The search for a new part-time college counselor has been underway since November. According to college counselor Carrie Siemsen, the department was given the opportunity to hire a part-time college counselor near the end of the first semester.

According to college counselor Kelly Smith, they are still going through the interviewing process and have yet to narrow the job down to any candidates. “We’ve been working with our Human Resources Department here and getting the word out to potential candidates that we have this position available,” Smith said.

Siemsen believes that the candidate must have “excellent personal skills and excellent understanding of teenagers and teenagers who are not from the United States.” She also adds that it would be ideal to have someone who is already a college counselor somewhere else or has worked in college admissions “because they know the process and how the college process works.”

Although a candidate has not been solidified, Siemsen has already started to consider areas that could use additional help from a part-time college counselor. “Right now, we are sure that they will be working with all international students regarding college because the international students tend to apply to lots of colleges and have lots of other needs that require a lot of our attention,” she said.

Smith believes that this will benefit the college counseling program by allowing them to give more attention to students. “Having one more person to be able to focus on a selective group of students or additional students will allow us to give more attention to each of our students, but also then maybe to do programmatic things sooner than later to help the students be more college ready than I think they already are,” she said.

Senior Caity McComas agrees with Smith and thinks having a third person around to help answer questions about college applications will benefit the future classes. “I think it would have been nice a couple of times [to have an additional person here] when I needed a question answered or something and Mrs. Siemsen wasn’t available for me. I think if I did have a rotating person to go to, I could just stop in and be like, ‘hey, what’s this’ or […] they could’ve been another set of eyes to review my essays,” McComas said.

As of now, only a few people have been interviewed, but Siemsen is still searching for the best candidate for JC. “We are looking for the best person for the job so we aren’t rushing the decision. It may not even be until next year,” Siemsen said.

Human Resources and Payroll Manager Karen Jarrell declined to comment on the status of the process.

Caroline Cooney is the Editor in Chief of The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.