The drive to college begins with SBHS fair
As I walked with my sons through Mattson Gym during the
inaugural College Fair at San Benito High School this week, it kind
of felt like we were shopping for a new car
– a really expensive car designed to take them places.
The drive to college begins with SBHS fair
As I walked with my sons through Mattson Gym during the inaugural College Fair at San Benito High School this week, it kind of felt like we were shopping for a new car – a really expensive car designed to take them places.
Unlike on a car lot, we weren’t swarmed by cheesy salesman looking to make a commission. We were the ones who had to approach the various schools’ tables and ask questions – kick the tires, if you will. We also checked under the hood (looking at brochures) and had a little sticker shock ($40,000 per year and up for the places my oldest son has in mind).
Some 50 institutions were represented at the event, which attracted a packed house of students from eighth grade on up. It was the signature event, so far, in an SBHS effort to help students consider college not just an option, but a destination.
The school has done little things, like encourage teachers to wear college shirts or sweatshirts on Wednesdays to encourage a dialogue with students about life after high school. It is also taking the long view, promoting the many colleges that its graduates attend around the country and reminding them that a public high school student in San Benito County can really go places if they commit themselves to it.
I was one of many parents following their children around the gym, encouraging them to talk to this school or telling them they could pass by that one.
The college reps were loaded with brochures and maps and pencils and pennants ready for the taking. They talked tuition and financial aid and admission requirements and test scores and majors. They encouraged students to do well in their remaining days in high school and take all the requisite standardized tests.
Visit our school, they said. Send us an email. Check us out online. Basically, show some effort and we’d love to have you.
My junior son talked with Cal and Santa Clara and UOP and St. Mary’s, among others. The Harvard – yes, the real Harvard – rep offered a sobering reality check, noting that the school admitted some 3,500 students out of an applicant pool of 35,000.
The University of San Diego reps made sure to play up the school’s lovely environs. Menlo College’s rep said that its students benefit from a Silicon Valley location, where internship opportunities abound.
The event was a wonderful way to expose students to college options, and more importantly, to help them make a continuing education the next step in their educational lives, not just a dream.
Later that evening I had some flashbacks to brochures mentioning annual tuition and boarding fees that exceed my yearly income, and I understood why so many students believe college isn’t for them because their families won’t have the money for it.
But then I replayed many of the conversations I overheard at the College Fair, in which admissions reps reminded students that a sizable amount of financial aid is available to students who do well in high school. There are grants and loans and scholarships ready to be scooped up.
In other words, there is a place for everyone, if they put in the work now to secure that place.
We left the event with a stack of information from schools around the state. And I hope my sons and the other students who attended left with a renewed sense that college is within their grasp.
As many similarities as there were to the car-buying process, there were many more differences between the college selection process and the car selection process.
While they both take a big bite out of your wallet, there is no depreciation with a college education as there is with a car. You can’t trade in the college experience; nor would you want to.
My wife and I are ready to sign on the dotted line once our oldest son decides by next year which college he wants to attend. And we’ll shell out again for his brother the year after that.
It’s a bit scary to let them drive off into the world on their own, but it’s our job to hand over the keys.
Adam Breen teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School and is a reporter for The Pinnacle. He is former editor of the Free Lance. Email him at
ab****@pi**********.com
and follow him on Twitter @AdamPBreen.
