March Madness

I have always enjoyed March and the NCAA tournament known as "March Madness". It's a great time for avid fans and non-fans to get involved in selecting a bracket and then watching how your teams do in the competition. It's a tournament when an underdog can come in to the tournament and knock off an undefeated team just because they were hot that one night. That's what makes it so fun and thus the deserving name "March Madness" because it is crazy.

However, when it comes to school, March Madness can be a little too much for a lot of students and they become overwhelmed with everything going on in school right now. March is a time when you have to make sure your cap-n-gowns are in, graduation pictures should be turned in, third quarter comes to an end and grades are becoming more and more important and of course scholarship deadlines have passed you by or they will be coming up quickly. Well let's all take a breath and brake this down one item at a time.

I know at Vantage Career Center, we have to deal with thirteen home schools. We try to make the daily announcements about your home school graduation or prom if the information is available. I always tell the student that if you don't hear the announcements or there wasn't an announcement for your home school, then check their website. Each home school has a lot of information regarding graduation, prom, etc... and they also usually have their morning announcements on their website. If you check their webpage and don't find anything, please come and see me and I will make a quick call to the home school counselor.

Well we are already into our second week of the 4th quarter. If you must pass the fourth quarter to pass for the year and graduate, then I have contacted your parents or guardians and also talked with you about what you need to do to finish strong. No matter what else you have going on, you must focus on your school work for the last seven weeks and don't give up. If you need some extra help or would like to come in early or stay late, please contact your instructor and ask them if they could do this for you. I promise you they will accommodate you anyway they can. We have a great staff here that will go the distance if you are willing to work. If you are looking for help on test taking strategies or study skills, please stop in my office and we will discuss this.

Finally, the big topic now is scholarships. Well I have mentioned scholarship deadlines in this blog before and they have been on the scholarship page since the beginning of the year. The only thing I can tell you is that many of the scholarships are over with but there are still many out there. Please check out the scholarship page and check the dates. Don't forget the local Vantage scholarships. We have the Robert Brandt scholarship and the Robert C. Stevens scholarship. If you were a Jr. Rotarian, that scholarship is due April 10th. I also encourage  you to check out the college that you are going to and look for their scholarship dates.

Wow! That is truly a crazy month of March around school but hang in there. We are nearing the end so take some time to enjoy yourself and your friends. Well I am going to get back to March Madness. Wisconsin is beating North Carolina with 6.3 seconds left and yes, I picked Wisconsin.   UPDATE: Wisconsin wins 79 - 72 to head to the elite 8.