Rows upon rows of parents and students sit watching as slides go by, some taking notes and others listening intently with a furrow of the brows.

Senior Parent Night was an opportunity to provide information to about three hundred parents about the college application process on the night of open house. The event took place in the theatre to help get both parents and seniors on the right track for senior year.

“I felt completely overwhelmed,” parent Amy Mader said. “I felt like a lot of information, wonderful information, was presented, but I now realize there’s a lot of work on our end.”

The 35 slide powerpoint presentation covered everything from Naviance website tools and TSI testing and all that was in between.

“[The powerpoint] is a huge benefit as opposed to trying to scramble through,” parent Matt Mader said. “I think it’s definitely useful as opposed to trying to talk to the parents that really don’t know what they’re doing and they all have enough information to be helpful, but maybe not as accurate as you want them to be.”

Despite the surplus of information presented, the Mader’s believe there should be a follow up.

“Just retouch on stuff to say there’s help here and you can get the answer and there’s sources for people to look at,” Matt Mader said. “I mean you still have to go do it, your senior still has to go do it and you have a guide and focus and have follow ups because it doesn’t happen automatically.”

Another parent, Suzanne Hopson thinks there is another way the process could be easier.

“You need to at the very beginning before that August, first when colleges open up their application process, [the school] should be sending out an email beforehand to all the seniors saying make sure you do not send off applications to these schools until you have all these documents,” Hopson said. “Do not send that off yet and this is why.”

The college application process is long and includes end of summer deadlines and the school year.

“The hard part is every school is different and as a parent that’s frustrating because if your kid has crazy ambitions he’s going to apply to 20 schools,” Matt Mader said. “There are kids here that would apply to 20 schools.”

The presentation stated that applying to five to eight schools is what is recommended.

“I think the parents need to stay actively involved in the process and they did talk about that,” parent Matt Schriner said. “I mean the process is quite involved in asking questions of your child throughout and is probably most important to the parents.”

Since Senior Parent Night was only one night, the powerpoint has been uploaded onto the school website for parents who missed out.

“It’s a pretty thorough presentation with lots of information,” counselor Kirsten Williamson said. “It’s just important that we get the information out early and to everybody, parents and students.”

Williamson said applying to college can be a very complicated process with many different aspects.

“The one thing I like to stress is to keep track of all of the pieces of all of the college application because there are so many pieces of it,” Williamson said. “Keeping track and staying organized is very important.”