remember tons of students supplied the easiest way to weed you out is to miss deadlines so again if you're checking tick tock which takes up a lot of time you have time to check these portals um and if you need help creating these portals or you have questions about where this information can be you're always welcome to reach out to us um so that we can help you navigate because these portals are look different for every single campus i love the honesty paula it's so true one like she mentioned easiest way to get you know essentially like disqualified but two tick tock is the time sucker we all know it make it a priority people so i love the honesty okay all right the next one how many of you let me see the show of hands if you already have senioritis let me see a show of hands how many of you already have senioritis how many of you have never heard of senioritis let me see that all right so senioritis basically means that you are educator senioritis i think so it's it's a thing at least for 2020 it is um but senioritis basically means that you have gotten to the point where you're really tired maybe you're feeling unmotivated um it's just piling up right and that's totally understandable especially right now during distance learning um you know you never expected or you never imagined that you were going to be on zoom for most of your days you never thought that you were gonna have to do like virtual study groups or you know having to do everything online and being home all the time and so senioritis is very real um so that's one of the things we want you to maybe like try to think about or try to stay away from right senioritis is very real if it hasn't hit you yet it might hit you in the spring in the spring semester or spring quarter depending on what system your school is on but you want to stay as motivated as possible because senior year is still a critical year in order for your admissions so you want to make sure you're aware if you're in the danger zone again you still need to shoot for um c's or better because if you receive a d or an f you're going to need to contact the campuses that you've applied to and let them know that you've received these grades um and just so you all know a dear f um technically they could still take your admissions away if you receive a d or an f because you if you get accepted you're only conditionally accepted meaning you're kind of only halfway in so try to stay away from those um try to stay as motivated as possible i know it's difficult right now but you know let's try to keep in the best spirits possible um hopefully you know this pandemic will crossing my fingers end pretty soon and we might be able to resume to what we used to think was normal um virtual study groups so if you know you're already you know having some challenges in some classes try to come up with some study groups um all of your friends you know that have the same issues can come in on a zoom share your screen you know study together maybe your school is offering tutoring so go to those tutoring sessions i know that there's a lot of outreach programs that have um tutoring or like these study groups already created at certain times go to them there are a lot of resources right now for students during this time to make sure that you're all succeeding take breaks breaks are critical when you are feeling some days you know you just wake up and you're not feeling it i know that for myself i wake up sometimes and i'm like today is just not gonna be the day for me right i might not be as um productive as i would like to be and that's okay um what can help you though is set a timer uh maybe for 30 minutes where you're just going to work for 30 minutes and once that alarm rings then you're going to take a 15-minute break right so that's 15 minutes that you can be on tick tock um but then after those 15 minutes you got to hop back on to start being productive um and doing what it is you need to do and so those do you mind if i jump in real quick yeah go for it um i was just going to say i know that we had a participant i'm assuming it might be initials um nc they have their hand raised i just wanted to give them a quick moment to see if they wanted to unmute or if they wanted to go ahead and put it in the chat but just know that we saw the hand raised so i just wanted to see how we could answer anything totally a quick minute so feel free to unmute if you have a question and then if not you can always message um if you want to message me directly your question you're more welcome to nc was testing it out so don't worry it works all right perfect thank you paula yeah so yeah take your breaks you know that's necessary um and we'll talk about some strategies and give you all some like coping tips later on on how to like you know stay sane during this time um but the last thing really is remember that you are so close to the finish line um it's senior year um it's almost you know holiday break uh winter break so like uh betsy said earlier you can almost taste it you can almost see it you're so close so keep on pushing during the holiday break take some time to really like de-stress and just you know do what the things that you haven't been able to do during this time um but try to stay as motivated as possible and avoid senioritis if at all it's probably way contagious um but you know you're almost there so keep on pushing all right so thank you paula for kicking us off i definitely understand that senioritis feel i see it every single year with students so if you're saying that you haven't gotten it i feel like you're getting it a little bit maybe which is normal but hopefully you know we're able to keep ourselves motivated and energized and hopefully we're surrounding ourselves with people who are pushing us to do our best um during this time so as i mentioned we were going to just mention a bit about financial aid follow-ups you know now that you've submitted your college applications it's almost like you're switching or pivoting your attention over to a different