Support Programs for a First-Gen, Full-Pay student?

Parents Forum
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<p>Once the 1st gen student starts college, she should follow some best-practices:

  • check and use your college email
  • use academic coaching and tutoring for tricks/tips
  • meet with your academic/faculty advisors early and often (plan course sequence for all four years)
  • consult college advisor about internships, student professional associations, and other career prep opps
  • study your college financial aid/funding (learn about it and stay on top of deadlines)
  • register for a peer mentor/buddy (see Trio program, perhaps)
  • meet with your instructors each semester (early/mid/late)
  • visit the counseling office to find someone who can be a sounding board (even before any difficulties arise)
  • consider joining a multicultural or identity student association on campus
  • get regular sleep, eat right, exercise
    Yep. Those are the biggies. </p>
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<p>Maybe you could have a speaker from a college who works with 1st gen students (or a successful 1st gen college student) come in to discuss college transition with this group of HS kids with whom you’re involved. I read some research recently that when college applicants from at-risk groups are told specifically how the risks presented themselves and were coped with, they do much better in college, all around. The key was the specific examples, like “how I figured out where to get my books” or “how I informed by instructor of…”. That kind of thing. </p>

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<p>Thanks so much, everyone. So much great advice here! This will really be a good resource for other students here on CC, as well. </p>

<p>Met with the student today. Very strong in most ways. Got a good explanation of her family story. Won’t go into detail here, but it’s very much an “American Dream” sort of tale. Parents not just sans college degrees–virtually no education at all. Came here as penniless refugees. Built business from scratch with loans; wealth a very recent development and the result of parents working 16-20 hour days for many years. So… good story, IMO. </p>

<p>First draft of essay was very well written, but told the reader very little about HER. So, she is going to condense her parent’s story into one to two sentences and talk about who she is, how she got there and where she hopes to go. (the first draft was more about her opinion on a particular subject, rather than her “biography”, though it was in response to the “biography” prompt.) Also confirmed that recommenders know nothing about her background. She is close to one of her teachers who she will ask to give a bit more detail that will help to put her academic and EC achievements into proper context. </p>

<p>And, yes, I know this process doesn’t seem like rocket science to most people, but when you are 16-17 and are wading through it with a group of hyper-competitive peers with parents guiding them, and your parents are totally clueless, it can feel overwhelming. So, I strongly disagree that programs aren’t needed to help these students. I think that CC parents definitely have a skewed perspective about what is “common knowledge” and what is not. I know that I did until I started working with these students. </p>

<p>Little things make or break a student’s admission prospects, especially at top schools. If immigrant parents have no knowledge of the college app process, limited language skills, no idea how to find guidance for their student (and no idea guidance is necessary), etc., a bit of money in the bank does not help the student compete on a level field with students who have guidance. I don’t know of a single student at a top school who didn’t have access to strong support of some sort. Not one. </p>

<p>My older son was great at writing strong essays, figuring out what he wanted to do academically and making it happen, dreaming up amazing EC’s, and doing all of the “intellectual stuff” that made him a viable candidate. But, I doubt that he would be where he is today if I had not acted as his secretary–helping him keep up with deadlines, update his resume’, edit work down to the word counts, dealing with “paperwork”, etc (especially for all of the outside scholarships–SO MUCH WORK!). I know parents here who wrote their kids applications, their essays, did their school work for them, etc.–and they are attending top schools today. That is the extreme end of “support”, granted, but those are the same students who are applying to the same schools as students with no support. So, I feel very strongly that First Gen students with immigrant parents should have access to app support in this highly competitive environment. Thank you! (<strong>jumping off soapbox</strong>) ;)</p>

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<p>What the school can be doing is having a get ready for college night, where they have samples of FAFSA apps, local college catalogs, info on local scholarships, hosted by the counseling dept.
They also should have translators on hand & or the material available in other languages.
Her parents are probably pretty quick learners if a approached in their own language.
The school sound pretty savvy to utilize parent volunteers such as yourself.
My Ds inner city high school used parent college & career counselors for a time, but then decided that privacy was more importan, so parents were relegated to fundraising even the the counseling staff was too busy to give much 1:1 attention.</p>

