Career Planning

Career Planning

Explore tips to help with essay writing for college or scholarship applications and entrance exam essays.  Visit Texas OnCourse for tips and guides.

For Your Students: The Four Big College Application Systems

Many colleges accept multiple application systems such as ApplyTexas, the Coalition App, the Common App, and the Universal App. Print out this handy chart to help students choose the best application system for them. You can find more resources like this one within the Texas OnCourse Academy.

For Students and Families: Learn about Endorsements with MapMyGrad

For parents and guardians, hearing that their eighth grader will have to select an endorsement can be confusing. Students and families please know about MapMyGrad, a free interactive website. MapMyGrad explains endorsements and career pathways in language your students can understand. You can even take a short quiz to determine which endorsement is best for yourself. Bonus: students can draft a high school graduation plan to share with their counselor.


Course Scheduling, Graduation Plans, and Endorsements

MapMyGrad: Endorsement Exploration and Graduation Planning
If your school is doing course selection during this period, send your students to MapMyGrad. They can learn about endorsements and career pathways and, most importantly, draft a four-year graduation plan based on the courses and endorsements offered at their selected high school. Please note: due to district variation, MapMyGrad does not support CTE course sequence planning. Available in Spanish.

10 Ways for Students to Use MapMyGrad
This handout will walk your students through the MapMyGrad site. At the end of step 10 they will have created a personalized graduation plan to be saved and used for future reference.

Roadtrip Texas: Choosing Courses to Prepare for High School
This is a great, short video to prep students for course selection. In it, Texas college students share their advice. Your students can learn what an endorsement is and understand how to choose classes for high school.

Career Assessments
The following set of handouts includes links to and descriptions of different assessment tools for students to explore their interests, abilities and skills, personality traits, and values – qualities that could inform career selection. Share the handouts or the individual tools with your students and ask them to explore the tools independently to help them prepare for course selection. They’re also great for career planning.

Exploring College Credit Opportunities
Share these handouts with your students to help them consider and select the college credit opportunities that would best serve them.

SAT and ACT Entrance Exams

SAT vs. ACT
This handout will help your students understand the difference between the SAT and the ACT, including what to expect on each test and how to best prepare.

Khan Academy SAT Test Prep
Students can prepare for the SAT from home with this free resource from Khan Academy, in collaboration with the College Board.

ACT Academy
Your students can also prepare for the ACT from home with the ACT Academy.

College Planning

College Application Follow-Up
This handout will walk your students through what to do after completing their college applications.

Financial Aid

Roadtrip Texas: Paying for College
In this short video, college students discuss the ways in which they tackled paying for college, from school selection to scholarship applications and more. This video will also help your students understand different types of financial aid and the order in which to accept them.

Summer Melt

With your students off campus for the foreseeable future, we know you’re worried about the impact this will have on students who may be more susceptible to summer melt. Here are some resources to keep your students connected. 

Roadtrip Texas: Build Study Habits for College
This short video can help your college-bound students build important study habits as they transition to a more independent education experience. As such, it is also a helpful resource for high school students adjusting to remote learning.

Roadtrip Texas: The Summer Before College
In this short video, college students describe how they conquered the summer before college and its many responsibilities, including financial aid and registration.

Work-Based Learning

Internship Resources
For your students preparing for summer internships, this handout includes four sources for internship listings and opportunities, including for students with disabilities.

Questions to Ask During a Work-Based Learning Experience
As your students assess and interview for an internship or other work-based learning opportunity, this handout suggests questions for them to ask. 

Workplace Readiness Skills
Set your students up for success in their work-based learning experience by orienting them toward communication, social and interpersonal, and other soft skills in this handout. The handout also covers occupational and vocational skills.

Other Remote Learning Resources

MiddleGalaxy
This space-based career exploration game was designed for middle schoolers. Assign independent game play to your students with access to screens to support career learning. The game is available in a mobile app as well. An easy activity: ask them to complete three missions and share three things they learned.