High School Counselor Week

A Growing Gap Between The Reality And Fiction Of High School Graduation Rates
Forbes – April 6, 2026
A “Graduation Gap” of deceptively high graduation rates, is playing out across the country. While graduation rates have steadily increased, math achievement, particularly at the high school level—has stagnated or declined. The gap suggests that students are leaving high school with diplomas in hand but are unprepared for college coursework, workforce training or apprenticeships that require foundational math skills.

ICE Raids Caused Enrollment to Drop. Now Districts Are Paying the Price
The 74 – April 2, 2026
As leaders ask lawmakers to help fill budget gaps, conservatives escalate the debate over serving undocumented students. Whether students are absent from school, families have been detained, or they’ve left the district or the country on their own, the empty desks add up. The immigration crackdown has contributed to further enrollment loss and, with it, potential drops in state funding, and often the loss of positions such as reading coaches, special education staff and counselors.

On-demand college counseling, courtesy of AI
The Hechinger Report – March 27, 2026
The AI being piloted for use in high school college counseling doesn’t simply skim the internet like general-purpose AI, which is subject to misinformation and manipulation. It’s programmed with answers provided by experts, based on a history of previous applicants’ questions. This includes real-time data about something that’s critical to consumers but that many high school college counselors can’t answer: what jobs are in demand, how much they pay and how much it will cost to get the credentials they require. College counselors still are best at understanding and suggesting how students can achieve their individual ambitions. And unlike in many fields, the AI being expressly designed for college counseling — including a new AI platform called CounselorGPT — has the goal of encouraging more human interaction, not less. These admissions-focused platforms could farm out routine questions and give overworked counselors more time to focus on individual students

8 Signs Your Child Is Dealing With Peer Pressure
Parents – April 3, 2026
Peer pressure can shape your child’s choices, and it can be both helpful and harmful depending on the situation. Read on to learn the signs, types, and impact of peer pressure and how to handle it when your child experiences it.

5 Questions on Dual Enrollment
Inside Higher Ed – April 8, 2026
As states look for ways to strengthen college and career pathways, dual enrollment—allowing high school students to earn college credit—has emerged as a key strategy. Yet researchers at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) argue these programs don’t always deliver on that promise. John Fink of CCRC answered five questions for Inside Higher Ed about how states and colleges can rethink dual enrollment to better align with students’ goals.

Letters of Recommendation 101: How Many You Need, How to Get Them & Common Mistakes
Collegewise – March 18, 2026
Letters of recommendation are personal endorsements or formal statements written for students as part of their college application. These letters can highlight a student’s strengths, character, and academic potential. But not all letters of recommendation hold equal weight. In this blog, we’ll discuss the role of letters of recommendation, who and when to ask, and common mistakes to avoid.

National College Decision Day is approaching. How to maximize aid
CNBC – April 7, 2026
For a majority of students and their families, financial aid is the most important factor in their decisions about where to attend. When weighing their options, college hopefuls should carefully consider the differences between offers, maximize other sources of aid and minimize the amount they will have to borrow, experts say.

More Students Will Soon Need Private Loans. 40% Won’t Qualify, Study Finds
U.S. News & World Report – March 31, 2026
More college students are expected to turn to private loans this year as new federal caps restrict how much they can borrow from the government. Many of them will likely get turned away. A new study finds that two in five Americans would be denied private student loans based on an analysis of lenders’ underwriting criteria.A disproportionate amount of low-income borrowers would fail to qualify.

Colleges Are Requiring SAT and ACT Scores Again — Here’s the Full List for 2027
The College Investor – April 4, 2026
The test-optional era in college admissions is rapidly drawing to a close. From the Ivy League to SEC flagships, schools are bringing back SAT and ACT requirements, and some are now accepting the Classic Learning Test (CLT) as well. Even at schools that remain test-optional, scores are often still required to compete for top-tier merit scholarships.Over 60 colleges and university systems are once again requiring the SAT or ACT for the 2027 admissions cycle. Even many test optional colleges are, in reality, test preferred. If you want to be competitive, testing matters.

Why the Classic Learning Test, which embraces Aristotle but spurns calculators, has caught Indiana’s eye
Chalkbeat – April 3, 2026
The CLT uses passages by a bank of Western writers from the ancient to the late modern times — the most recent listed is author Toni Morrison — as well as contemporary nonfiction texts. There are also differences on the math portion of the test, where the CLT does not allow calculators — students must show they are “independently numerate.” And around 15% to 20% of test-takers utilize a remote option not available on the SAT or ACT, important to home-schoolers who may not have access to other tests. But what makes the CLT stand out has in turn raised questions about whether comparing scores from the test to results from other exams can be misleading.

AP Exams Are as Rigorous as Ever
Education Next – April 1, 2026
In his recent Education Next article, Paul Peterson claims that Advanced Placement (AP) Exams are being “dumbed down.” He even goes so far as to state that College Board has “admitted” the exam questions are now easier in response to less demanding curricula in high schools and colleges. This is entirely false. So why have AP scores increased in some subjects and decreased in others? Because the process of converting students’ specific AP Exam points into scores on the 1–5 scale has become more precise.