Apply the concepts from the video to your own academic and career plan. Which subject areas are most important to your career goals? What trends have you noticed in your grades over time? What steps can you take to maintain or improve your grades?
make a career plan about highschool and going to collage
career: art therapist
transcript
I think that the perception sometimes is that there are quotas, or there are equations or formulas or thresholds and if a student doesn't exceed the GPA threshold
or the SAT threshold then they would not be considered
or perhaps not even read and that's not true at all. But knowing they were in academic institution, knowing that your preparation for that academic space is key to you being able to graduate. We do pay a lot of attention to the courses that you take and the grades that you received in those courses. We will ask the guidance counselor "What's the highest GPA in this graduating class?" and when they give us that highest GPA in that particular graduating class, that helps us to set the bar in terms of how we evaluate your grades. So your high school may have minimum requirements. You have to take four years of English, two years of History, maybe two years of a lab science and so forth. That's great, but the more selective college you wanna look at, the more they want you to push beyond the minimum and really push yourself and take challenging courses. So taking four years of English,
great probably everybody has to do that but maybe four years of a language, four years of Science, four years of History, and so forth. So you know, going beyond the minimum for those more selective schools that's what's really gonna show them you're preparing yourself and it's gonna help you be really prepared to handle the work at a competitive college.
So for example at Virginia, students would need to take
four years of English, four years of Math,
three years of Science, two years of foreign language and on and on.
Yet when we review applications often they have
three if not four of everything.
Now I will say that it's not necessarily
an individual discipline or course that we're fixated on.
If a student is going into engineering
then yes we're looking closely at Physics,
we're looking closely at Calculus, these sorts of things.
But if a student is a linguist
1:54I'm not necessarily as concerned that he or she
1:57did not have Calculus.
1:59Likewise if a student is a hardcore engineer
2:02the fact that he or she has two years of Latin,
2:04that's it for foreign language, isn't as concerning to us.
2:08So it's all relative and dependent upon the school
2:10or program that they're entering at the university.
2:12- I really wanna reassure students that if your high school
2:15doesn't offer a certain set of courses
2:17we would never expect that you have taken them.
2:19So if your high school doesn't offer AP Calculus,
2:23obviously you're not gonna be disadvantaged
2:25if we don't see that on your transcript.
2:27- The question we're asking ourselves is
2:31"Have you taken advantage of the best
2:33"that your high school can offer?"
2:36And if you have done that,
2:38then you're competitive in the process.
2:40- Now we're not saying take every advanced course available
2:43at your high school, you need to find that balance
2:46for yourself.
2:47But we do wanna make sure that you are comfortable
2:50with challenging yourself every step of the way,
2:54so beyond just GPA, beyond just rank in class.
2:57What we really are more concerned with is
2:59your journey overtime,
3:01how you got there.
3:02So when we look at that transcript
3:04what we really do is take it apart
3:07year by year and course by course.
3:09We focus on the academic core primarily,
3:12Math, Science, English, History, world languages
3:15and really try and get a sense of
3:18how well you preformed in those classes.
3:20The level of rigor that you took among those classes,
3:24and again trends over time.
3:26Upward trends are really great!
3:28If you were even keel,
3:30given that you were possibly strong to begin with
3:33is usually a pretty good
3:36starting period as well.
3:38So we really again, looking for that academic
3:42trajectory, over a period of time.
:3:44And that's where we tend to focus most of our energy.
As an aspiring art therapist, I understand the importance of maintaining a strong academic record in order to be competitive in the college admissions process. In order to achieve my career goals, I need to focus on subject areas that will best prepare me for a future in psychology and art therapy.
From the video, I have learned that it is important to go beyond the minimum requirements set by my high school and challenge myself with rigorous courses. Since art therapy involves a mix of psychology, art, and counseling, I should focus on taking classes in these areas throughout high school.
I have noticed that my grades have been consistently strong in my English and art classes, but I have struggled a bit in math and science. In order to maintain or improve my grades, I can seek help from teachers or tutors in these subjects and make a plan to study regularly to ensure my understanding of the material.
Additionally, I understand the importance of showing an upward trend in my grades over time. By focusing on challenging myself academically and pushing my limits, I can demonstrate to colleges that I am prepared for the rigors of a higher education environment.
Overall, by taking the advice from the video and applying it to my own academic and career plan, I can better prepare myself for a successful future as an art therapist.