type of application um in this case you know i know that we might have already heard plenty about the fafsa if you have not filled it out we urge you to fill it out as soon as possible um one for the sake exactly free money is cool never deny it never reject it you know take up the government on that opportunity um so you know feel free to go ahead and do that um as soon as possible to make sure that you're securing your aid and for you know our california students on this call making sure that your cal grant is being calculated properly um and then also likewise for students across the country if your states are having any sort of state grants that rely on information from the fafsa they need that information in order to calculate that for you remember it's a free application you should not be paying to fill this one out which is a little bit different than the one i'm about to introduce which is the css profile so the css profile if you haven't heard of it don't worry about it you're you're hearing about it now css profile is a financial aid application that is used um mostly by you know private universities um or colleges if you're not sure if you're applying you know out of state and you're like well i don't know if they take the css profile or not they have all the schools actually on their uh tab within college board so you can see all the schools that participate um that way you are aware if you need to fill this one out and just keep in mind that the css profile is a little bit lengthier they do ask for more details in regards to your financial information and it's a little different because with fafsa if you are able to use a data retrieval tool highly recommend it um it is you know all your information is pre-populated into the boxes so that way you're not like what's line 14 where is line 32 what do i subtract you know so you're able to just kind of like be like okay it's done it's been verified directly by the irs so hopefully that minimizes um you know some of the process later on for each of you and again with the css profile the other difference is that there could be a cost associated with this one plus side is that fee waivers are available so if you are planning on filling out the css profile and you are eligible for a fee waiver you get i believe up to eight schools or eight fee waivers for for schools um and i can go ahead and just double check on that for everyone but just kind of making sure that you have that done because there is a second part to it which if you want more information on this you're more than welcome to reach out to me um i'll i'll go ahead and put my email in the chat later on because the other part is another section called the idoc and that's essentially just like another portal where you upload verification forms for your schools so we can get into the nitty-gritty later if you have questions but this is really your reminder to keep on with your financial aid and last but not least i know that you know for students who do identify as undocumented or say that they are receiving daca um please make sure to fill out your your california dream act if you are a student in california um and you know if you're going to go ahead and go to school in california for college make sure to fill that out as soon as you can for our students outside of california double check and see what resources there are you know for students who do identify as undocumented or do or who do receive daca right now because you want to maximize the amount of financial aid you could possibly get um so just wanted to put that out there for everyone i know that financial aid can be tricky so if you have questions don't you know shy away um we're here to help as best we can and kind of leading into that you know going into the idea of special circumstances we know that this year has been very tough um both you know it could be financially emotionally um it's just been you know a pretty exhausting year in and of itself but just know that anything that has happened or has you know the pandemic has caused drastic changes within your household we are encouraging every student to report them to report these circumstances to their schools um more importantly to the financial aid offices so for example students we encourage students who have you know the following so say that they are from a single parent or a legal guard a single legal guardian household um if you have no communication you know with with one parent um since they do usually ask for both like information on both you might have to go ahead and just verify that you know you don't have contact with this other person um the next part could be that you may have verification sheets so something that we mentioned for idoc and for paula how she mentioned about the portals is that they'll have you upload verification like household verification sheets um which will ask for you know who's living in your home right if it's your parents your legal guardians your siblings anyone who receives that financial support um so if there's been changes say that you know we've had we've known for students to they've they've suffered economic changes right so maybe their parents have experienced unemployment or maybe they haven't been unemployed but their hours have been drastically cut so any sort of income changes that you know weren't reported in the tax information that you're inputting on your financial aid applications should be reported so if this year your parents have made significantly less or your legal guardians have made significantly less you definitely will be reporting that so for those of us in in you know being like the educational cheerleaders for our students definitely encourage them to um file these changes as soon as possible with their schools and if they need help and you know this is a really great tool to report any changes in financial circumstances um we've introduced it before so maybe some of our educators on here may be familiar with it or our students um it's called formswift and it's