What does the College Counselor do?

A day in the life of TCS college counselor is filled with universities visits, universities fairs, meetings, and phone calls or text messages from undecided seniors asking for advice on which university is best for them; which is not an easy task to complete for more than 100 teenagers.

Maria Teresa Mejia, the college counselor, has to execute and organize events held in the school for the students’ benefit, where Universities come and exhibit what they have to offer; in addition to many other jobs she has at the school and separate meetings with the students.

“In February we have: the University Fair of Medellín, the Bogotá University Fair, and the CIS tour, which is a tour of 22 foreign universities that come and visit. They come in April, so you have to organize the entire tour, the whole assembly of the fair, lunch, social service, everything about the fair,” Maria Teresa Mejia said. “So the international universities that come to school contact me because they want to do promotion.”

Not only does she has to deal with fares, but she has to arrange the Universities guided visits to the school and it can be really stressful for her. She is responsible of receiving universities that come from many parts of the world to show what they have to offer to the kids.

Since she is a counselor, she is responsible of helping the students with their applications, their abroad exams, and what is required for them to do based on their college of choice.

“You start in August and the entire application process begins in the universities of the United States, that process consists of exams and tests. We have a tool called the Common Application or the Coalition that are different. The Common Application has more than 613 universities that belong there, and Coalition are other universities mainly from Florida, ” Mejia said

She helps students, mainly in 12th grade, choose a career, a university, and the place where they should go based on many variables like their personality and their scores on specific tests.

“The first bimester we did the vocational tests, she with another company; the exam gave you your personality type, and three careers. So I for example went to her to help me because I was undecided, so she helped by looking at what I like to do, my qualities, and which career was more appropriate according to what it said in the test,” said Catalina Echeverri, 12th grade student from TCS.

“Maria Teresa has not directly helped me, because I am very clear about the career I want to study, but nevertheless, she constantly tells us about the universities that are going to come to school to visit, and about the career offers that they have, ” Senior student at TCS Sara Botero added.

Other Activities she Manages

Not only is she responsible for sending the applications, but she also is a supervisor and a proctor for major tests like the SAT and ACT, as well as the AP exams.

“The school is a test center, simply here the students can come to take the exam they want, either SAT or ACT on a date that they have and are worldwide. I never interact with the money, I am the Supervisor and I am always giving one of the exams because the SAT has: the normal SAT, the SAT with writing, and on other dates Subject Tests,”  she said. “Also, I am a proctor of the AP Exams, so there are two weeks in may that are dead because I am stuck with the AP students giving the exams.”

On the SAT and ACT she has the help of coworkers Richard Newcomer, technology teacher from TCS, and Felipe Naranjo, 11th grade philosophy teacher.

This year, she enrolled in being the NHS advisor and is responsible of the Graduation ceremony that even though seems like no big deal it is a lot of work. She is in charge of the decoration of the coliseum, the management of the gowns and NHS breastplates, as well as the invitations and making sure everything is sent and done on time.

To top it of, she is responsible of executing the Independent Study Project, or ISP, every year; she not only has to introduce the kids to the companies and thanking them for letting them do what they are doing, but she has to assemble the entire fair at the Coliseum in less than a week.

Her job is not easy, but she has done it for more than four years and has been responsible for the achievements of many students thanks to the opportunities that she offers; people at school can really benefit from someone like her and should seize every opportunity she presents.