Guiding the future

People who have known since early school days in which profession they want to be when they grow up are blessed. For most people, the image of how they see themselves five or 10 years after high school only becomes clearer after several trials and errors. Worse, many spend years studying in colleges and universities only to decide their passion lies elsewhere.

The important question is how to narrow available career choices enough so that high school students can make informed choices as they move from high school to college. For most students, the time to make college and university selections starts in high school, usually when they are 15 years old. Fortunately, at most schools students can turn to the school counselors for help.

Learning Post visits two schools - one Thai and one international - to talk to the school counselors for insight on how they provide college counseling to students. In general, the scope for counseling is broader in international schools because the majority of students plan to apply to overseas universities, which means the number of available choices becomes virtually limitless.

Unlimited scope

The greater number of available choices means that students who attend international schools are involved in the research process more than students in the Thai school system. Counselors at New International School of Thailand (Nist), for example, expect students to have done preliminary research on their choices of universities before consulting a school counselor. The counselors' job is to assist the students in narrowing their choices of universities and colleges and making informed decisions about which institution to apply.

Most students in Thai schools, on the other hand, are more concerned with preparing for traditional entrance exams and applying for direct university admissions. Up until the introduction of the new O-net and A-net admissions system, students usually remained worry-free until their last year in high school, when they would cram for the entrance examinations.

Sunant Boonum

With the central admissions system, however, students as early as Mathayom 4 have become enthusiastic and begun advanced preparations from the beginning of the school term. This year, says Ajarn Sunant Boonum, head of the counseling department at Sri Ayudhya School (under the Royal Patronage of HRH Princess Bejraratanarajasuda), the glitches in the O-Net and A-Net scores earlier this year have perplexed both students and parents. Already within one month of the first school term, the school's counseling office has seen non-stop student traffic.

"Students are most concerned about how to prepare for the central admission," says Ajarn Sunant. "They would like the authorities involved to announce the admission criteria as soon as possible." In this case, Ajarn's Sunant's job is to follow both the direct and central admissions movements very closely and constantly update her students with notices she places on a bulletin board. After the O-Net and A-Net misstep, she adds, both parents and students have contributed to this research process.

Besides preparing for the national exams and central admissions, Ajarn Sunant has students complete a career interest test, once at Mathayom 3 and again at the beginning of Mathayom 6 levels. At Mathayom 3, most students in Thai schools choose to concentrate on a particular track, such as science-maths, English-maths, or arts. By the time these students progress to Mathayom 6, Ajarn Sunant says, both their academic and career interests may have already changed, however.

"Most students have a rough idea of which academic subjects they are good at, just by evaluating their past academic records," Ajarn Sunant says. The career interest test will then assist them further in exploring which career tracks they are actually interested in persuing. "The test results, however, are merely informative. Students will then consult with the counselors before actually selecting a particular programme of study when they apply for university," she adds.

In contrast, international students have to put more thoughts and planning into how to narrow down, literally, a world of choices to a handful. Usually, the choices include which country to go to, which university to attend, and what study programme to select. The most popular questions that students ask about, says Nist's college counselor Maura Murphy, are the basic requirements of each university and the differences between studying in different countries - Canada, the USA, Australia, or Thailand, for example.

Bevin Clark and Maura Murphy

"My training is that you don't actually tell them 'yes you should go here or there'," says Murphy. "You talk it through, and they come to the decision." On many occasions, adds Murphy's colleague Bevin Clark, students basically ask which school is better, when it comes time to make the ultimate enrolment decision.

The multitude of choices means that students in international schools not only have to prepare to make the decision, but must also take standardised exams and complete the necessary paperwork for each school to which they wish to apply. Overseas schools often have different deadlines, so the counselors usually find themselves occupied year-round. "Students come back in August or September, and our emphasis is to help them finish their application process by the end of October and November," says Clark. "Then, when we come back after Christmas, we start with the next year's applications. We start helping them with the exploration. And then the following autumn, it starts rolling again. It's quite cyclical," he adds.

At Nist, the tasks at the counseling section are divided geographically. Clark advises on colleges and universities in North American, while Murphy advises on the rest of the world. The busy time for Murphy is in October for European and UK deadlines, and from January - March for Thailand, Australia, and other parts of Asia.

This system, agree Clark and Murphy, works well at the school, whose graduating class comprises less than 100 students. As a full International Baccalaureate school, which runs from Grade 1 to Grade 13, students begin college preparation in Grade 10, with an initial career inventory. Grade 12 is when intensive counseling and research starts, including formal one-to-one sessions.

In addition, the school organises seminars on education in various countries, and more than 150 college and university representatives from around the world also visit the school all year round. The bulk of the work, says Clark, happens in the students' last year, which is mainly spent completing the application process.

A common ground

While the scope for counseling at Sri Ayudhya School, or Thai schools in general, is smaller than that of their international counterparts, the counselors' jobs at both types of school continue even after students have submitted their applications to colleges and universities.

In international schools, the counselor's job extends all the way to administrative work, such as mailing the students' transcripts to prospective schools, advising on interviews, preparing visas, as well as preparing students to live in a new country. "Lots of schools do it differently," says Murphy.

"There's a 'Life after Nist,' in this case, and that's how do you survive in another country, how well prepared are you for the weather, for mixing with different people, what do you need to pack, how do you open a bank account - all the practical things about moving to a new country," she adds. In some cases, the school offers sessions to help parents deal with the loss of children, or their suddenly moving away after 17 or 18 years of living together.

While college counselors in Thai schools rarely have to deal with as wide a variety of issues, their job also extends beyond college counseling. In Ajarn Sunant's case, her job includes preparing students for interviews and teaching students proper manners. Student counselors, she says, must keep themselves updated in many areas, such as economics, society, and education trends. They can not limit themselves to knowing only how to prepare students to complete application forms.

"If counselors are not knowledgeable on [local culture in another country], for example, they may wish to consult a social sciences teacher so that students will have the most up-to-date knowledge when they walk into the university interviews," Ajarn Sunant says.

Despite their differing scopes and approaches, school counselors in both Thai and international schools work toward the same goal of helping students be fully prepared for university and making the most informed decision as to which programme of study will best suit them.

The reward for a counselor's hard work is not as immediately felt as the efforts of their counterparts who teach academic subjects. Only through time, when the students have discovered and walked down the right career path, will the college counselors like Ajarn Sunant, Murphy, and Clark feel the true reward of their work.