January Action Items & Important Information

Contact the college office with questions after reviewing the information below.

ACTION ITEMS

Bookmark the Resources Page. You'll use it frequently.
Sign in to activate and explore SCOIR.
- Students will receive a link to sign in and activate SCOIR within the next hour and parents/guardians will receive a link on Monday. Students must activate their account first and then parents/guardians. The activation links are valid for up to ten days. Parents/guardians with existing accounts will simply sign into those accounts beginning Monday afternoon.
- To see your counselor assignment after signing in, Click on “Me” in the upper right and then “ View Profile.” Next Thursday, you’ll receive instructions to sign up for your first meeting.
- Watch the appropriate video: How to Use Scoir (for Students) or How to Suggest School in Scoir for Parents/Guardians.
Complete your questionnaire, accessible from the Resources Page, before Tuesday, January 21 @ 9 am. Your responses significantly help the counselors get to know each student, build a preliminary college list, and write their college recommendation. Be thorough, honest, creative, and have fun! There aren't right answers and your responses aren't shared outside the college counseling office. Typically, the questionnaire has taken students two to four hours, and parents about an hour. Remember, students and parents/guardians cannot see each other's responses.
- Students: Upon completion of your questionnaire, submit it here (link also available on the Resources Page). Then you’ll copy your responses into Addie, the college counseling AI assistant. Follow the instructions below to access Addie.
  - Click here and enter your Lakeside email address (you do not need to create a new account).
  - Check your email for a link to access your account. Because of Lakeside's spam detection system, it will take 2-3 minutes for the email to arrive.
  - Once you’ve accessed Addie, watch this one minute video, and then begin responding to the questions asked, which will mimic the questionnaire you completed. If Addie feels she needs more information, she’ll ask follow-up questions.
Sign-up for the School Day SAT and/or ACT by February 14. There is no advantage to signing up sooner. If you want to discuss first with your counselor, you can sign-up after your first meeting.
Look Ahead & Mark your calendar with important dates.
- See the Junior Timeline & Important Dates on the Resources Page.
- Mark your calendar for our Deans & Directors Program on May 8 (for parents/guardians in the evening) and May 9 (for students during the school day).
Discuss whether affordability will be a consideration. If it is, we suggest scheduling an hour-long meeting with Paul Martin from College Money Method for after the New Year. The fee is $150 (reduced for families on financial aid); the cost will be charged to your monthly statement from Lakeside. We recommend meeting with Paul before February 28.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

As you explore scattergrams in SCOIR, note that a singular datapoint similar to your own is insufficient in determining admissibility. Focus instead on the general GPA and testing ranges in which you see students admitted, waitlisted, and denied, and bring questions to your counselor about where you fit in. Using years of data and anecdotal experience, the counselors will help you determine, over time, which colleges are Foundations, Reaches, Unlikelies, and Highly Unlikelies.
A handful of you asked some great questions about Addie, the AI college counseling assistant, that I imagine others are wondering.
- Is Addie secure and will my information be protected? According to our developer: “Addie uses enterprise-grade versions of any outside services or large language models (LLMs) to ensure that no data is used to train other models. All data is secured using enterprise-standard encryption down to the record level. Addie is designed to prioritize user privacy and complies with all relevant regulations, including FERPA, ensuring that data is only used to deliver our services.” All “conversations” that you have with Addie will be inaccessible to everyone but you and the college counselors and never shared with their party vendors.
- Why do we have to enter our questionnaire responses into Addie? Two reasons.
  - First, Addie is designed to ensure that you have support in providing high quality answers. Hundreds of behind the scenes workflows help Addie provide on-the-spot feedback on your answers, including follow-up questions when necessary. Because our office wants to have the richest information about you to write compelling recommendations and to get to know you, Addie is trained to ensure you’re providing insights about you that help us do both.
  - Second, over time, Addie will be a resource that you and your counselor will use for essay brainstorming, identifying college fits, and more. The information from the questionnaire will help Addie be an effective tool for you and your counselor.
Addie is being built specifically for us and another East Coast independent school, and will continue to evolve over the coming months. Your feedback will be crucial to helping our developers build her into an effective AI that will grow in usefulness to you throughout this process.
Should you wish to revisit any portion of the December or January introductory programs, the videos and slide decks are now posted on the Resources Page.

UPCOMING DATES & DEADLINES

January 16: Students receive instructions to schedule their first college counseling meeting
January 22: Student/Counselor meetings begin
January 23: College Coffee Talk, Course Selection in the College Process for PGs (8:30-9:45 am)
January 30: College Money Method Webinar, Evaluating Student Loans, (6:30-8 pm)
February 11: College Money Method Webinar, Building Financial Fit Into Lists (6:30-8 pm)
February 14: Deadline to register for the School Day SAT & ACT
February 28: Recommended date by which families meet with Paul Martin and/or use net price calculators (if applying for financial aid)
March 11: School Day ACT
March 28: School Day SAT
April 1: Parent/Guardian Meetings begin
May 8: Deans & Directors Program for Parents/Guardians, required for at least one PG (6:30-9 pm)
May 9: Deans & Directors Program for Students (during school)