DC high school students look outside school system for help getting into college
By Paloma Munoz, Rossy Soto, Armani Reese and Angely Pena-Agramonte
Youthcast Media Group®
Abigail Soto came home every night of her senior year at Falls Church High School and combed through tab after tab of colleges she wanted to attend. Even at family gatherings, she sat apart, in the corner of the room with her laptop, finishing her homework and looking at colleges.
Soto, a first-generation immigrant and the oldest of three children was already balancing multiple AP classes and after-school activities with helping her mom with the house and raising her siblings. She dreamed of a career in medicine but had no idea how to get there. College, it seemed, was a good starting point. However, she didn’t know how, exactly, to get there, either.
“I had to search up a lot of the information,” says Soto, now 22 and a recent graduate of Hollins University in Virginia. In her experience, her high school counselors didn’t offer any programs or advice for students once high school was over, or help with internships, apprenticeships or any options for students who did not want to attend college immediately. “It was just ‘you're a senior now’ and they sent you off.”
For Melani Perdomo, also a first-generation student, college was always the only option.
“Neither of my parents got their undergraduate degree,” says Perdomo. “One of the main goals of coming to this country was to make sure me and my sister got the best education we could possibly get.”
But, like Soto, when application time rolled around, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts student was overwhelmed. And, like Soto, her family didn’t have much experience in that area to offer as guidance.
Having a college-educated parent is a significant factor in whether a student completes a degree. Only 26% of adults without a college-educated parent have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 70% of adults with even one parent who completed a bachelor's degree, according to a 2021 study from the Pew Research Center.
High schools aim to fill these knowledge gaps with college counselors, but they are not necessarily accessible. Students of color and from low-income families are most likely to get little in-school help, according to the American School Counselor Association. School counselors who serve predominantly students of color, the association has found, serve 34 more students annually than those who don’t.
And rates exceed the ASCA recommendations across the board. In 2019, the national average ratio of students-to-counselor in high schools was 311:1, surpassing the association’s recommended level of 250:1. Their data also show about 17% of high schools do not have a school counselor at all.
At Fall Church High School, where Soto attended, the student-to-counselor ratio is 288:1, according to school spokesperson Julie Allen. Counselors there advise students throughout the four years of high school, and take specific steps to assist first-generation college applicants, including participation in Fairfax County’s AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), CPP (College Partnership Program) and EIP (Early Identification Program), Allen said.
“All three of these programs are offered at Falls Church HS and boast robust membership and participation,” she said.
Youthcast Media Group surveyed youth ages 13 to 25 in the Washington, D.C. area, and asked what element of their school’s college preparatory program was the most helpful. Of 36 respondents, only three explicitly named college counselors as being the most helpful part of their application process, and one specifically said their college counselor was not helpful.
In a report released in February 2019 by The Education Trust, data on school counselors revealed DC as an area with enough counselors to serve students, but where low-income students had unequal access – meaning it may be harder for these students to see a counselor or benefit from their assistance.
“My counselor, he's one person and he's a counselor for both juniors and seniors,” says Perdomo. “So he can't really do as much as he wants.” To her, the support available in this situation was “not as much as the normal high school student probably would need.”
Both Soto and Perdomo began the process of exploring college in 8th grade. But Perdomo had the chance to observe her sister going through college applications, so the process felt a little less daunting when it was her turn. But she points out, it still wasn’t her high school’s preparation process that set her up for success; it was the extra lengths she and her family went to on their own. Perdomo says her mother worked to get her and her sister into the Northstar Tutoring program, which provides volunteer tutors to low-income families, as early as the second grade.
“I felt as though I had enough support just because I had my sister who's a graduate from college, I have two tutors who have also gone and graduated from college, who have done master's programs,” says Perdomo.
Making an early start, especially when kids don’t have parental support to lean on, can be key to changing a child’s future, says Ronnie Davis, director of program operations for Higher Achievement in Richmond, Virginia. The non-profit organization helps middle schoolers in the DMV area with social and educational development, providing services like homework support, mentoring, and social-emotional skills.
“A lot of times after middle school, it's harder to get a student on track,” said Davis. “There are things that fall into play that become roadblocks, and if you get students as middle schoolers, it's easier to kind of put them on that path for success.”
Higher Achievement has helped students since 1975, and for students like Kristian Smith, now 33, it was an instrumental part of his education and higher education. Though not the first person in his family to attend college, Smith is the first to graduate with a four-year degree.
He started in 7th grade with Higher Achievement’s summer bridge program, which allows participants, who they call scholars, to catch up academically when school isn’t in session. Smith says that the main thing Higher Achievement gave him was a community to support him.
“It was counselors, it was family, it was my Higher Achievement community,” Smith says.
“From application to consultation with applications to recommendations for essays to writing recommendations on my behalf, Higher Achievement was [there] every step of the way.”
“Higher Achievement was instrumental,” Smith says. “At least, what I hope I could offer is a verifiable test case.”
Getting kids thinking about college in middle school could also make a difference by helping them get into college preparatory high schools. Several top DMV area prep schools – such as School Without Walls, rated No. 1 by US News and World Report, and Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, ranked No. 2 – require rigorous admissions processes, including essays and interviews.
Similar to college admissions, applications to prep schools like these can be daunting, even as they offer a sample of what’s to come for those who have their sights set on college. A program like Higher Achievement helps in this as well: 95% of their students advance to college preparatory high schools. Once admitted to those schools, students have an altogether different experience in the college admissions process, whether or not they are the first in their family to attend college.
Trinity Ford, a 16-year-old junior attending School Without Walls High School in DC – one of the top-rated schools in the District– has been taking AP classes since her freshman year. In fact, AP and Honors classes are mandatory for graduation.
“I have a lot of privilege, because my school is really like ‘your next step after this is college, we’re prepping’ you for that,” says Ford. She says taking AP classes has helped her learn strategic ways of studying, and given her experience and confidence taking advanced courses.
A 2008 study conducted by The College Board, which administers the AP exams, found that students who took AP courses consistently overperformed in their AP topics in college, and graduated college within four years at higher rates than other groups.
Anita Berger, who has been principal of Benjamin Banneker High School for over 20 years, knows the struggle of aiming for college as the first in the family, and how crucial the support of the educational community is to a student’s chances at success. Berger was the first in her family to attend college and did not receive support from her parents. For her, it was her school community that made all the difference, and ultimately inspired her to make education her career.
“I admired my teachers and wanted to be like them in elementary school. I knew I had to go to college to become a teacher,” says Berger. Berger believes early exposure is the key as well. As principal of Banneker High School, she helps set up incoming freshmen by operating a summer program for two weeks prior to school beginning.
Smith can attest to the life-changing experience of being surrounded by an education community, beyond simply completing a four-year degree.
“I would say that the importance of the lessons that I learned from Higher Achievement was being able to have a voice and to use it to be your own advocate,” Smith says. “I don't think that [those lessons are] any less fundamental. In some ways, I think they're more fundamental.”
Paloma Munoz recently graduated from BASIS Independent McLean in Northern Virginia, Rossy Soto is a rising junior at Annandale High School in Annandale, VA, and Armani Reese is a recent graduate of Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington DC. Angely Pena-Agramonte is a YMG summer intern and a journalism student at the University of Miami. They participated in Youthcast Media Group’s spring 2024 reporting workshop and worked with YMG Mentor-Editor Hannah Gaber.
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