Applying to college can be a dizzying undertaking even for high school students who are fairly well-off and who have highly educated parents. For first-generation college students or students from low-income backgrounds (the two populations often intersect), the path from high school to college is strewn with hurdles.
The application process involves multiple tasks: assembling documents, pleading for recommendation letters, writing personal essays and more. It is a logistical nightmare. But applying to college is intimidating for other reasons as well. College carries a lot of symbolic weight in the U.S. Students from some backgrounds might hesitate to apply because they think they aren’t smart enough, or because they think they aren’t the sort of person who goes to college.
The problems don’t end with an admissions letter. The move from high school to college is not assured until the student sets foot on campus. For some students, even if they muster up the courage to apply, translating an admissions offer into a reality of college attendance requires support that they don’t receive from their high schools or their families.
A project to support students’ efforts to get into college by disseminating advice and information through text messaging seeks to address these problems. Ben Castleman, acting assistant professor of education at the University’s Center for Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness, recently received a $225,000 grant for an initiative that delivers college-planning information to low-income students via text message.
Starting this fall, seniors at 14 participating high schools — all in West Virginia — can opt to receive college-planning text messages. These students can also communicate by text with their high school counselor and admissions and financial aid representatives at four participating colleges: Bluefield State College, Concord University, Marshall University and Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College.
Local in scope, the project could provide valuable assistance to these West Virginia high school students. It could also tell us whether initiatives of this sort help students transition successfully from high school to college.
Using text messages as a way to keep high school students invested in and attentive to the demands of the college application process is a potentially fruitful approach for a few reasons. First, texting offers students the ability to seek one-on-one guidance in a non-intimidating way. Students who are shy about their aspirations to attend college, or who worry that their questions about the application process are “stupid questions,” might hesitate to set up an appointment with their counselor or call the university that interests them. But sending a text is easy and feels shame-free. Second, the fact that admissions officers are taking the time to respond to texts shows these students that adults believe in them and support them. In addition to clarifying the application process, the text-message system validates students’ desires to go to college. Third, texting meets students where they’re at. Rather than leaving students to navigate complicated web pages or draft emails to admissions support, the text-message system delivers regular updates and advice in a medium with which students are comfortable.
Though it may seem trivial, the text-message program could help us rethink how colleges interact with and support low-income students. It could make an often-opaque process more approachable.
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