Advanced Placement Courses and Historically-Underrepresented College Students

From the New York Times.  ORLANDO, Fla. — Every year, more than 600,000 academically promising high school students — most of them poor, Latino or black — fail to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, often viewed as head starts for the college-bound. 

Some of them do not know about these courses, which offer an accelerated curriculum and can lead to college credit. Others assume they will be too difficult. But many are held back by entrenched perceptions among administrators and teachers, whose referrals are often required for enrollment, about who belongs in what has long served as an elite preserve within public schools.

“Many teachers don’t truly believe that these programs are for all kids or that students of color or low-income kids can succeed in these classes,” said Christina Theokas, director of research at the Education Trust, a nonprofit group. Ms. Theokas said that if those underrepresented students had taken A.P. courses at the same rate as their white and more affluent peers in 2010, there would have been about 614,500 more students in those classes.

In an effort to overcome those obstacles, an increasing number of school districts, including Boston, Cincinnati and Washington, have recently begun initiatives to expand Advanced Placement course offerings and enroll more black and Hispanic students, children from low-income families and those who aspire to be the first in their generation to go to college. In the spring, lawmakers in Washington State passed legislation encouraging all districts to enroll in advanced courses any student who meets a minimum threshold on state standardized tests or the Preliminary SAT exam.

While some critics say A.P. classes are little more than another round of test prep, supporters say they can foster a culture of learning. Humberto Fuentes, a senior here at Freedom High School taking his first A.P. classes, in English literature and economics, said they were the first time he had been around peers who enjoyed school.

“In regular classes, people are trying to distract you with music videos or saying, ‘Hey, look at this cat playing a piano’ on their phones,” said Humberto, 17, who emigrated with his parents from Ecuador when he was an infant and hopes to be the first in his family to attend college. “Whereas in an A.P. class, they will show you something from the text and say, ‘Hey, this is fun.’ ”

<Click on this link to read the rest of the article from the New York Times.>

Challenges of First Generation College Students

 From Stateline, "Encouraging first-generation college students by Adrienne Lu, Staff Writer.  As a senior at Taft High School in Lincoln City, Oregon, last year, Skyler Lopez didn’t spend much time thinking about his future.  Skyler’s identical twin Tyler had been aiming for Western Oregon University since the eighth grade—a daunting goal, since nobody in the Lopez family had ever graduated from college. But Skyler struggled in high school and had to scramble to even graduate. For him, college seemed like a stretch.  “A lot of it was laziness, a lot of it was worrying about the financial issues,” Skyler said.

When a campaign to encourage low-income and would-be first-generation college students to apply for college reached Lincoln City, a small tourist town on the coast of Oregon, Skyler’s school counselors urged him to apply.  He first applied to the local community college. But over the summer, he decided on a whim—again, with the encouragement of his counselors—to apply to Western Oregon University, the four-year college where Tyler would be starting school in the fall.  Today, Skyler, 18, has joined his brother as a freshman at Western Oregon, and hopes to become a high school counselor so that one day he can inspire students the way he was inspired.  Without the school counselor, “I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Skyler said. “That’s why I want to do that.”  Last year, close to 130,000 students in 24 states and the District of Columbia submitted more than 195,000 college applications as part of the American College Application Campaign, the effort that reached Skyler.

Creating a College Culture

The initiative encourages students whose parents are low-income or who didn’t go to college to apply to at least one college or university. Started in 2005, it is funded by philanthropic foundations and coordinated by the American Council on Education, which represents the presidents of U.S. colleges and universities.  High schools can customize their college application weeks to meet students’ needs, but all of them schedule time during school hours for seniors to submit applications, often aided by volunteers trained to answer questions.  

Schools try to drum up publicity and enthusiasm by holding raffles for students who submit applications, handing out “I applied” stickers and urging teachers to decorate their doors with photos and pennants showing their own alma maters. The Oregon University System created a YouTube video featuring people’s responses when they asked them to explain—in five words or less—why students should apply to college.  “It’s all about creating a college-going culture in our communities,” said Kate Derrick, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which coordinates the college application weeks in that state. “For us, it means for our students, it’s not a matter of if they’ll go to college, but where and recognizing that here in Tennessee, the jobs of the future will require college degrees.”

The American College Application Campaign began at a single high school in Siler City, N.C., and has since spread across the country. This year, about 2,000 schools in 39 states and the District of Columbia are participating.  National College Application Week is Nov. 11-15 this year, but many schools hold their events earlier so students can take advantage of early action and scholarship deadlines.  Many states have jumped in to help. In some, state employees coordinate the application drives, and some governors have signed proclamations to promote college application weeks.

