MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
Classifieds
Jobs
Cars
Homes
Apartments
Legals
31° Forecast
Place an Ad
Subscriptions Report News Customer Service
Search NewsObserver.com
HOME
NEWS
SPORTS
BUSINESS
POLITICS
LIVING
OPINION
COMMUNITIES
LOCAL DEALS
News > Local/State > Education
Advising corps leads high school students
toward college path
BY JANE STANCILL
[email protected] March 17, 2014 Updated 2 hours ago
MAYODAN — On the labyrinthine path to the
American higher education dream, Alex
Lucas holds hands and nudges nervous
students through the roadblocks.
The 24-year-old graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill
works as a college adviser at McMichael High
School in rural Rockingham County, where
about 70 percent of students are low-income
and only a third of graduates ended up at a
four-year university last year. Lucas is a onewoman crusader at McMichael, where she
goes to any lengths to bombard students with
a message that is new to many of them: You
can go to college.
She plasters the hallways with student-made
posters featuring North Carolina’s public and
private colleges. She scribbles a parent’s
phone number on her hand so that she can
pester a student about a key deadline.
Whenever one of her charges receives an
acceptance letter, she proudly posts the
student’s name and school on a little flag on
the window of McMichael’s guidance suite.
Alex Lucas, 24, a college adviser at Dalton L. McMichael High School in Mayodan, N.C., works with junior Sid Miller
during an ACT prep session after school last Tuesday. Only about a a third of last year’s Rockingham County grads
ended up at a university.
ETHAN HYMAN — [email protected] | Buy Photo
On a recent day, she dashed from mock
scholarship interviews to test prep sessions,
with a running to-do list in her head.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]
MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
“I need to get these students to believe that
getting a college education is worth it to them
and that the investment that they have to
make – and the time and money – is worth it
to them,” she explained. “And then I have to
help them achieve it. It’s a two-step process –
the believe and then the achieve – that I’m
going for.”
RELATED LINKS:
Read more education news
COLLEGE ADVISING CORPS
The College Advising Corps provides 375 full-
Lucas is a trained member of the College
Advising Corps, a Chapel Hill-based nonprofit
that placed 375 advisers at high schools in 14
states this year. Modeled on the idea of the
Peace Corps or Teach for America, the
organization hires recent graduates to work in
rural and urban high-need schools, to help
qualified students find their way to college.
The corps has 24 university partners that
contribute funding and advisers.
time college advisers at 423 low-income high
schools in 14 states, including Alaska,
California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia
and Wyoming.
In North Carolina, there are 31 advisers in 51
RECENT HEADLINES
schools. The program will expand dramatically
here with a $10 million grant from the John M.
Wake County schools discussing budgets and
language immersion 2 hours ago
Belk Endowment of Charlotte, adding another
60 advisers during the next three years.
Knight Commission says spending on college
football skyrockets
With the expansion, four partner universities will
provide funding and recent college graduates
as advisers. They are UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C.
State University, Davidson College and Duke
University.
Wake County schools to open on three-hour
delay Tuesday
Wake Board of Commissioners moves forward
on school construction issues
Advising corps leads high school students
toward college path 2 hours ago
TODAY'S DEAL
The nonprofit received national attention in January at a White House summit on higher education
affordability and accessibility. On that day, the John M. Belk Endowment of Charlotte announced a
three-year, $10 million grant for a big expansion in North Carolina, where there are 31 advisers.
Another 60 will be added in the next three years.
Half-Day Inflatable Moonwalk from
Jump-N-Fun For Kids
$87.50
Buy Now!
The North Carolina university partners are UNC-CH, N.C. State, Davidson College and Duke
University, which announced this month that it would join.
Kristy Teskey, executive director of the endowment, said the grant aims to move the dial on collegegoing in North Carolina’s rural communities.
She quotes a Georgetown University study that indicates that by 2018, 59 percent of jobs in the
state will require some form of higher education. Yet the 2010 census showed that only 27 percent
of adults in rural communities have a two-year or four-year degree.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]
NATIONAL VIDEOS
Jet Search Expands North, Sout…
MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
AP Mar 17, 2014
“When you’re first generation and no one in your family has gone through the experience and you
don’t have a support system of any kind to help with that, it’s these types of programs that can
make the difference for large populations,” Teskey said. “By the end of three years, we hope to
have touched 54,000 students’ lives in helping them make good decisions around higher
education.”
Teskey said the endowment was swayed by data from Stanford University evaluators who have
studied the College Advising Corps and found better rates of college acceptance and financial aid
applications at schools with advisers – 10 percentage points higher in some cases.
In North Carolina overall, the evaluators found the four-year college enrollment rate was 4.7
percentage points higher at schools with an adviser.
The results were better in rural areas such as Rockingham, where enrollment in four-year colleges
was 8.5 percentage points higher, and enrollment at two- or four-year colleges was 10 percentage
points higher compared withschools without advisers.
Military training in
Kiev after Cr…
Scientists: Evidence
of Big Bang'…
Atty: Mom Who Drove
Into Oce…
Raw: Toronto Mayor
Rob Ford S…
During a three-hour span on a recent day, Lucas reviewed financial aid forms for one student,
prepped two anxious seniors for scholarship interviews and tutored three other students on vexing
algebra problems for the ACT exam.