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<p>@emeraldkity4‌ , Agreed. The school does have College night, and it’s quite good, especially if you are applying to in-state schools. The problem comes with the IB students who are tops in the class, strong candidates for top schools AND First Gen / ESL, etc. There is simply no support for them. Translators would be AWESOME, but the language diversity is quite unusual at this school. I volunteer-coach a small forensics team–around 15 students. One day we counted that, among those 15 students, 8-9 different languages were spoken at home. My guess is that, among all of the AP/IB students, there might be 20-25 first languages represented? Just a guess. Maybe more (every European dialect, almost every Asian dialect and, perhaps some African languages, in addition to Hispanic/Central and South American). And that’s just among the top 80-100 or so students. So finding translators for the parents would be a challenge. Students can translate…but what a cacophony! LOL. A challenge, for sure.</p>

<p>And, I don’t have anything to do with the guidance office. (My son actually recruited a school administrator to handle his entire college/scholarship app process instead of using the guidance office). These students just come to me for help because they know me from the team I coach, English is my first language, and I have a little bit of knowledge about the app process, learned primarily from my son and CC. No professional experience or connection to the guidance office. Just a parent who’s willing to read over essays and help format resume’s a few Saturdays each fall. ;)</p>

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<p>happy - that’s a great service! Those kids are lucky to have your interest and concern.</p>

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<p>@happy, perhaps you can contact the school’s guidance office and TACTFULLY point out that the high-achiever students need more. Again, these students are very lucky to have a concerned & knowledgeable adult take interest in them.</p>

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<p>What about the IB program director? That person’s entire job is to make the IB kids worth bragging about and then brag about them… At my IB kids graduation she gave a speech listing the schools they got into. There were definitely first gen IB students in her class. I’m not even sure they were all that unusual.</p>

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<p>Thanks, @colorado_mom‌ . They are great kids. Love them all.</p>

<p>@GMTplus7‌ and @Flossy‌ , tricky. I don’t have a great relationship with the GC because I “tactfully” pointed out concerns I had previously… and it went straight downhill from there. She is the IB director, among other things. :wink: </p>

<p>One of the reasons these kids are under-served is that it is well-known that those who aren’t her favorites suffer even more with school reports if they are too needy or annoy the GC. The focus is on the children of top-school alums (who GC showers with affection in order to stay in good standing with the schools) and other tippy-top admission prospects who GC is certain will be accepted to top schools, thus making the program look good. She definitely brags, but the school does so well most years in admissions in comparison to other schools in the state that a few kids with high stats and disappointing admission results aren’t noticed–especially given that their parents aren’t sitting in the counselor’s office complaining, because their English skills are too poor to do so competently. </p>

<p>The administration is VERY sensitive to these sorts of issues, but I’ve been hesitant to talk to them about the problem for myriad reasons (most importantly the fact that I don’t want the blowback to slap these kids in the rear). And, as strained as my relationship is with the GC, I do stand by the fact that she has WAY too much on her plate to have the time to sit down with every IB student and guide them through the process individually. That is a district problem, and since this school has the hands-down top admissions results in the state (far surpassing even the private schools), and the schools are among the most underfunded in the country (a legislative problem)… well, it just becomes a whole lot easier to celebrate what they get and let the kids fend for themselves. </p>

<p>Which brings us back full-circle to why I started this thread in the first place–to find outside information and programs to help these kids and others like them get the help they need to at least have a chance at the same schools their peers are applying to with exponentially more support. They don’t have to get accepted to them for the field to be considered level. And they don’t need full-on professional counseling services, per se. They just ought to have enough guidance and editing support (things other IB students or students who qualify for most First Gen support programs have) to put their best work product forward. If there weren’t a need for these sorts of supports, none of the First Gen support programs would exist. The fact that a student’s family makes $80,000/year instead of $50,000/year doesn’t really supplant the need for advice, editing and support that students whose parents are fluent in English and familiar with the app process have either at home or through a professional service (which these students parents generally don’t know exist, or that they are even needed.) That’s all. ;)</p>

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<p>Why not simply give them the URL for this website? There have been a lot of first gen students who got guidance here.</p>

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<p>Pretty sure that, though I’ve only posted 300 times in five years, I am not incognito here. :wink: Things get pretty brutal for the children of “trouble makers” like me. The problem isn’t just for my own children, but for children who are connected to me. I tell the kids I work with not to mention that I am helping them. Very good relationship with the administration. Very poor relationship with the GC. After DS2 graduates, we are moving. At that point, I might take your advice. The timing would be poor now, though. Better just to give the kids the support they need now and deal with the bigger issue later. Like I said, it’s a problem that the school administration, nor the district, really, can resolve. There is a direct correlation here between money for education and blood in turnips. Very frustrating.</p>

