Monday, April 30, 2007
Require students to fill out college application?
I just read an interesting article, which you can find here about the state of Maine considering a bill that would require all high school seniors to apply to college. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue but I would love to hear your thoughts, is this something Wisconsin or Oshkosh should consider?
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3 comments:
I like the idea of helping high school students appreciate that college is an option, and I think that requiring students to fill out an application would almost certainly increase the number of quality high school graduates in our state who actually go on to college. Those are good things.
On the other hand, I'm concerned that requiring the students to fill out applications reinforces the idea that "college is for everybody." I think every college teacher in this country can tell stories about students in their classes who neither want to nor should be there.
Someone in the article you linked made the point about requiring students to spend a day or two on a college campus as opposed to requring them to fill out an application. Actually getting the students on a campus might make them WANT to fill out an application.
It's only OK with me if the application fee is waived. Applying to college is expensive in itself; I only applied to two schools for that very reason.
I also don't see what is gained/learned from filling out the application, and I agree that college is not for everyone. Requiring students to spend time on a campus might be the better option.
I too agree that college is not for everyone but I also think that for some students it is not even considered, especially if no one in the family has gone to college.
I wouldn't have thought that filling out an application would make a student consider college but it seems from the article that at least for some, that is what it did.
While college is not for everyone, I think it is pretty clear that if you want to make a living wage you really need to acquire some type of education beyond high school. I like the idea of students visiting a college campus but the cost of that would far exceed the cost of filling out an application (except for those who actually live in a college town).
In 2005-06 about 50% of Oshkosh seniors went to college, another 23% went to technical school, 2.4% into the military and almost 18% "misc" whatever that means.
Comparing Oshkosh to a few other schools in the Fox Valley we lag behind Appleton and Kimberly both at about 60%, Fond du Lac is at 54% and Neenah is at 58% and Menasha at 55%.
s.b. It wasn't clear to me from the article if they required the students to actually apply to college or to fill out a college application but I agree that you shouldn't (and I'm not even sure you could under WI law) require students to spend the money required to apply.
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