ELIZABETHTOWN — The Elizabethtown Rotary Club learned about the College Advising Corps during its luncheon meeting at Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery on Wednesday.
Chelsea Krieger, who is assigned to West Bladen High School, and Kendyll Graham, who is assigned to East Bladen High School, spoke to the club and explained the College Advising Corps program. The program is offered through N.C. State University and the goal is increase the number of high school seniors who are low-income, first generation and “underrepresented” students completing high school and going on to attend college.
Graham said she and Krieger assist students with such things as SAT and ACT test preparation, completing college applications, completing financial aid forms, arranging college campus tours, arranging college representative visits, etc.
“We work one-on-one mostly with seniors helping them to get into college and completing college. We want to ensure they are successful when they go off to school,” said Graham.
Graham explained that the program has several measures they use to gauge the success of the program including the number of colleges visited, the number of college representatives that come to the high schools, the number of college fairs attended by students, the number of FAFSA submissions and the number of parent meetings among other things.
“We want to help all of our high school students to be successful at college,” said Chelsea Krieger.
She said the services provided by the College Advising Corps is free of charge to the students and free of charge to the school system. The program falls under the umbrella of Americorps.
This year, the program had 100 percent of West Bladen High School seniors apply to colleges.