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<p>Oh, GMT, just saw your edit. Most/all of the students know about CC. What I was looking for was a program similar to some my older son had available (because of low-income/disability–he is not First Gen). Programs like Hamilton Scholars provide former college admissions officers as mentors who get to know the scholars, read over their essays, offer ideas for strengthening them, and go over their applications for college and other scholarship programs, proofing them for errors and such. </p>

<p>Even though DS1 was not First Gen or ESL and is a very strong writer, he sent Hamilton Scholars his essays just to make sure they answered the prompts adequately, told his story in an interesting manner, etc. They were returned with no edits and glowing reviews. But, it was comforting to have the assurance that he was on the right track. Other scholars from more diverse backgrounds got the higher levels of support that they needed. Questbridge has similar services for their national finalists, though DS never used them. I am certain that many finalists did, though.</p>

<p>The main problem with First Gen/ESL students is with their essays. They uniformly initially struggle with making their essays about them, and they generally have just a few distracting grammatical problems that English-speaking parents would catch, but that ESL parents don’t notice. Once I talk them through specifics about their life stories, and simple things that would be interesting for people to read about, they get it. And, the grammatical errors are fixed with a few keystrokes. Simple things make the difference between getting into one of their top choice schools and attending their safeties. </p>

<p>The thing I struggle with is trying to help students tell the best parts of their stories. Often, their essays are very academic, sterile and tell little about who they are and what makes them tick. The most interesting bits come out as after-thoughts. It scares me what other gems are just so much a part of their identities that they don’t have any idea they are important. For instance, “Oh, and, last question: Should I mention anywhere on my app that I’m First Generation? Really? I should? Well, what about the fact that my parents don’t really speak English?” THESE are the moments that scare me, LOL. And it happens multiple times every year.</p>

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<p>This is where your student needs to have a sit down with their guidance counselor as the counselor could write about the student’s back ground saving the student valuable room in their essay to elaborate on other aspects.</p>

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<p>Exactly, Sybbie. These are not shy, quiet students, at all, but only one has felt comfortable doing that. It seems that each student gets their opportunity to sit down for a 1 on 1 with the GC either in the spring of jr. year or fall of sr. year, and they feel that was their one chance to tell her everything they want to mention. They don’t want to “bother” the GC again after that. I do encourage each student to have a sit down with one of their recommenders, the one they are most comfortable talking to, and make sure that their accomplishments are given context re: background and home situation. They are fine doing that once they understand that they need to. They just don’t realize they need to until someone tells them.</p>

<p>Yesterday, I talked to one of the students about exactly what they talk about in the 1 on 1 GC interviews. The impression I have is that it is fairly brief, mostly very surface things about their school list, what they need to prepare, how the process works with her, etc. Nothing about the students that isn’t on the resume’ or in the testing file unless the student volunteers it. Since the students don’t even realize these issues are important, they don’t mention them to her. </p>

<p>The main reasons I started asking students about their backgrounds was because of either a red flag that popped up in my head when I saw their test scores (not sure why GC doesn’t find some of these things odd) or because there are few personal stories and anecdotes in their essays, and I try to encourage them to add some–which brings out the most fascinating stories, but which the GC doesn’t know about because she doesn’t ask the questions.</p>

<p>For instance, last year, after one of the students was denied from his SCEA school (one that everyone thought was perfect for him, including me), he contacted me to ask for help with his RD apps the week before New Years (deadline). I knew a good bit about this student’s background, so none of that was a surprise. Two things did surprise me, though. 1) His low ACT score, in comparison to his AP scores and excellent speaking/writing skills (strong even though he did not learn English until Elementary school) and the lack of any mention of his background (barely escaped to the US with his life; his grandfather was killed in their home the week after he and his parents left, and some other extenuating circumstances that spoke to the obstacles he overcame, including working at a job nights and weekends while carrying a full-IB load and leading/competing with several teams at a national level).</p>

<p>He rewrote his essay, I wrote a supplemental recommendation to include some of the new information, and he had a very successful RD round, gaining acceptance to several Top 20 schools. As for the low ACT, it turns out that he took it in junior year and scored in the low 30s. Someone told him that he didn’t need to retake it as long as he was over a 30, and he believed them. I heard that same thing from another student I worked with last year whose test score was fairly low for their early school. I have NO idea where this is coming from, but the GC is well aware that this is not the case. In both cases, the students should have been advised to retake. Most AP/IB parents here would have been hiring tutors for their students after those scores. Instead, these students’ parents (and the students) thought they were “fine”. Just another disconnect that should have been easily resolved.</p>