Hillsdale High School is one of just 22 schools in the nation to be selected as part of a new college enrollment initiative, Future Corps. As a result, two students and a faculty advisor travelled to California last month to take part in a special workshop and learn how to enhance the college application process.
Future Corps is a student-driven program that seeks to increase college enrollment through targeted campaigns and innovative technology.
“Hillsdale High School was chosen because of their strong history of participation in college access initiatives in Michigan,” said Lisa King, consultant for the Michigan College Access Network, which partnered with College Summit to bring Future Corps to Michigan. “We were looking for schools with strong principal buy-in and exceptional counselors and staff, which is essential to this program’s success in the school, and which Hillsdale definitely has.”
Currently, eight Hillsdale High School students serve on the Future Corps team, and two of these students — Emily Palmer and Mary Kate Drews — travelled to Big Bear Lake near Los Angeles, California, for the National Future Corps Workshop along with their faculty advisor, Mindy Eggleston.
Palmer and Drews were chosen by Hillsdale High School college counselor Dan English for their influence and involvement at school. Palmer is the president of the Business Professionals of America club and a member of the National Honor Society, Financial Management Program and student council. Drews is the junior class president, plays volleyball, runs for the track team, and also participates in BPA and student council.
The workshop, which lasted four days over the weekend of Nov. 15, covered many facets of applying to colleges, from writing personal statements to deciding what range of colleges to apply to. Teachers were also trained on how to aid their students in their college search.
“They made a big deal about the power of a story, so I, as a teacher, am changing the way I am writing my letters of recommendation,” said Eggleston, who teaches computer science and business. “I’m going to try to include some sort of personal story or anecdote about my experience with that particular student in addition to telling all the reasons why they’re great.”
The program aims to benefit the area by significantly increasing the number of students who attend college. According to King, just 57 percent of seniors who graduated from Hillsdale High School in 2012 enrolled in college.
“They can make huge strides with these campaigns,” she said.
Hillsdale High School is one of only four schools in Michigan to be selected for Future Corps, which runs through August 2016.
“It’s just getting off the ground,” Hillsdale High School Principal Jeff Terpenning said. “It’s designed to help students get enrolled for college.”
A main part of the Future Corps initiative is its emphasis that all seniors apply to college, regardless of their academic or financial situation.
“I really am a big believer in the fact that everybody can do something and that there is a way for you to get to college if you want to go,” Eggleston said. “Not every kid is going to go to a school like Hillsdale College, but there are a billion other things they could do. They could go serve in the armed services and get an education and a wonderful career, or they could go to beauty school and be a wonderful beautician or a nail technician.”
Now that the National Future Corps Workshop is finished, Hillsdale High School is focusing on a friendly competition with other Future Corps schools.
“We’re all like one big team but we’re going to have little, tiny competitions between each other,” Eggleston said. “The first one is trying to get all our seniors to apply to college. Right now we’re at about 95 percent, so out of the kids in the senior class we’ve got almost everybody to apply, which is kind of cool.”
Once students finish their applications, they will begin to focus on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form that college students fill out yearly to determine their eligibility for federal financial aid, in addition to some other events.
“FAFSA is going to be our next big push, but in between there, we at Hillsdale High School are going to do a panel in December,” Eggleston said. “We are inviting back some of the kids who graduated from here that are doing all kinds of different things to give recommendations and advice.”
In the springtime, juniors will be selected to replace the current seniors on the Future Corps team, and two of those students will attend the National Future Corps Workshop in California next summer.
