The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

YES Prep Holds its First Annual Senior Summit

December 17, 2010 by Rhiannon Killian

Ask any high school senior what they are doing this time of year and a common response is “filling out my college applications.” For YES Prep’s Class of 2012 seniors, this is no different. They have spent the last few months polishing their resumes, revising their personal statement, requesting transcripts and letters of recommendation in order to round out their college applications. However, what sets apart YES Prep students and their counterparts from across America is that YES Prep students participate in a fall event – The Senior Summit.

The Fall Senior Summit is the gathering of 177 YES Prep seniors from the Southeast, North Central and Southwest campuses. The purpose of the summit is to allow for seniors to interact with each other, staff and community member to discuss the college application process and issues they will encounter when they get to college. While the college application process can be a very grueling process and private endeavor, YES Prep seeks to make this experience for students more interactive. Mrs. Allison Mattingly, college counselor at the YES Prep Southwest campus, reported that the Senior Summit is a great way to “build a sense of urgency and excitement around the entire application process and collegiate experience.” Students were all in agreement that meeting with other seniors from across the district was necessary to keep them motivated, focused and informed this application season. YES Prep Southwest Senior, Cirilo Portales, explains that “building connections across campuses is important because we can talk about places where we’ve been accepted and find other students who are interested in and possibly attending the same college.” Because of the summit, it’s possible that students can build those connections with other YES Prep students and have an automatic support system even prior to attending to that higher education institution.

To start off the summit, students rallied around the message of personal responsibility and perseverance in the face of challenge that was delivered by the keynote speaker – the former Attorney General of the United States, The Honorable Alberto Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales, a native Houstonian, and the first Hispanic to lead the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, explained that his success and achievements were, in large part, due to the extraordinary risks that he took throughout his life. He went on to stress the YES Prep seniors the importance of public service and civic engagement, as well as to “never be afraid to lead when the opportunity arises.”

During the Senior Summit, the students participated in a variety of seminars designed to help give them an edge in securing summer employment, obtaining funds for college and for managing their stress levels. Seniors met with Wanda Parish, Director of Human Resources for Fiesta Marts, to learn about opportunities that are available for students in the summer before they attend college in the fall. “Ms. Parish offered a clear timeline that I only wish was a part of my toolbox when I was in high school and even college. Students walked away with tangible resources that they could immediately put to use.” In addition, student reviewed the types of financial assistance that are available in the Scholarships and Financial Aid 101 seminar. They walked out of the seminar with a greater understanding of how colleges determine financial need and what they can do in the spring of their senior year and while in college to obtain funding to pay for their cost of attendance. As the Director of College Counseling for the East End, I know I was personally pleased that the message about financial assistance and how it was framed around the reality that a lot of money, be it federal funds, scholarships, grants, and loans is available; yet, students must actively pursue these monies by applying and adhering to deadlines. In fact, all YES Prep seniors are required to apply for 10 quality scholarships as part of their Senior Seminar course requirements. To finish up the day, student met with Mrs. April Coghill, a student support counselor at the North Central Campus, to learn strategies to help manage the stress that often accompanies the college admissions experience. Seniors learned visualization techniques that they could practice while studying and taking exams both now and in the future on their college campuses.

Overall, the First Annual Senior Summit was a tremendous success! YES Prep Southeast student, Jesse Delgado, left the summit feeling that “it really helped give [him] an edge in the application process and beyond.” As a college counseling team, we are excited to begin planning and preparing a spring summit that focuses heavily on preparing students for the rigors of that first of year of college, because, after all, 100% of our seniors are expected to be enrolled and attending a four-year college or university come the fall of 2011. We’re already planning and looking forward to our Senior Spring Summit in April 2011! Check back for another blog about that event!

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