{"id":4320,"date":"2020-04-29T08:54:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T12:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/?p=4320"},"modified":"2020-05-20T09:35:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T13:35:07","slug":"working-to-expand-graduate-coursework-in-college-admission-counseling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/04\/29\/working-to-expand-graduate-coursework-in-college-admission-counseling\/","title":{"rendered":"Working to Expand Graduate Coursework in College Admission Counseling"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4303\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4303\" style=\"width: 724px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4303 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lecture-hall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"724\" height=\"483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lecture-hall.jpg 724w, https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lecture-hall-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">iStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Why does NACAC\u2019s\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nacacnet.org\/about\/SIGs\/graduate-coursework-sig\/\">College\u00a0Admission\u00a0Counseling\u00a0Graduate Coursework SIG<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0exist?\u00a0 Simple:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>School counselors are supposed to have three domains of expertise\u2014social\/emotional development, academic planning, and college\/career planning<\/li>\n<li>Surveys show that less than one third of all school counselors report receiving any training in college counseling as part of their graduate school experience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Think about that for a minute as it relates to the other parts of a school counselor\u2019s job. Would anyone want a counselor talking to their child about depression, stress, bullying, or peer pressure if that counselor had no training dedicated to those topics?\u00a0 How confident would we be in the advice a counselor gives a student on course selection if the counselor had no idea what the school\u2019s graduation requirements are?\u00a0 Yet, year after year, the vast majority of counselor graduate programs send counselors out into schools with no formal, focused training on how to help students make strong college choices.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>NACAC\u2019s Graduate Coursework SIG was started about ten years ago, based on the recommendations of a NACAC ad hoc committee chaired by Bob Bardwell.\u00a0 Our goal is to increase\u00a0 the number of graduate programs that offer a separate, sustained course that focuses solely on college counseling, and we\u2019re starting to see some results.\u00a0 A January\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/papers.cmulhern.com\/Counselors_Mulhern.pdf\">report from Harvard<\/a>\u00a0suggests school counselors do their best college advising when they talk about colleges close to the high school where they work, or the college they attended\u2014suggesting this lack of breadth is due in part to a lack of graduate school training in college counseling. This message is echoed in a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/02\/06\/op-ed-the-necessity-of-college-counseling-training\/\">NACAC opinion piece\u00a0<\/a>that provides data on how bad the problem is, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/education\/guidance-to-high-school-counselors-brush-up-on-your-college-advising\/2020\/02\/21\/713c8606-53fe-11ea-b119-4faabac6674f_story.html\">this report<\/a>\u00a0that shows how this lack of training affects students.<\/p>\n<p>School counselors have raised this issue with counselor educators\u2014those in charge of the graduate school programs where school counselors are trained\u2014for years, but these concerns have largely fallen on deaf ears, or been met with one of the responses below. In either case, there seems to be a new urgency for more training in this vital element of the school counseling curriculum\u2014so let\u2019s see how the concerns of counselor educators can be eased so they can move forward with this important change:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Instruction in college counseling is already integrated through all the other courses we offer.\u00a0<\/strong>Individual and Family Development. Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy. Clinical Counseling. These are all titles of school counseling classes, and these subjects are taught as separate classes, as part of a comprehensive curriculum. College counseling has its own curriculum, and counselors deserve the opportunity to devote concentrated time to mastering this curriculum, just like the others that are mentioned\u2014and it\u2019s no less important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I wouldn\u2019t know what to teach, since there\u2019s no established curriculum for a class like this.<\/strong>\u00a0True\u2014but then again, there\u2019s no established curriculum for any course in school counseling. If you\u2019re not sure what you should be teaching in a college counseling course, some of the leading minds in the field have produced\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.collegeisyours.com\/house-bill-4552.html\">a list of outcomes for a college counseling class<\/a>\u2014skills counselors should have after learning about college counseling. It\u2019s not a comprehensive list, but most counselors who\u2019ve seen the list would have killed to get these skills in grad school.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to see how other colleges teach the subject, the membership roster of NACAC\u2019s Graduate Coursework SIG membership includes\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nacacnet.org\/about\/SIGs\/graduate-coursework-sig\/\">instructors of college counseling classes<\/a>\u00a0who would be happy to share their syllabi with you, along with the texts they use. Contact\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nacacnet.org\/about\/SIGs\/graduate-coursework-sig\/\">that group here<\/a>\u00a0if you have questions about starting a class.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My own teaching load is full.<\/strong>\u00a0Most of the graduate programs that offer this course have school counselors teach it\u2014those who engage in college counseling in the field. Since they work for adjunct pay, this is a bargain, and doesn\u2019t affect any professors\u2019 teaching load.