In the mock interviews, she tells students to look adults in the eye, shake their hands and dress
professionally. Have a résumé in hand, she advises, and watch the posture. Don’t be afraid of
selling your accomplishments, she tells them. When students say, “Um” too often, she lets them
know.
Boosting confidence
Anna Waddell, a senior from Stoneville, is nervous about the scholarship and risks being tripped up
on the perennial question about strengths and weaknesses.
“You’ve got so many positives, that even when you give a weakness, I want it to be a secret
strength,” Lucas tells her. “It’s going to be awesome.”
Waddell leaves the session feeling more confident. She calls herself a first-generation college
student, even though her mother attended a community college. Her two older siblings work
minimum-wage jobs, which helped spur Waddell’s hunger for a college degree.
She applied to eight colleges and was accepted to all. She’ll attend UNC-CH in the fall. For now,
she’s trying to figure out how to afford it. That’s where Lucas comes in. She circulates a list of
dozens of scholarships available.
“I’ve always known I wanted to go to college,” Waddell said. “But execution? I didn’t know what to
do.”
This year so far, Lucas has given about 70 presentations to students and parents at the school. She
is an evangelist for higher education, but her goal is to find the right academic and financial match
for students, whether that’s a public two-year school, such as Rockingham Community College or a
private four-year such as Wake Forest University. She helps students identify three to five colleges
that could be right for them.
Her office is lined with college pennants, just another one of those little messages she puts in front
of students.
“Historically this place had a lot of mills and factories to work in, and parents could easily find a job
right out of high school,” Lucas said. “So there’s this mentality that a high school education is
enough. The problem is we have a mentality that’s shifting and changing much slower than the
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]
MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
reality, which is that students now need more specialized education for the workforce.”
A welcomed addition
Advisers in the corps are often mistaken for high-schoolers wandering corridors without a hall pass.
But they have by and large been welcomed by school guidance counselors at a time when the
counselor-to-student ratio is roughly 400 to 1, said Nicole Hurd, founder and CEO of the corps.
“Because those caseloads are so high,” Hurd said, “I think they’re just so happy for the help.”
Advisers receive six weeks of boot camp training. The North Carolina group even took a bus tour of
about 20 colleges across the state.
They are called “near peers,” close in age to the high school students and from similar
backgrounds.
Of the current advising corps, 69 percent are people of color and 54 percent were first in their
families to go to college.
“The beauty of our model is the messenger,” Hurd said. “They understand exactly what the barriers
are because frankly most of them have just gone through the barriers themselves. ... The power is,
‘if I can do it, you can do it too.’”
The advisers help promote a college-going culture, lifting what are sometimes low expectations.
The corps started at the University of Virginia in the mid-2000s but shortly thereafter moved its
national headquarters to UNC-CH, where Hurd said serving low-income students was in the
university’s “DNA.”
It became a separate nonprofit last year but maintains strong ties to the university. Its board
chairman is Peter Grauer, Bloomberg chairman and UNC-CH trustee. Other board members
include former UNC President Erskine Bowles and former UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp.
Advisers earn $22,000 to $24,000 but are lured by another carrot – nearly $12,000 in loan
forgiveness or future education money if they serve two years.
The corps, started with less than $1 million, now has an annual budget of $20 million, including
university matching dollars. It aims to put advisers in 1,000 schools in the United States by 2019.
North Carolina will be the major testing ground for scaling up the program and measuring results.
“Our ambition in North Carolina is really to be able to move the state. I think we have room to grow
here,” Hurd said. “We can’t afford to have a permanent underclass. We have to make sure all
students have opportunities.”
Stancill: 919-829-4559
Order a reprint of this story
ADVERTISEMENT
Trending Offers and Articles
North Carolina Will
The $152K Social
Women have been
New Rule in North
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]
MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
this stock explode?
Can you turn $1,000
into $100,000?
Security Mistake That urged to cease
Carolina: If you pay for
70% of Seniors
posting these kinds of car insurance you
photos on social
Make...
better read this...
media.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
News & Observer is pleased to provide this opportunity to share
information, experiences and observations about
what's in the news.
Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the
newspaper. We
encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day,
and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech,
personal
comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time
to offer your thoughts.
Commenting FAQs | Terms of Service
Add a comment...
Also post on Facebook Comment
Comment
Facebook social plugin
TODAY'S CIRCULARS
PETSMART USA
TARGET
TIGER DIRECT USA
SPORTS AUTHORITY
VALID UNTIL MAR 28
THIS WEEK ONLY
THIS WEEK ONLY
VALID UNTIL APR 24
View All Circulars
Barton College
barton.edu
Experience Your Education! Choose
from among 30 majors.
STAY CONNECTED
Email Newsletters >
Tablets >
Mobile >
Social Media >
e-Edition >
Home Delivery >
Privacy Policy
| Terms of Use
| About Our Ads
| Contact Us
| About Us
| Careers
| N&O Store
| Site Map
| Copyright
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]
Digital
Subscriptions >
MAYODAN: Advising corps leads high school students toward college path | Education | NewsObserver.com
Triangle Network:
News & Observer
| Triangle.com
| FansTailgate
| Mom2Mom
| Trianglejobs
| Community News
| Legal Notices
| Advertise with us
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/17/3710937/advising-corps-leads-high-school.html[3/18/2014 8:24:30 AM]