Program Advice

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Lebenstraum
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:39 pm

Program Advice

Post by Lebenstraum »

My current IS is growing and I have been slated for the half psychology teacher, half college counselor position. I've been teaching psych for many years, but am interested in moving into college counseling and am excited to be able to combine both positions. My admin is offering PD in case I ever want to move on to a new school. UCLA program or Principal's Training certificate program? Something else? Thanks!
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

What do you want to do and where do you want to go?
Do you want to move into counseling full time and permanently?
Do you want/need a professional credential?
Do you want to be a "school" counselor or a "Uni/College" counselor?

If you want to be a Uni/College counselor, the UCLA program is the best option, it was designed for School Counselors who came from a mental health (MH) background, and never got much in the way of Uni Counseling (because those programs offer very little if anything in that regard). However, most of the Uni/College counseling is still a hands on learning experience, its building relationships and networks with Uni admissions officers and departments. The academic and technical expertise is maybe a 2 week seminar/workshop.

If youre more interested in YOUR career advancement and development, than the CTC is the place to do that, though their program like many focuses on MH as opposed to uni/College counseling, its the place to meet and network with leadership who would be in a position to hire you for a better IS.

If credentialing is important to you than find a program that will result in a professional credential from a regulating authority, it will be almost exclusively MH, but you will get a credential that has utility on a resume when applying for those positions. I would advise looking at option offered by Uni Ivys wherever you go, otherwise whatever fits into your time line, service delivery, and cost is up to you and doesnt matter much. You arent going to be working in DE, and wherever you go you can get transition to the NJ credential which is a lifetime credential requiring no PD to maintain.

Im not a huge fan of the PTC, they sell high priced memberships to their club, but for your scenario and what your doing the networking and the experiential aspects of how Uni counseling works behind the scenes (and more importantly what doesnt) with professionals in the field will be more valuable than academic lectures It will prepare you better for walking the walk, as you already have the appointment than learning to talk the talk as an applicant looking for an appointment. Your IS also knows your background and their comfortable with what you have and what you offer, and likely understand this will be a learning process for you as well, so there wont be a lot of pressure for your first couple of years.

Counselors are less career transition or MH specialists in IE anyway. Its mostly a social position in junior leadership that is more student management, than anything that has to do with counseling. The master schedule, transcript management and reference organization as well as your PTA coffee mixers are more important than anything regarding admissions and will form the bulk of your formal duties. The students who are actually viable candidates for the Ivy Unis that matter will have consultants to manage their application. especially since youll be in a classroom half the time anyway. Being the liaison between parents, ITs, students and senior leadership will be you informal day to day role.

Lastly, be weary of time management and professional organization. Your still an IT, and while your teaching half a day, the other half of the day you would use for prep and other non-structured IT tasking will now be occupied by your office and counseling role. Essentially, you just gave up a lot of planing and prep time to do office work.
eion_padraig
Posts: 408
Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:18 pm

Re: Program Advice

Post by eion_padraig »

If you're going into college counseling there are a number of good pathways. UCLA's certificate program isn't bad, though it's a bit more US centric. A few of the other University of California campuses also have similar certificate programs. That might be fine if you're school's students are largely headed to the US.

The Counselor Training Center also offers some good options for school counseling, but it's not as centered around the college counseling process specifically.

CollegeBoard does a good training in NYC every year that would be a good starting point. They have a track for new people and one for experienced people.

There are also US-based training programs by associations or by independent schools that do a decent job on US admissions. I did one at Taft School during the summer some years back. I've seen it offered by some of the regional ACAC groups too (Association of College Admission Counselors) which are admissions people, college counselors and school counselors.

I'd really advise you to get involved with International ACAC. They have a large conference every July in North America. This year's conference is already full, but they have done some regional conferences that are decent. http://www.internationalacac.org It's a great, supportive organization with people who know a lot. The Facebook group is also a great resource. They're starting to do regional institutes as well, which I've heard are okay.

CIS has a good college forum in the Fall which covers some of the the same topics at International ACAC, but it's less North American focused. Last year it was in Edinburgh. This year it is in Austria in November.

CIS EARCOS has a smaller, but good college admission meeting in the Fall in Southeast Asia that's worthwhile too.

I have friends who teaching and college counseling positions that are combined. The biggest issue is that it can be hard to attend useful conferences or do university visits or attend events held in your city when admission people travel if you have to teach a class. But the advantage it does provide is knowing your students in a classroom setting.

Good luck.

Eion
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