How good is Naviance for HYPS for anyone? Naviance can’t call out hooks or the unusual. These are lottery schools.
Hanna, you’re in the trenches. What are the GCs in Oklahoma like? What are they dealing with? How about the kids you took to Southwestern Oklahoma State, for whom U of Oklahoma was too urban and too far away? Were they dreaming of the hallowed halls of Ivy/elite schools? Why or why not?
I know people from Tulsa, OK who went to elite schools. If they chose to go back home it’s not as though those schools opened any doors. They may have considered their educations worthwhile on a whole host of dimensions but it wasn’t due to “outward prestige.”
I guess the kind of people living in OK makes it OK? Just sayin
???
Any working-class kid with stats good enough for the Ivies is likely to qualify for generous FA at their state U. I’ve done some advising for local underprivileged high school students here in Colorado. Granted, most are Latino, where there isn’t as much of a tradition of leaving home to go to college. But I can tell you none of these kids “dream” of the Ivy League. They’ve heard of Harvard and maybe Yale, but to them these schools might as well be on the moon. They see them as neither accessible nor especially attractive.
I guess so @panpacific The kind of people living in OK must not know what they are doing. They must be a bunch of idiots for choosing to live in a state with a low cost of living, open spaces, low crime, a rich Native American heritage and near family, schools, churches and communities they love. Not to mention within an easy traveling distance to just about anywhere in the country. What a bunch of yokels.
“Hey, I’ll blame incompetent people in every profession for not knowing how to do their jobs well. Of course the counselors in Oklahoma SHOULD get on CC and learn all this stuff for free. But they don’t, and calling them out in our echo chamber won’t change that.”
I’m not ready to call people who show up and do what they can incompetent. Just wondering why something which seems imminently doable does not seem to be getting done, if the conversation I had recently, and the experience of others, is a real indication of what has not happened at the ground level.
“If we want to create real change in access to elite schools, we’re going to have to meet them where they are.”
Right, Hanna. I hear you. I have proposed some things to this young one for her and her peers to think about, in a community service kind of way, and have also reached out to local schools with information where it has come to me and I’ve gone onto their web sites to see that the information was not listed among the panoply of information for seniors on the hunt for scholarship monies. But those small efforts taken would barely serve a community at large which is not, as someone above said, going on the internet and actively seeking information about navigating this world of the college selection process. I had not bothered to do so myself, for my first child, not exactly thinking outside of the traditional means of finding information.
As to the original post, I have no dog in the fight of what Harvard and the others do to expand their efforts to make a degree from their respective institutions free. For me, notification of what they are doing right now seems a mission to undertake, or, further.
“Any working-class kid with stats good enough for the Ivies is likely to qualify for generous FA at their state U.”
Sadly, not in Illinois. I don’t know how many states are as bad as we are. The need-based aid at our publics is a joke.
To clarify, PG, I didn’t take any kids to SOSU; I met them there on the tour. For the most part, I got the impression that it was exactly the right school for them and that it does a great job serving its target population. But I also believe that there are some kids in every demographic who’d have different dreams if they had any idea what was out there for them. Sure, some would choose to stay down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. But right now they don’t really have enough information to know what they’re passing up.
You don’t think a kid who qualifies for an Ivy would get a combination of merit and need based aid at Illinois?
Not Hanna, but as another Illinoisan, no, absolutely not. Illinois doesn’t need to attract high school valedictorians and the like; they have plenty. Illinois is a relatively expensive state school.
“But I also believe that there are some kids in every demographic who’d have different dreams if they had any idea what was out there for them. Sure, some would choose to stay down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. But right now they don’t really have enough information to know what they’re passing up.”
I absolutely agree. It involves a lot of going-against-the-grain.
There’s a thing called ambitious, curious and adventurous. There’s a thing called stepping out of comfort zone. Harvard is a world renown university. Each year, many many students from around the world aspire to have the opportunity to study in Harvard. Yet we are talking about not having enough people interested in even exploring from a US state, justified by “local connections”? I find that sad (and don’t expect many agree with me).