actually completely free it's an online resource that will help students create a financial aid appeal letter so some schools may give you already a form but if you're starting you know from scratch this is a great tool it'll tell you you know how you should phrase certain things um possibly the documents that you will need to go ahead and submit along with the letter to make sure that you're verifying these circumstances so just as you know food for thought about how it is that you might want to approach some of these changes um and if you just need help because i know that when i was in high school i did not know how to write a financial aid appeal letter i barely i remember in high school i was like barely remembering and this is gonna probably reflect very poorly on me but like how to address an envelope because i mean it's been a while so maybe luckily you'll just have to upload this letter somewhere and not mail it um but if you need assistance there are plenty of resources um so i just wanted to share that out with you all and going into the thought process of making sure that we give ourselves all the opportunities for free money um you know going into scholarship season now that you've submitted your college apps aside from your financial aid applications definitely focus on scholarships you know maybe this is something that you've been wanting to do that you've been meaning to set aside time for and you tell yourself okay this weekend i'm going to do it this weekend i'm going to start this weekend well i'm telling you this right now this won't maybe not this weekend because you guys have finals next week probably um but during winter break definitely make time to start this scholarship search or even make progress on applications that you might have opened like a couple weeks ago a month ago um but you know making sure that you go ahead and and start that and then i did get a quick question um asking about the form swift tool so they're at it they're asking if it would go straight to their college's financial aid office and also would we need to do this once or if we get accepted to the colleges so great question you know definitely want to be aware of timing i believe that that tool allows you to formulate the the letter and i think you're able to either download it and you can denise i know that you're also familiar with this tool so if you know otherwise feel free to correct me um but that tool is actually something that helps you formulate it and then you send it directly to your financial aid office um and then based on timing um in in the case where it's like would you need to do this once you get accepted yes so once you um know that you've been accepted and that you go ahead and are kind of waiting for that financial aid package i would go ahead and recommend that you send in these special circumstances so the financial aid office can be made aware as they're putting together your financial aid package um so yes thank you denise um for for confirming that but like i said if there's more questions feel free to you know keep them coming and then you know in terms of the scholarships if you did not request letters of recommendation for your college apps no worries you know definitely make sure that you are asking your teachers for different letters of recommendation and then that way you can go ahead and have them ready for any sort of scholarship application you're looking into and these last couple bullets about you know applying often large and small awards put those two together okay i don't want you to disqualify a scholarship that's you know fifty dollars because it's only fifty dollars you know any amount helps um i know that we've had students whenever they receive their financial aid packages and they're like oh i should have applied to the fifty dollar one fifty dollars can make a difference um so any amount go for it you know definitely make sure that you're keeping track of deadlines so then you can apply in time because it might be you know a little bit well and that might be a little bit it will hurt you know to have prepared so many parts of the scholarship application and then if you miss a deadline then you can't submit it right so making sure that you are timely on these things and then in the don't section i'm gonna sum it up like this okay this is how i want you to imagine it is you miss every shot you don't take right so i'm sure that that's probably not the first time you've heard of that but definitely just put yourself out there there is no reason why you shouldn't you know keep yourself from that opportunity you definitely are worthy of it so why not go for it and then the last two is remember scholarships are about free money you should not be paying to apply to a scholarship that falls into the last bullet of don't fall for something that's too good to be true you know so don't pay for the opportunity at free money um so just kind of keeping that in mind and also if you're like weary or like unsure about some scholarship opportunities ask your counselor ask you know people in you know any of your educational cheerleaders like i know that denise and i have gotten emails from from students before asking like oh um you know ms pena does this is this like a legitimate scholarship you know and you know i'll go ahead and help like oh yeah you know that's something that i'm familiar with and so forth so feel free to go ahead and ask um the people around you and then just kind of going into that section of just scholarships these are just some good ways to start if you haven't um these are just nice search engines to kind of get that ball rolling for you especially like during winter break if you don't have it set up yet um college green light great resource for scholarships also for like virtual flying programs which may be more applicable to any you know juniors we may have on this call um if we have any juniors or if we have any educators you know definitely feel free to promote these um resources a big future you know big feature