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We can only hire Ph.D. adjuncts to teach courses, and Ph.D. school counselors are hard to find.<\/strong>\u00a0Many colleges have a way around this. The course is listed with the professor\u2019s name on it, and they serve as a supervisor, but with someone else teaching the course. Other colleges let the school counselor serve as a guest lecturer, which has a different, and more liberal, set of rules when it comes to running those courses. There\u2019s a way your theater department can hire Lin-Manuel Miranda to teach Drama 101, and he only has a BA; use that method to hire a rock star school counselor to teach this class.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I can\u2019t find anyone with background to teach the course.<\/strong>\u00a0If this is really the case, please contact us\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/collegeisyours.com\">here<\/a>. The NACAC Graduate Coursework SIG has about two dozen experienced teachers who would welcome a chance to teach some version of this course again. If you can\u2019t find someone, we will.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I can\u2019t afford the startup costs of a new class.<\/strong>\u00a0College budgets may be tight, but they always include funding for development of new classes\u2014so this wouldn\u2019t cost extra money. Still, if you can\u2019t afford to start the course, encourage your students to take an existing class, and let them transfer the graduate credits in. The University of Sioux Falls (SD) offers a three-credit graduate course in college counseling, and it costs a bargain basement $405 (full disclosure: I teach it). Many counselors have taken this course and transferred it into their degree. Just make sure the path is clear at your school so your grad\u00a0students can do that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This isn\u2019t \u201creal\u201d counseling.<\/strong>\u00a0This one just drives me crazy. It\u2019s bad enough some school counselors feel this way, but when counselor educators claim college counseling is nothing more than advanced academic advising, it\u2019s clear they\u2019ve never studied the topic, and don\u2019t care enough about it to help counselors become the comprehensive school counselor their students need them to be. When the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schoolcounselor.org\/asca\/media\/asca\/home\/MindsetsBehaviors.pdf\">American School Counselor Association<\/a>\u00a0says college advising is one of the three parts of being a good school counselor\u2014and when you stop to really understand all the emotions and family dynamics behind a student\u2019s plans for life after high school\u2014it\u2019s easy to see how studying this topic, and knowing what you\u2019re talking about, is a counseling obligation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/civicnation\/2020\/02\/28\/not-so-fast-siri-technology-wont-replace-school-counselors\/?utm_content=119431876&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-130966284%22%20%5Cl%20%223a36ee271e32\">This article<\/a>\u00a0points out how school counselors support the affective domain of their clients. One major way to damage aspect of the student-counselor relationship is if students walk out of their counselor\u2019s office, convinced the counselor can\u2019t help them much with their college plans. Better, focused training eliminates that worry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t have room to add another class in the school counseling program.<\/strong>\u00a0Recent changes in school counselor training requirements make it very easy to add a separate course in college counseling without going over the new credit limit, but some counselor educators still insist there\u2019s no room for growth. If a program has reached its maximum credit load, it\u2019s time to consolidate. Most school counseling programs have six to eight classes in mental health training; with a little creativity, that same content can easily be realigned into one less class, leaving three credits for a new course in college counseling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most counselors don\u2019t have time to do college counseling.<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s certainly true that high caseloads and \u201cother duties as assigned\u201d limit all facets of a school counselor\u2019s job\u2014but that\u2019s also true for mental health counseling, and grad schools still teach that. Convincing administrators to give school counselors the resources they need to do their jobs is another story. For now, it\u2019s essential to make sure school counselors know how to initiate and supplement strong college counseling programs if they\u2019re given the chance to do so (or make the chance to do so)\u2014and the only way that happens is to teach them how.<\/p>\n<p>Convinced? Great!\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nacacnet.org\/about\/SIGs\/graduate-coursework-sig\/\">Join our SIG<\/a>, or support our work by passing this along to your favorite counselor educator, and change the school counseling landscape for the better.<\/p>\n<p><em>Patrick O\u2019Connor and Julia Varriale lead NACAC\u2019s\u00a0<\/em><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nacacnet.org\/about\/SIGs\/graduate-coursework-sig\/\">College\u00a0Admission\u00a0Counseling\u00a0Graduate Coursework SIG<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why does NACAC\u2019s\u00a0College\u00a0Admission\u00a0Counseling\u00a0Graduate Coursework SIG\u00a0exist?\u00a0 Simple: School counselors are supposed to have three domains of expertise\u2014social\/emotional development, academic planning, and college\/career planning Surveys show that less than one third of all school counselors report receiving any training in college counseling as part of their graduate school experience. Think about that for a minute as it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/04\/29\/working-to-expand-graduate-coursework-in-college-admission-counseling\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Working to Expand Graduate Coursework in College Admission Counseling<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,54,6],"tags":[468],"class_list":["post-4320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-featured","category-nacac-news","tag-nacac-sigs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"SIG Leaders","author_link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/author\/sig-leaders\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peWmJq-17G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}