Many college students know from an early age that they are going to college. Many of their parents have gone to a university and understand the process. Every year, however, there are thousands of promising students who do not go to college simply because they do not understand the logistics of how to get in.
Julie Scott and Kacy Edwards found this out for themselves when they began teaching high school 12 years ago in southern Louisiana.
“When we asked the students if they wanted to go to college, they all said they were going, but most of them had no idea how to go about it, and no one to help them navigate through the process,” Scott says.
Students, most of whom were African-American, were unaware of things such as where and when to take the ACT or how to fill out financial aid forms and college applications. High school counselors were available to help students, but the ratio was generally 400 students to every counselor.
“We began spending our lunches and off-hours downloading applications to college, searching for scholarships and helping kids fill out ACT packets,” Edwards says.
Edwards and Scott also gave out their cell phone numbers and were constantly on-call to students who needed their help. Sometimes, something as small as not having money to pay for an application fee kept students from applying to school or registering for the ACT. Scott and
Edwards offered to pay for application fees for students and even let some students give them cash and helped them register online for the ACT using their personal credit cards or checks.