from college board there's certain reasons why we like some of these some of them are just really good with categories so if you're looking specifically for scholarships for seniors or scholarships for students from arizona or scholarships for students majoring in political science so you can go ahead and search by category and see something that's more of a match um based on your criteria so just kind of keeping that in mind and seeing where you match and what you can apply to in a timely manner uh so if you have any questions about these feel free to let us know um or if you have even any scholarship engines scholarship search engines that you use that you really enjoy that you don't see on here please feel free to share it you know put it in the chat we would love to add it to our email afterwards of with all the resources that way we can share with everyone else and you know kind of going into the idea of like just maximizing our opportunities um we wanted to share out some community resource tips especially right now when so many things are changing from day to day so i know that we use social media um quite a bit for more of a personal use but i would really recommend um our students our families our educators on this uh workshop with us right now to follow you know start following your cities or county's um social media handles so whether it's on instagram or on twitter um you're getting a lot of different updates on there regarding maybe the status of different businesses to covet or maybe you are hearing more about like events that are becoming um like covet friendly maybe virtually uh it could be a mixture of things and we'll kind of show you a little bit of an example later on next is the like a coronavirus resource page and it's really to help everyone you know i know that we might have people from across the country on this call so just kind of keeping up to date with anything that's changing especially how this might you know information regarding covid can affect different different spaces in our lives right not just personal but maybe academics you know with our schools so another way to kind of just keep updated on that and like i said you know this year has been a really difficult year um for a lot of folks so you know if you know someone or if your family is considering it um if you know anyone who finds themselves in this position where they're like you know maybe it would be good to check out you know a food bank you know we do have a resource to find a national food bank in your area but i would also say that there are a good amount of local food pantries that you can look for um they might be in your community centers they might be in different um religiously affiliated areas like whether it's like a temple a church um anything like that so feel free to go ahead and and kind of use that idea to just start your research on it in case you know you might feel like you can benefit from these resources and like i said go ahead and follow your your city's you know page you know you can find like covet updates you can find cova testing for you know people whether it's your family yourself or you know people who may just need this information um another thing that i really also like is that you can kind of see like updates on you know different city policies like even if it's street sweeping like knowing that i don't have to move my car on tuesday mornings like that that's another help right because a lot of us are at home right now so this might be a good way for you to also feel like you're getting updates and that you can plan accordingly um so just kind of wanting to keep that in mind and like i said the national food banks that are available to us know that they are throughout the country um for the most part so all you have to do is input your zip code and the nearest one will show up for you so just in case this is something that you are debating um about trying out so now i'm actually going to go ahead and turn it over to paola and she's going to go ahead and and share some self-care strategies with us all right so i know we've already covered a lot but i did mention that we were gonna give you all some coping and self-care strategies so the first one is digest the news properly and what does that mean right but what is the best amount of news for you in order to feel safe but also to not make yourself stress or to worry too much right so um you know same thing with like social media like limit your feed like what do you want to see on your timeline if it's just like all these negative things that's going to change your mood it's going to increase your anxiety your stress so you know again what is too much for you um also limit your worry time right um being fearful all the time can be draining it can become a full-time job and so remind yourself that most of what you worry about will not happen and really you can only control what is in your control right so don't worry about what is out of your control and it's easier said than done um because i myself am i'm like that i'm like oh xyz is happening but you know what i don't control that so i can only focus on myself and what i do have control of um you also want to pace yourself um there's a lot going on and it can be very exhausting um to make to you know be doing so much so like i said take time to like de-stress take time to um you know just have those breaks do those 30 minutes of work 15 minutes of break or you know 30 minutes whatever you think is it is a good time for you but really try to pace yourself because the more you do the more you're going to tire yourself out one of the most important ones i would like to think is feed your body wellness and that means make sure that you remain mindful about your body's needs um exercise um some of you might not like to exercise and that's okay but you know take a brisk walk around uh the neighborhood if if you're able to or you know you could just pace around in your living room if you have the space but uh in terms of like exercise make