The Burden of Being First

Bobby Kanoy, who directs the expansion of the campaign to new states, said that research shows the nation’s economy needs more college graduates. The percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds with at least a bachelor’s degree grew from 23 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Even so, the U.S. isn’t producing enough graduates with the skills to thrive in the country’s evolving economy.  “Unless we increase the number of students coming through the pipeline, we’re going to come up short,” of workers who are educated enough for the jobs of the future, Kanoy said. “If we come up short of people who can do these jobs… we either have to send the jobs offshore, or we have to import the talent.  Matt Rubinoff, executive director of I’m First, an initiative of the Center for Student Opportunity, a nonprofit aimed at supporting first-generation college students, said that while low-income students in middle school aspire to go to college at the same rate as their higher-income peers, they don’t matriculate at nearly the same rate.

Research indicates that a parent’s education is the greatest predictor of how well a student does in school and the level of education he or she achieves. Once enrolled, first-generation college students are four times more likely to drop out than peers whose parents have college degrees, Rubinoff said.  “Because of a lack of familial support and support in schools and in their communities, low-income first-generation students generally lack good information and support to navigate the college application process and the colleges that are most committed to their success,” Rubinoff said. While the college application is only one step among many for low-income and first-generation college students, experts say it is a critical hurdle.  “Studies show that if students do apply, they have a high likelihood of enrolling,” said Margaret Cahalan, acting director of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. 

The barriers for first-generation college students may be big or small, real or perceived.  Several high school counselors involved with the American College Application Campaign say that while most students have the desire to go to college, many first-generation students worry about not working to help support their families or fear taking on student loan debt, particularly in an uncertain job market.  Others, lacking the support of someone at home who has been through the college application process themselves, may be deterred by something as seemingly insignificant as not knowing what to put down for “permanent address” on an application form, or by an inability to pay application fees, which are often waived by colleges for low-income students.

Scared to Apply

At Ottawa Hills High School in Grand Rapids, Mich., college adviser Gabe Pena, who was the first in his family to graduate from college, said that some students are drawn to work at one of the assembly-line jobs in southeast Grand Rapids, which beckon students with wages of $10 an hour.  Other students avoid applications because they think they will have to fill out a lengthy application and write an essay, which is generally not true of community colleges. Pena said many students are excited to learn that the state offers a scholarship for many low-income students to attend community colleges.  “The majority of kids want to go to college,” Pena said. “There’s this grand idea of college – it seems like something unattainable, but they want to get there. I help familiarize them with all the options.”

Laura Klinger, a college adviser at two high schools in rural St. Claire County, Mich., said that filling out a college application is often the easiest part of applying to college. But going through that process and receiving a notice of acceptance can boost a student’s confidence, she said, and motivate them to continue through the red tape of orientations, housing deposits and financial aid forms.  “I think the value of having an adviser in the school is to try and help them with that process,” Klinger said.  Skyler said some of the students from his high school who don’t go to college get involved with “bad stuff” like drinking, drugs and partying. “I probably would have lived at home,” he said, reflecting on how different his life might be today. “I probably wouldn’t have gone (to college) and a lot of things would be a lot different.”

History of Learning Assistance Programs in the Mid to Late 1800s

As a historian, I have been interested in the history of learning assistance and developmental education.  Listening to the rhetoric of today as some argue for the elimination of developmental-level courses, a listener might think that such courses are a recent creation.  A careful review of the historical record reveals they have been embedded as part of American higher education since the start.  Below is the first of three parts of an examination of the 1800s.  These are excerpts from my 2010 book published by Jossey-Bass, "Access at the crossroads:  Learning assistance in higher education."

Recruitment of Academically Underprepared Students

After the U.S. Civil War, students who were considered academically under-prepared were aggressively recruited. Economic and social changes throughout the United States fueled by the Civil War significantly influenced expansion of learning assistance at more colleges. Many male students did not seek admission or left college to join their respective armies. Many colleges in the North and South replaced them and their tuition payments through expanded academic preparatory departments that supported underage students who were too young to enlist. Examples from the North include Valparaiso University in Indiana, which replaced college students through a rapid expansion of the academic preparatory department. Although the liberal arts college and theology school at Bucknell University closed temporarily in 1865, the academic preparatory school at the same college significantly increased its enrollment. Offsetting enroll­ment decreases saved many institutions from closing. Southern colleges followed the same pattern of Northern institutions through extended academic prepara­tory departments and acceptance of applicants formerly denied admission. In 1861 the University of Alabama created an academic preparatory department for boys twelve years and older. In 1863 the University of Georgia created Uni­versity High School and suspended rules prohibiting admission of boys younger than fourteen to the university. The Faculty Senate of South Carolina College in 1862 voted to admit young students to replace revenue lost by former stu­dents who had left the institution to join the Confederate Army (Rudy, 1996).

