Two years ago, 17-year-old Ernesto Delgado, who could be the first in his family to graduate from a four-year university, never would have considered leaving his Chicago hometown to attend college. He didn’t think he had the option.
Now, with an out-of-state college visit under his belt, the high school senior has changed his tune, and the George Washington University is one of his top-choice schools.
“It’s really amazing that there is this university right here in the nation’s capital. And students here at GW get to have this intimate experience with the city,” he said. “I never would have visited campus if it hadn’t been for the Chicago Scholars program. I wasn’t looking beyond Illinois.”
Mr. Delgado was admitted to GW at the annual Chicago Scholars Onsite Admissions Forum, held in Chicago in October. The Chicago Scholars Foundation offers a support program for academically talented—often low-income or first-generation—high school students.
Eighty-seven percent of the 404,151 Chicago Public Schools students came from low-income families during the 2011-12 school year. The Chicago Scholars Foundation seeks to create a community of support for Chicago-area students throughout their college search and beyond. After undergoing a competitive application process during their junior year, Chicago scholars receive mentoring, networking opportunities and educational programming during their senior year and throughout four years of college.
Each fall, Chicago scholars work with mentors from the program to prepare applications to their top five colleges. Then, admissions representatives from universities around the country convene at the Onsite Admissions Forum to interview Chicago’s brightest students, offering them acceptances—and sometimes scholarships—on the spot.
GW has participated in the event for many years, but this semester, the university—recognizing that many of these students lack the resources to visit colleges—offered travel subsidies to the admitted scholars and invited them to the Foggy Bottom Campus during weekends in January, February and April.
“We really wanted to make sure that everyone we admitted had the chance to visit campus, and we did not want cost to be a deterrent,” said GW Director of Admissions Karen Felton.
The high school students, who were hosted in residence halls by GW undergraduates, toured the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses, attended a class on public diplomacy and saw the monuments by moonlight on Sunday evening.
Part of the Chicago Scholars Foundation’s mission is to open students’ eyes to the opportunities that they do not even realize are available to them. Recent studies have suggested that first-generation, low-income students often do not apply to selective colleges, not because they’re unqualified or do not want to, but because the information is not available to them.
Marybeth Kravets, Chicago Scholars Foundation’s chief education officer, said campus visits are invaluable to prospective college students.
“Our scholars, from my experience, are so much better prepared to make a decision on where to attend when they have visited campuses,” she said. “The colleges that make it possible for the students to visit are increasing the likelihood of matriculation.”
For Mr. Delgado, the son of Latino parents who never went to college, simply navigating the application process proved difficult. He said the Chicago Scholars program helps smooth the transition between high school and college, making applying to college “seem simple.”
“I know my parents worried that, despite my good grades, I wouldn’t know enough to make the right choices when it came to college. The Chicago Scholars Program eased my family’s fears,” Mr. Delgado said.
First-generation soon-to-be college student Marisela Vargas was invited to attend the Chicago Scholars On-Site Admissions Forum in October, through a partnership between the foundation and her high school. She had never heard of GW until the Chicago Scholars Program brought it to her attention. Her visit to GW in February has put her one step closer to reaching her higher education dreams.
“My parents don’t have the money to spend on travel, so this has been a new experience for me,” she said. “It’s a real, real benefit to be here.”
Mr. Delgado and the majority of the other scholars who visited campus said their favorite part of the weekend visit at GW was when they had the opportunity to sit in on a class with Jonathan Henrick, a public diplomacy fellow in the School of Media and Public Affairs.
“I couldn’t believe how insightful and passionate students were about the topics,” Mr. Delgado said. “This solidified that GW is the type of school I definitely see myself coming to.”
Ms. Felton said GW’s partnership with the Chicago Scholars is an important one, as the university looks to attract students from all backgrounds.
“Our goal is to cast a wide net so that GW can be as diverse of a community as possible,” Ms. Felton said. “You cannot overestimate the importance of having students from every different background in the classroom.”