sure you get some in 30 minutes daily will really make such a big difference in terms of your stress levels i know that for myself like i don't have you know any exercise equipment but i've gotten creative with like water bottles for weights or like jugs of water like chicken broth you know whatever i can to like use as weights that's something that i've been doing um sleep is the next thing so um peop um people around like you know high school age should technically be getting anywhere from eight to nine hours of sleep and it actually takes 21 days of being consistent from like you know your bedtime to the time you wake up for in order for your body to actually feel rested so make sure you're giving yourself that time and then lastly make sure you have a healthy diet um whatever um healthy and diet means to you um try to do your best right so um for me maybe it's not um eating so many like crackers right or maybe i'm eating more broccoli like whatever that diet is for you just make sure you um take care of yourself and then take one thing out of take one day at a time again whatever's in your control only you can um control and then lastly build on what you have achieved so don't sell yourself short you've made it this far you've gone through distance learning um having you know to navigate new systems on your own so kudos to you for even being here in this workshop um and just make sure that you know you know that you're resilient and we just got to keep moving forward and so next i do we do have a special guest um and i'm gonna go ahead and let her introduce herself hi everyone my name is yahaira montoya i want to thank you all for being here um i am going to be answering these questions but just so you can know like you you know who's talking to you know you know a little bit about me um i recently graduated from uc irvine i majored in education um originally i didn't go in as education things changed but here i am i'm a recent graduate um but yeah just to answer this question what coping mechanisms would you suggest to students as they wait for admissions decision um many of you probably submitted or you will be submitting and that time in between um i guess you can feel a little bit anxious i know i felt that um and you might want to just like constantly check your email or check the mail like did something come in you just want to see something some sort of like response um but i think ways that can help um just help you cope that like within that time in between is to like not compare yourself with your peers that may be easier to do since you're not like seeing your peers as often as if you would if you were in classroom but yeah like don't compare yourself because you are a completely different person and you have a complete different journey um than everyone everyone has just a different journey um another thing i would suggest if you have a hobby use that time to continue it to start it if you don't have a hobby start one whether i don't know if you like art do art um you can go as paula mentioned you know take care of your mind and your body go for a run um meditate you may even like want to start a business learn something new and that way you keep yourself busy um yeah those are just some things that you can do another thing is yeah i guess exercise or spend time with your pets those are just some things to keep you busy and so you're not like constantly wearing like am i in or am i not um but overall i just want to answer this question yeah answer this question by saying um or something that i always thought and my mom always told me like what she said in other words and in spanish but basically um rejection is redirection so if you are thinking like dang like oh i might not get accepted there um even if that is a result just interpret it as redirection you are going to be at a better place there is something greater planned for you um the what if it doesn't it's not gonna exist you can't think oh what if i went here what if i did this or that it doesn't exist so just think like re rejection is redirection you didn't get what you wanted it's for a reason you have something better planned for you um and to answer the second question how do you suggest students continue researching their interests and opportunities at college um google that would be the first step like i would just google keywords at the campus that i'm in like uc irvine and something that i'm interested in and it's exactly what i did i did uc irvine belly dance as a child i did belly dancing and i don't know why i was just sitting in my room and i was like i wonder if uci has that and i googled it and it redirected me to a page that that gave me all the information where they met the time they met the day they met everything um and that can be the same for like a sport an organization just google things that you may be interested in um if we were in person or if you do have a chance to be in person on campus look out for like involvement fairs booths that you see on campus if not check your emails your emails are going to tell you everything that you need everything that's going on on your campus um whether it's like yes an opportunity with a sport a club an organization an event going on um another thing would be like for example if you were in a in a in a sport in high school and you didn't necessarily go to college to continue that sport but you still want to get a little bit in touch with your sporty site there's um intramural sports which is like a sports club um and it's just a matter of like researching a little bit like just find out where they meet who maybe you can talk to and if you do have a chance show up one day see how it is if you like it cool if you don't cool that's fine at least you tried it um but yeah for the most part just like see what is out there for you and if ultimately if whatever you want is not there create it college is open for like creating what you want to look for or creating what you want basically um but yeah just you can google or check those emails