History of Learning Assistance Programs in the Mid 1880s

As a historian, I have been interested in the history of learning assistance and developmental education.  Listening to the rhetoric of today as some argue for the elimination of developmental-level courses, a listener might think that such courses are a recent creation.  A careful review of the historical record reveals they have been embedded as part of American higher education since the start.  Below is the first of three parts of an examination of the 1800s.  These are excerpts from my 2010 book published by Jossey-Bass, "Access at the crossroads:  Learning assistance in higher education."

Academic Preparatory Academies

In 1830, New York University created an early prototype of an academic prepara­tory academy. It provided instruction in mathematics, physical science, philoso­phy, and English literature (Dempsey, 1985). The focus, however, was acquiring basic academic content knowledge, not the cognitive learning strategies that are often prerequisite for mastery of new academic material. These academies were a necessary bridge for many college aspirants as a result of the lack of formal sec­ondary education for many. The U.S. education movement started from the top down. First, colleges and universities were established and then public elemen­tary and secondary schools were developed. Some colleges functioned essentially as both high schools and rigorous colleges. The academic preparatory academies supported the rising academic rigor of postsecondary institutions and provided an access conduit for those seeking a college education. The academies expanded with surprising speed in a short time. By 1894, 40 percent of first-year college students had enrolled in college preparatory courses (Ignash, 1997).

Academic Preparatory Deparments Become Part of the College Curriculum:  Late 1800s

Since the beginning, tutorial programs were the most common form of aca­demic enrichment and support at most prestigious institutions such as Har­vard and Yale. Many college administrators responded to the high number of students academically underprepared by creating a special academic depart­ment that was essential to meet their academic needs. In less selective institu­tions, the number of underprepared students outnumbered those not requiring additional support. For example, the University of Wisconsin in 1865 could place only forty-one of 331 admitted students in “regular” graduation credit courses. The majority of the new students admitted were restricted to remedial courses (Shedd, 1932). Quality of primary and secondary education was uneven or missing in most of the United States. Most colleges provided instruction in basic skills of spelling, writing, geography, and mathematics, as they were the only venue for such instruction (Brier, 1984). Instruction in basic content areas lengthened the undergraduate bachelor’s academic degree to six years or more (Casazza and Silverman, 1996).

In 1849, the University of Wisconsin established the first modern learning assistance program. Instead of offering remedial courses through an external academic preparatory academy, Wisconsin created an academic department for these courses and hired a separate faculty to teach them. The Department of Preparatory Studies instructed students through remedial courses in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Because of an insufficient number of tutors to meet the academic needs of most admitted students, the institution quickly responded by establishing the new academic department. Of the 331 admit­ted students, 290 enrolled in one or more remedial courses in the preparatory studies department. These courses were similar to those offered at a public high school (Brubacher and Rudy, 1976). Many institutions across the United States implemented the Wisconsin model of learning assistance (Brier, 1984). The department persisted until 1880. Continuous internal political battles among the department, campus administrators, and the rest of the university faculty served as a catalyst for its demise. Faculty members from outside the depart­ment demanded its elimination because of the fear of stigma for the university. College administrators tried to appease critics through strategies such as renam­ing the department. New campus administrators finally closed the department after its short and contentious history (Curti and Carstensen, 1949).

Academic preparatory departments emerged at more than 80 percent of all postsecondary institutions (Canfield, 1889). These departments bridged the gap between inadequate academic preparation of high school graduates and college-level curricular expectations (Clemont, 1899). Review of college admission documents indicated that the farther west the college was located, the lower the entrance requirements for the institution as a result of insuffi­cient preparation in high school. As the public school movement spread from the Northeast farther south and west, college entrance requirements of the institutions eventually rose. After a half century of use, however, remedial col­lege credit courses were entrenched in most colleges.

Counseling Makes a Difference for Low-Income Students Attending College

From Inside HigherEd by Scott Jaschik.    "A theme of several studies in the last year has been that there are plenty of academically talented low-income students who for some combination of reasons are not applying to competitive colleges to which they would probably be admitted.  A new study along those lines -- this time documenting the impact of intense college counseling -- was released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study (abstract available here) found that a nonprofit group that focuses on college counseling in Minneapolis-St. Paul had a significant impact in increasing the rate at which low-income students enrolled in four-year colleges, including competitive institutions.

