[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Green-10172014-3-CollegeApps.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Tom Byrne and contributor Larry Nagengast discuss the growth of College Application Month.]
Back in the day — oh, maybe three years ago — filling out college applications was something high school seniors did at home.
Prodded by their parents, students would stay up late or set aside hours on weekends to write essays and personal statements and complete multiple forms that asked for the same information but always in a slightly different format.
Members of the Class of 2015 are still doing a lot of the work on their applications at home, but the big push is coming within their schools, during College Application Week, which is part of a bigger event called, quite logically, College Application Month.
The “month” is actually a bit longer than the usual 31 days, starting Oct. 13 and ending Nov. 21, and schools fit their “week” within that period.
This year, for the first time, all of Delaware’s public high schools are participating in the program, which started in 2012 with two schools participating in a pilot project and was expanded to include 20 schools last year.
The project is actually part of a nationwide effort, the American College Application Campaign, created by the American Council on Education as a way to increase the number of first-generation and low-income students pursuing a college degree or other higher education credential. This year, all 50 states will be participating, up from 39 last year.
All seniors participate in the program, not just those in the target demographics, says Ivy Truitt, a counselor at Lake Forest High School in Felton. Students receive help not only with college applications but also with applying for trade schools and apprenticeship programs, and with learning about careers in the military, she says.
A key feature of the week is a time block set aside for groups of seniors to visit their school’s computer lab to go online and fill out applications to one or more colleges. To help the project run smoothly, the state Department of Education has partnered with the Institute for Public Administration (IPA) at the University of Delaware, which has been recruiting community volunteers to help students fill out their applications.
Last year, 221 volunteers from 47 different organizations filled more than 400 time slots, most of them for two-hour blocks, at the 20 participating schools, according to Kelly Sherretz, an associate policy scientist at IPA who helps coordinate the program. This year, she says, 617 volunteer slots have been filled at 32 schools that requested assistance.
“You don’t need to know the entire college application process. You just have to have a desire to assist students,” she says.
“If you believe it takes a village to raise a child, why not go out and support them, and become part of an extended support system,” says Fran Fletcher, who works with Sherretz and is now volunteering in the program for her third year.
“Whatever you do, it’s student-driven,” she says. It could be anything from helping a student look online to find a suitable college, to helping them answer questions on the application form.
“One student, a couple of years ago, didn’t come prepared with a written personal statement, so I helped him with that,” Fletcher recalls. “And some students will say, ‘I don’t know my Social Security number.’ Sometimes, believe it or not, this is the first time they’ve ever been asked that question.”
Many Delaware higher education institutions, and some from nearby states, send admissions and financial aid representatives to the sessions in the computer labs. They’re not recruiting students, Truitt says, but they can help with answering questions about their schools.
“Requirements are changing every year,” Truitt says. “It’s good to have them there, for things that I might not know.”
During College Application Month, all of the state's higher education institutions are waiving application fees for students who apply through their schools’ events. The University of Delaware and Delaware State University joined the rest in offering those waivers this week.
Public high schools are now trying to do much more, and in a more organized way, to encourage and assist students in applying for college, says Amy Pellegrini, a counselor at Hodgson Vocational-Technical High School in Glasgow.
“A lot of our students don’t have parents who went to college. First-generation college students don’t know what to do to apply. Parents are sending them to us, saying ‘we need you to help. We don’t know what to do,’” Pellegrini says.
Like many other schools, Hodgson holds a college and career fair early in the school year, inviting representatives from colleges, the military and various trade schools and apprenticeship programs to meet with students.
At the start of the school year, Hodgson counselors meet with seniors to discuss their post-graduation goals. They give students a checklist of all the forms and information they will need to gather in order to complete college applications.
At Lake Forest, the process is similar, but some of the individual work is done late in the students’ junior year and the information about what is needed to complete applications is presented at an assembly in early fall, Truitt says.
“We ask what you want to do, where you have applied and where you plan to apply, and we create a manila folder for each student that they use throughout application week,” Pellegrini says.
In addition, Hodgson students work with their English teachers early in the year on writing the essays that are required for many applications.
Ideally, when application week arrives, students can walk into the computer lab, create an online account and start filling out the “common application,” a form that captures standard personal and academic information that can be used to apply to hundreds of colleges. If they have their completed essay on a flash drive, they can easily upload it onto the computer and attach it to their application.
“They might not get all the way through the common application during one computer session, but at least we’ll get them started,” Pellegrini says.
Even after the forms have been completed, there’s more to do to wrap up the application process. Students must still ask teachers to write personal recommendations, and the must tell the guidance offices where to send their school transcripts.
“The common application has helped streamline the process,” Pellegrini says, and computerization has made it easier for counselors to keep track of where students have applied and whether recommendations have been written and transcripts sent.
During College Application Month last year, the state Department of Education reports, 2,749 students submitted a total of 3,236 college applications, with 70 percent of them directed to schools in Delaware. Of the participating students, 744 would be the first in their family to attend college and 140 said they would not have applied if it were not for this program.
Having volunteers help students complete their applications is an important factor in the program’s success. “We couldn’t do the work we’re doing without the volunteers,” Pellegrini says.
“This is a first step, and it’s really an honor to help the students,” volunteer Fletcher says. “It’s a good time. It’s fun, and it makes a difference.”
Some high schools still need volunteers to assist during College Application Month. Anyone interested may register online. Volunteers are expected to read a training manual and watch an online webinar before reporting to their assigned location.