at your college campuses if you have any specific questions you can go ahead and um private message me in the chat and then i can answer it to all of you or just answer privately thank you haida and also i did want to mention too that we will be allowing um our audience to go ahead and actually put in any questions you may have um either for your haida or paola or myself um i'll go ahead and go back to the web browser but while they're doing this yaheida i actually am interested in learning about how you arrived at you know joining eaop when you were an undergrad i know you said you graduated but i know that you also went into education later on so how was that for you so what ultimately got me into education was my first job at a middle school and that was just because i went i looked for that web for a job online and then a year after or two years after actually i was by my school building at the school of education and there was a booth set up you know the booth like i mentioned look for those booths there was a booth set up and someone from ea op was there and i was like hey i was in that when i was in high school they're here like are they following me so i just like approached the booth asked questions and they told me that they're hiring you gave me a flyer um so that's what kind of got me into eop but the fact that i was already familiar with it because i was part of it in high school um and i liked what they did with me like the help that i got and i was like okay i want to help other students like it was ultimately what i wanted to do so i thought this is gonna um help reinforce my interest awesome well i mean i didn't share this out before but i also was in aop when i was in college so i'm just always interested to hear how students you know become attracted to joining and um you know definitely appreciate you being on this call with us today and i know that we have some questions that came in so one of them is how can counselors help them with these next steps and when do students start hearing back from colleges so i mean you had i know that you're probably our most recent student um on this on this collar graduate that has experienced that so when did you start um hearing back from your colleges oh you're making me think um i believe it was like february march um the first notification that i got was through email and then the other notification was like through the mail like you know the movie scene where it's like you open the envelope and you see like oh did you get accepted or not i mean we didn't you don't have that the whole experience because you get an email that tells you whether you did or did not get accepted um but it was you're making it you're really making me think but yeah that's ultimately like how they let me know um i know there was a time that i kind of like forgot about it or in the beginning after i submitted i was like constantly checking and then over time i was like you know what just relax and then when i got that email i was like oh like this is quick it's gonna go by quicker than you think i know i think um another thing to add is you might even hear until like april and paula feel free to jump in um i think april uh time for for acceptances or admissions like whether it's like a declination an acceptance or a waitlist offering um let me say i did a bigger comment the colleges that i've applied for sent emails to look into their financial programs but how can i start looking into it if i haven't gotten accepted to them i already did my fafsa but i know that there are other financial aids for the schools so for financial sorry bet for finance for financial aid i know that you won't really know how much financial aid you actually receive until you already received admissions so if you apply to i don't know washington state university first you'll be admitted um and then a couple typically they try to have your financial aid award letter by zen but sometimes it takes a little bit longer so you might not get it until maybe two weeks after you've already received your um your decision um so you just need to keep checking again right so yes you got admitted but now you gotta keep checking to see if your financial aid award letter is there unfortunately sometimes the schools um are so busy that they don't have it ready on time by the time you have to make a decision and that's when it's very unfortunate because you kind of have to you have to guess and you have to make decisions whether that's the best decision for you or you go with another school um so you know you're not going to hear back until until um march april and then you'll be able to make your decision by that may 1st deadline for uc's specifically and then barla can i add something to that one too yeah if there are for example i know that some schools some private universities have merit deadlines so that might be another form of like financial aid that they're talking about so if they are asking you to apply earlier than their regular decision deadline um that might be for you to be qualified or to see if you qualify for any other scholarships from their school for example usc has a merit deadline i believe it was december 1st but if there's other schools that have merit deadlines it's usually for you to apply um to submit your application see what kind of scholarship or school specific scholarships you may be eligible for and then they'll use that information to put together your financial aid package with those scholarships that you might be eligible for um so that's another you know part to that if you still need like maybe more clarification or maybe we didn't answer it completely feel free to put it you know a different question in the mentee and we can go ahead and go for it know paula um the application question if you wanted to tackle it yeah so your um your transcripts they don't request um unofficial transcripts unless you get something in your portal but typically for the most part they don't official transcripts though are not due until july 1st so first