WEB EXCLUSIVE As seniors make their final decision regarding which college they will attend this fall, juniors begin the college process with regular college counseling classes.

“Everything that’s involved with the college application process is extremely complicated,” junior Emma Hubbard said. “I can’t imagine having to do it without the guidance of Ms. Munda and Ms. Whalen.”

Hubbard says that College Counseling Director Rebecca Munda’s resources and advice for writing college essays and doing interviews have already been beneficial. Munda and college counseling associate Kelly Whalen also offer students the opportunity to do mock-interviews, according to Munda.

Theory of Knowledge teacher Paul Pryor Lorentz works with Munda to schedule two college counseling classes per month during TOK periods. With the built-in class time, juniors have been able to better balance their heavy workload, according to junior Worth Taylor.

“It has been very beneficial [having college counseling built into our schedule] because we have time to work on other things during our free period, which is really necessary this year since we have a lot of work,” Taylor said. “I know if I had to have my free period taken away for college counseling that would make me feel very overwhelmed and stressed.”

In previous years juniors visited Munda during flex periods or an elective period.

“The benefit is that it is one less thing students have to put on a to-do list,” Munda said. “There is already so much on juniors’ plates in terms of academics and extracurriculars, so we found that having built-in space has been convenient for everyone.”

Many juniors will attend a College Admission Case Study event at Saint Ignatius High School on Sunday to learn more about the admissions process. Hubbard says she is looking forward to exploring the wide range of majors colleges have to offer.

“I’m not really sure what I want to do when I’m older,” Hubbard said. “But I think college is the perfect opportunity to narrow that down and get exposed to different academic fields.”