A typical college application process can include long essays, requesting letters of recommendation, filling out multiple questionnaires, and whole lot of stress.
Senior can be a time filled with mixed emotions, exciting times and various expectations. Once the year starts, seniors are given information on college informations nights, counselor meetings that are available, and many other college based activities.
Time constraints and everyday school can many times become factors of the anxiety and stress associated with the college application process. Senior Sean Luna decided to do something about it.
Looking back at his college application experience, he realized the difficulties and over-comings involved with applying for college, and has decided to put his knowledge to good use.
“Some friends and I are starting a service to help sophomores and juniors with the college application process. The company is called Schooled Prep. We hope to run a few workshops and sessions to make some money to help pay for college,” said Luna.
The program Luna and his fellow classmates are planning is a personalized process to help students with their college application experience. They plan to continue the program through the summer, and possibly into next year.
“We’ll be able to answer any questions they have. From how to start an application, to finding letters of recommendation, we’re open to anything,” said Luna.
Students that are interested in attending any workshops or sessions can find more information at schooledprep.com.
In addition to helping start a company, Luna is also involved in Carlmont’s music and athletics programs. He plays trombone, violin and piano. He has also participated in cross country, track and soccer.
This fall he is planning to attend UC Berkeley as a mechanical engineering major.
Sophomore Alison Luna said, “Sean always likes a challenge. Helping start a company, is not any surprise. I’m happy that he’s going to [UC] Berkeley because it has a good engineering program. He’s always been there for me and he’s really smart. He’s my big brother. He inspires me to work harder.”
Sean Luna hopes to one day work at NASA or an aerospace company to design satellites and rockets.
Update as of May 7: (written by Shira Stein)
The students involved in the creation of Schooled Prep, seniors Jay Aurora, Sean Luna, Scott Harris, Andrew Sohrabi, and Raj Aurora, emailed the parents of the junior class, which resulted in emails from parents to Principal Lisa Gleaton.
Jay Aurora said, “On everybody’s Infinite Campus account you can find the [Carlmont Student-Parent] directory. Parents were complaining to Gleaton that we weren’t supposed to do that and that they didn’t want their emails to be solicited.”
This directory is comprised of all student’s names, phone numbers, and the emails of their parents if the parents opted to do so. The complaints came from the idea that the directory was meant to be private.
The Carlmont Student-Parent Directory says, “Student-parent listings in this booklet are for the private use of Carlmont families and staff only. Names and numbers are not for public disclosure and cannot be used for commercial purposes.”
The use of the directory was not meant to offend parents.
“I think it was an innocent mistake. They weren’t trying to be shady, but it wasn’t cool. I thought it was really great, what they wanted to do. They just made a little mistake,” said Gleaton.
To let parents know that the mistake had been brought to the attention of the students and corrected, Gleaton send an email to all parents saying that what had occurred was an accident and that it would not happen again.
In Gleaton’s opinion “they really should have checked with an adult about the best way to [create and spread the word about this company].”
The idea behind the company was to be student run.
“It never crossed our mind to include adults, we wanted it to be student run,” said Luna.
To advertise to students, the group is going to set up tables in the quad next week where students can ask a few free questions and find out more information about the company and how it can help students looking to get into college.