you're going to know if you got admitted and then if that's the campus that you want to go to then you send your official transcripts so that they can verify your grades um otherwise you probably will not be sending in transcripts all right and then i i did see another question that was more related to counselors so how can counselors help them you know help students with these next steps but i'm not sure if you want to take you know a triad at first yeah um i think i would just add um sending those like weekly reminders i know you know you've been sending probably lots of emails to your students they're probably not reading them hopefully they are but again we've gotten to the point where i think like zoom fatigue is such a real thing but keep doing what you're doing i'm sure that your students are reading your emails um but they might still be putting it off um social media posting on social media um you know the stories on instagram the things that kids are their students are really into and maybe some students in the room if you all want to share how your counselors can help you i think it would be nice to also get a student perspective um because only you all know right um we're out here just giving info that we've seen work but if any student wants to be brave maybe send us a private message about how counselors can keep helping y'all that would serve beneficial and then if you wanted to add anything to that betsy i think that's really like you said right now it's it's hard because it's not like you can force the student to to open up their email and to look at it i would say like maybe finding um if you have like a google classroom that you have with your students maybe sending reminders that way or if you use remind or if you don't use the remind app yet maybe that's something that's quick and easy for them to just get as a text and it could be like a really short message um but again you know we do have to see you know what students have access to so for our students on this call like paula mentioned if you do have a certain way that you like to get notifications or something that will help you feel more up to date on some of these items then it would be a huge help to counselors um let me see do we need to do a twitch live stream in order to get y'all on on calls and then let me see i know that i had a message pop up to me so that i do oh i was just gonna say i do see the question about the s.a.t um if you if you took the test and you didn't like your score and your schools um are not requiring the sat um then then don't submit it if you don't really like your score right they're not using it for admissions purposes at the end of the day it's just it's up to you um and what you feel is best but if the score isn't required and you don't like your score um it sounds to me like you just don't want to send it in so try to avoid that and then i know that we are running short on time but i do see um a message from yes mean she i think currently an admission counselor at a college and they just want to provide like their perspective um possibly like on one of them so if you wanted to unmute you're you're more than welcome to unmute um i know that we are short on time so for any of us who want to stay on just to hear that last bit you're more than welcome to um if not then we understand if you have to get going thank you betsy um i just wanted to say like a few things so i do work at a college in the admissions office so we are in charge of admitting students into the college and i think you guys said really important and great things here today um and it's been really hard getting students um to you know uh be on zooms and i know that you guys want to help your students if your counselors um or you want um guidance from your counselor so i just think the most important thing is to consistently be reaching out reach out to the admissions counselors at the colleges like we're here to help we we want to help you every step of the way um so it's it's really important that you guys do that i work at a small school in downtown brooklyn called saint francis college um so um because our school's so small we're able to really focus on students and and you just never know like we are definitely busy this time of year but always contact your schools you never know what scholarships are available and scholarships are the best way to get free money on top of your financial aid so always reach out and don't be afraid to ask for more money because sometimes we don't know like you just have to ask um ask us what's available and make sure you guys are looking at those deadlines because um those deadlines are you know like they said it could really hurt your admissions um just because we are rolling admissions but not every college is um so it would really help and if something is optional you you really don't have to submit it but i wish you guys all uh thank you for letting me speak no thank you yasmine i think that's like that's all key information like definitely maximizing the people in in your circle the people that you have at your fingertips like really understand that for you know for students and you know what's the worst thing that they can say is no right so definitely feel free to ask about what other opportunities you may have available to you through their admissions office so i really love that part and paula i'm not sure if you had anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up um because i know that we are going over time just a bit so i just want to see if there's anything you wanted to add no i just really wanted to say thank you to all of you for being on this call i hope you took um you know important information from it you know you always just take and take what you want and what you need and leave what you don't um that's my biggest thing and i hope that you all finished off the quarter of the semester strong and i might personally not know you but um i am grateful for each and every one of you and i hope you have a great um winter break yeah