The study was conducted by Christopher Avery of Harvard University -- co-author (with Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University) of a study released in December that found that most highly talented, low-income students never apply to a single competitive college. That work has set off widespread discussions about what sort of interventions might make a difference.  Avery's new study looks at College Possible, a program that provides in-depth college counseling as well as tutoring on the ACT or SAT. Avery was able to study the impact of the program by comparing results on College Possible participants with those who applied to (and were not admitted to) the program despite having slightly better academic preparation.  The study found no statistically significant gains in ACT scores for those who participated in the program. Avery writes, however, that this may understate the impact of the program, because he suspects that some of those who didn't get into College Possible found test-prep services elsewhere.  But the study found a significant impact on College Possible participants in applying to and enrolling in four-year colleges, and especially to competitive colleges. More than 45 percent of the students in the College Possible program enrolled at a four-year college, while the figure in the control group was 34 percent. And the most popular college among those in the program was Augsburg College, a competitive liberal arts college that did not enroll a single student from the control group (though some would appear to have been academically qualified had they applied).  The findings could be significant in that the earlier Avery-Hoxby study noted that low-income students who enroll in more competitive colleges are more likely to land at institutions with better graduation rates, more financial aid, and more resources to promote their academic success.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/29/study-tracks-impact-counseling-low-income-students#ixzz2j7MWcOPu

The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low Income Students: Many low-income high achievers never think of applying to selective schools

From the National Bureau of Economic Research:  In The Missing "One-Offs": The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low Income Students (NBER Working Paper No. 18586), Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery study every student in the high school graduating class of 2008 who scored at the 90th percentile or above on the SAT or ACT and whose high school GPA was A- or above. They show that despite the fact that these high-achievers are well qualified for admission at America's most selective colleges, the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective school.

More than 50 percent of low-income high achievers apply exclusively to non-selective two-year and four-year schools that typically have low graduation rates and low instructional resources. Only 8 percent of them apply in a manner similar to that of high-income high achievers, who normally apply to several "peer" schools where the median student has scores like their own, the graduation rate is high, and instructional resources are ten times those at non-selective schools. High-income high achievers also usually apply to a few "reach" and "safety" schools.

These authors show that because low-income high achievers rarely apply to selective colleges, there are many more low-income high achievers than admissions staff thought. What the admissions staff see are eight to fifteen high-income applicants for every low-income applicant. However, the ratio of high-income high achievers to low-income high achievers is only about two-to-one in the population.  The authors eliminate a number of explanations for low-income high achievers' failure to apply to selective colleges, including cost. They show that very selective colleges offer high-achieving, low-income students such generous financial aid that they could attend these colleges and pay less than they are currently paying to attend the much less selective colleges in which they enroll.

Nor do low-income high achievers fail if they apply to selective colleges. The authors show that if a low-income student and a high-income student with the same achievement apply to the same college, they have outcomes (matriculation, persistence, on-time graduation) that are so similar that they cannot be distinguished statistically.  A lack of effort on the part of selective colleges does not explain these results, either. Their admissions staffs visit hundreds of high schools, organize campus visits, and work with many local college mentoring programs.

Why, then, do the vast majority of low-income, high-achievers not apply to very selective colleges? The authors show that those who do not apply are dispersed: they are "one-offs" in their high schools and localities. Thus, there is no cost-effective way for colleges to reach them using the traditional methods listed above, all of which work best when students attend a school with a critical mass of high achievers (such as a magnet school) or live near a selective college (such as the Harlem students who live near Columbia University). This dispersion also explains why the students' counselors do not develop expertise about very selective colleges. If a counselor has 350 advisees (the typical number in the United States) and only encounters a high achiever once every few years, that counselor will develop skills to help her other advisees -- many of whom may be struggling to stay in school or attend any postsecondary institution -- rather than skills that will help the rare one-off.

Best Education Practice: Planning Effective College Tours for High School Students

Planning Effective College Tours for High School Students.  Wichita State University (KS) (approved Promising Practice 9/25/13)  Taken from the abstract:  "Conducting college campus visits for aspiring postsecondary students is a common practice for many high school-to-college bridge programs.  The approach taken by the Communications Upward Bound (CUB) program at Wichita State University has developed an effective means to make this process highly efficient and effective for its’ students.  Rather than accepting the standard campus visit program by the host college that all visiting colleges experience, the CUB programs works collaboratively with the institution to customize the experience based on the needs and interests of the students.  This approach has increased student interest and engagement in comparison to previous years when the campus visits were not differentiated and customized." [Click on this web link to download the education practice.]