Amanda Atkinson is the district-wide school counselor who helps students through the process of getting into college. She starts getting kids’ minds thinking about their future before they even enter high school. 

“We start out with a career class in eighth grade, have dual credit meetings to talk about the different dual credit options you guys have, and junior year I go in and start doing college and job previews. With seniors I do the same thing and start talking to them about financial aid,” Atkinson said. 

 Atkinson does a lot for students when it comes to deciding which college best suits them and their career choice. 

“I have a sheet that my juniors and seniors fill out that tells me what they plan on doing, what school they plan on going to, and what their goal is career-wise and then we do career inventories and based on that we start talking about the type of school, big school, little school, city, country,” Atkinson said. 

As everyone knows, it takes pretty good grades and classes to get into college but whatever school you look into has different standards for grades. 

“Pre- COVID you had to take your ACT and SAT but a lot of that is being waived this year. To get into a Texas Tech, A&M, UT, you’re going to have to have higher scores. To get into Sam or  Lamar, you may be able to have lower test scores,” Atkinson said. 

It is not surprising for a high school student to go touring colleges and just feel lost and not know what they’re supposed to be looking for but Atkinson always gives her students the best advice she can before sending them off to tour colleges.

“I always tell them that when they go tour the college, you want to know about the programs you are interested in of course, but you want to look at it more than just the program you’re interested in just in case you change your mind. But every school has a feel and its own personality and you’re looking for the school that feels like it could be home and that feels like you could fit in that school,” Atkinson said.