A University program to increase the number of college applicants from local high schools has gained national attention, and will be reproduced at colleges and universities across the country thanks to recent grants.
The University College Guide Program, created in fall 2005, accepts 22 recent University graduates every academic year and places them in Virginia high schools as full-time guidance office employees, said Nicole Hurd, creator and director of the College Guide Program.
Because of the success of the program at the University, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation recently announced that it will grant $10 million to duplicate the program at 10 schools and create the National College Advising Corps, which Hurd said she will direct.
Of the 169 colleges and universities invited to join the program, 56 applied, 18 finalists were selected and 10 final grant recipients were chosen, according to Hurd.
Jeffrey Williams, director of access and urban outreach at the University of Missouri -- Columbia, said the grant from the Cooke Foundation does not begin until August of this year, but members of the program at Missouri are beginning the planning process now.
"This issue should be a concern to any institution." Williams said. "Everyone should feel some responsibility to broaden access to education."
Williams said during the 2007-08 academic year, a focus will be placed on the development of the program's foundation.
"We want to focus on the selection of the appropriate high schools for the program and the time to work with the schools before people enter them," Williams said. "A significant portion of our proposal is to build the groundwork and develop a selection process for the schools and a training process for the graduates."
Brown University, one of the schools receiving grant money, is looking to the National College Advising Corps as a way of strengthening its existing outreach program, said Brown Associate College Dean Roger Nozaki.
According to Nozaki, Brown plans to begin the program in the fall after summer training.
"The advantage of having a similar program is that we have a lot of the basics already set up, but we now have the advantage to connect with people like Nicole Hurd and getting a sense of how the University has set up its program so that we can learn from each other," Nozaki said.
Other schools planning to implement similar programs include Pennsylvania State University, Tufts University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Hurd said.
The inspiration for the University's program, according to Hurd, came from students looking for a transitional career opportunity after college.
"We thought instead of having students leave the state to do their gap year, why don't we have students stay in Virginia and do something close to their hearts," Hurd said.
According to current college guide Paulin Cheatham, the full-time involvement of graduates is vital to the success of the program.
"It's a really important program, based on all the legislation that has come out -- like No Child Left Behind -- and given guidance counselors so many responsibilities," Cheatham said. "Counselors don't always have the necessary time to devote their energy to helping every student with the college process. The graduates working full-time in the guidance office provide an extra resource for counselors."
Some of the guides had a high school experiences similar to those of the students they work with, Cheatham said.
"I was drawn to the mission of the program [because] I had friends that should have gone onto college and there was some reason that they didn't," Cheatham said. "Being presented with this opportunity to be a resource and help students in these schools was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up."
This extra resource the program provides, according to Cheatham and Hurd, has proven successful. Virginia colleges have experienced a staggering increase in the number of applicants from high schools involved in the program, Hurd said. This year, Longwood had a 24 percent increase and James Madison University experienced an eight percent increase. The University of Virginia's College at Wise showed the largest increase of applicants at 112 percent.
According to Hurd, the success of the program is more than just numbers.
"Success is really on both sides
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