“I’m not ready to call people who show up and do what they can incompetent. Just wondering why something which seems imminently doable does not seem to be getting done, if the conversation I had recently, and the experience of others, is a real indication of what has not happened at the ground level.”
Sometimes people get tired of knocking their heads against a wall. Let’s take our hypothetical GC in Oklahoma. Let’s make him a real Ivy aficionado / advocate. Let’s even relieve him of the non- college duties (truancy, etc). In any given year, he’s maybe got a handful of students who are even elite-worthy. Within them, the vast majority are going to say - no thanks, not interested. And even the kids who are intrigued, families are supportive, etc. - there’s no guarantee they’ll get into these 5% acceptance rate schools. So he’s done a lot of promising and selling for nothing. Meanwhile, if he concentrates on helping the rest of the class figure out how to afford the various OK schools - he’s made a difference and earned his keep in the community. The 80/20 rules applies to him as surely as it does everyone else.
I believe my point was entirely missed. I am in no way suggesting that the good of the majority of the student body be overlooked or pushed aside for the good of one or more highly talented students, nor am I suggesting that there is anything wrong with living and being educated from cradle to grave in the same community or state you were raised in. I have done that personally. (not to the grave part)
What I am suggesting is that students of that caliber should be made aware of what may be possible for them, let they and their families decide as to whether they want to apply or attend if accepted. I don’t believe for a moment that it is a guidance counselors responsibility to impose themselves in to the decisions of a family, but I sincerely believe it is their responsibility to inform kids as to what their choices may be and what may be possible for them. It is no more time consuming to advise a student in regard to their in state options versus others schools that are out of state. Most highly selective schools have organizations for First Generation college students, I know a number of these kids at Harvard and they have come from some incredibly rural communities . I know they are glad they are there and many of them are there at no expense to their families or themselves.
It is not about obligating kids to a particular application path it is about making them aware of their choices and supporting them if they wish pursue them.
And yes, I don’t care what a guidance counselors other responsibilities are, if they are not keenly aware of kids of the nature that I am referring to they are doing these kids and their communities a disservice. It is all about having passion for what you do. If they can not accomplish this because of their other responsibilities and commitments, enlist the support of members of the community who may be able to serve as mentors. This is really not that hard! How may of us here gladly give of ourselves to assist students who ask for help here? A lot right? Wouldn’t we all do that within our own communities?
There are plenty of students from Oklahoma at Harvard. They brag about having students from all 50 states on their website. We are talking about the ones who DON’T want to go there and why.
@panpacific Surely one can be considered “ambitious, curious and adventurous” without thinking that just one, or 7, universities – out of the 3,000 in the U.S. – can meet your intellectual needs?
Methinks you have a very narrow definition of the ambitious, curious and adventurous.
“There’s a thing called ambitious, curious and adventurous. There’s a thing called stepping out of comfort zone. Harvard is a world renown university. Each year, many many students from around the world aspire to have the opportunity to study in Harvard. Yet we are talking about not having enough people interested in even exploring from a US state, justified by “local connections”? I find that sad (and don’t expect many agree with me).”
How many northeast CCers consider colleges in the Midwest and South off their radar screens? How many Californian CCers don’t bother to look outside California and the UCs? Same difference, really.
Look at the CCers who are just “discovering” Carleton and Grinnell and Oberlin and WashU - for which Minnesota and Iowa and Ohio and Missouri are like other worlds. If you live in Massachusetts, apparently it’s ok to consider Minnesota and Iowa the ends of the earth but if you live in Oklahoma, shame on you for thinking of Massachusetts and Connecticut and New Hampshire as the ends of the earth. Again - there is NO difference. Provincial is provincial.
I don’t know how you approach a kid and say “Did you know you have a 5 percent chance of getting into a school that will give you a substantial need based scholarship?”
I see a problem when Harvard is not perceived as prestigious and “useful” as OK state when it is otherwise in Keneya, Korea and Brazil.