Student story: Overcoming lack of high school support as an obstacle to college
About this video
A student describes a high school with no college advisor, where everyone was expected to go to the local community college or state school. Counsellors questioned her fee waiver requests, and with no institutional support she felt defeated, while a suburban school nearby had three college advisors. Informal mentors, teachers and after-school programme directors encouraged her and helped her get to college.
You'll be able to
- describe what support was missing at this student's high school.
- explain what a fee waiver is and why it matters.
- identify informal mentors who can help with college applications.
Key words
- College advisor
- A school staff member who helps students plan and apply for college.
- Community college
- A local, lower-cost college, often offering two-year programmes.
- Fee waiver
- Permission to skip paying a college application fee, often for low-income students.
- Institutional support
- Help provided officially by a school or organisation.
- Informal mentor
- Someone who guides and encourages you outside an official role.
Transcript
- My school didn't have a college advisor, we had counselors, and the idea was that everybody would go to the local community college or the state school. It's not talked about, how you go about sending your application to 10 different schools. It's just not a thing.
When I asked for fee waivers, they were like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "Well, I'm gonna apply to all these schools." And they're like, "But why?" So it was also that I never... You weren't looked down upon for wanting to leave, but it was definitely no administrative support to wanting to leave.
At times I didn't even worry so much about getting in, but whether or not I would even have the opportunity to show these schools that I do deserve to be there. So sometimes, I felt even more defeated, 'cause it's like, "Wow, I have potential, "but I can't show it because I don't know how to."
And that was even more of a deterrent to me, to know that there was no institutional support in place to say, "Yes, you can," whereas at other schools, like at the local, I guess, in the suburb school, they had three college advisors right away at their disposal, and we didn't.
So it came from a lot of informal mentor places, from those teachers, from my program directors at my after-school program that said "Go and do it." So I came through those avenues, I'd say. And they were the reasons that I was able to come here.
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