Workshops Guide Seniors to the College Finish Line
DCAC and the counseling department host college workshops to help students in their journey to college.
By Ariella Just Milender
DCAC and the counseling department host college workshops to help students in their journey to college.
By Ariella Just Milender
As a multitude of college application deadlines swiftly approach, many seniors are scrambling to finish their applications and essays. Destination College Advising Corps and the Academic Counseling department have hosted multiple workshops to guide seniors in their journey to college as questions and confusion arise while they apply to potential schools.
DCAC, founded by UC Berkeley in 2007, was established to assist and provide low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students as they figure out their post-high school journey. The program spans over 40 high schools in the Bay Area, each with separate advisors to assist students. Currently, Pioneer has two DCAC advisors, Gabby Gonzalez and Justin Phillips.
“UC Berkeley saw that there was a disparity between students from high-income backgrounds and not first-generation backgrounds of going to college, so they made a program directly targeting low-income, first-generation and underrepresented populations at the high school level. Our goal is to provide college access to those populations and more one-on-one help and support whatever they want to do whether that's college or work after,” said Gonzalez.
Recently, Pioneer has hosted financial aid workshops for parents and students as well as a couple of college application workshops for students to attend to get the support they need as they apply for higher education.
Held during DCAC’s annual college week, aimed at creating college awareness, advisors held University of California and California State University application overview workshops as well as a Community College presentation in order to provide students with the help they need as they think about their options and fill out their college applications.
“The purpose of the walkthroughs is to go through the application step-by-step. We know it can be really really confusing and there are some questions that might seem straightforward but they’re a little bit nuanced and so doing all that by yourself can be kind of hard,” said Gonzalez. “We don’t want to assume that everything is common knowledge because it’s okay if you don’t know every single thing about the application, it’s new to everybody so we want to be able to talk about all that.”
After the workshop, many students felt more informed about how to fill out the application.
Kyleigh Visperas, 12, felt that the workshop clarified many portions of the application and was helpful overall.
“I had been a little unsure about a few topics and I was hoping that this meeting would help to address them. I didn’t need anything specifically addressed so it was nice to hear a lot of the information there,” said Visperas.
Senior Anvay Deshpande also felt that the workshop was extremely helpful and helped to clarify the application.
“The information given in the workshop was very helpful and helped me to better understand how to complete the applications. It (helped) to answer both big and small doubts and uncertainties people have about applying for college,” said Deshpande. “I chose to attend this workshop because I wanted to complete my applications with no doubts and uncertainties. I learned about how to put in your seventh and eighth grade courses in the CSU application and what the scholarship tab on the UC application does.”
DCAC also plans to host more workshops in the future, including application labs for all college application types.
“We’re going to do college application open labs throughout the month of November, which are going to be geared towards any type of application and it’s just creating a space where students can come in and work on any type of application, it doesn’t have to be UC or CSU and we can help them with that,” said Gonzalez. “Next semester we’re going to be having workshops for community college applications for all of the seven local community colleges that we have here in the Bay and each of them are going to come out and do the same thing with the CSU and UC apps except for community college, so they’ll lead them through the whole application so they can apply right then and there.”
The Academic Counseling department also recently hosted a financial aid night for seniors and their families on the various types of aid and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and Dream Act applications, as well as answered any questions parents may have had regarding financial aid as their senior started college application. For this workshop, Evergreen Valley Community College financial aid expert Annette Ruiz-Esparza was brought in to do a presentation for the students and families. “We had Annette Ruiz-Esparza from Evergreen Valley College as our presenter to basically give all the parents and students that attended all the information rundown on all the financial aid information, like what to expect (and) the differences between loans and grants,” said Academic Counselor Judy Pataky-Hannon.
For any seniors looking to attend a college workshop in the near future, the Fall Cash for College Financial Aid Workshop, hosted by the Academic counseling department, is being held on Nov. 17 from 5-7 pm in the library for any families who are applying for financial aid and may need help. For more information on any of the coming college application open labs, scholarships, and presentations happening in the near future, follow the DCAC Instagram @dcac_phs.
DCAC, founded by UC Berkeley in 2007, was established to assist and provide low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students as they figure out their post-high school journey. The program spans over 40 high schools in the Bay Area, each with separate advisors to assist students. Currently, Pioneer has two DCAC advisors, Gabby Gonzalez and Justin Phillips.
“UC Berkeley saw that there was a disparity between students from high-income backgrounds and not first-generation backgrounds of going to college, so they made a program directly targeting low-income, first-generation and underrepresented populations at the high school level. Our goal is to provide college access to those populations and more one-on-one help and support whatever they want to do whether that's college or work after,” said Gonzalez.
Recently, Pioneer has hosted financial aid workshops for parents and students as well as a couple of college application workshops for students to attend to get the support they need as they apply for higher education.
Held during DCAC’s annual college week, aimed at creating college awareness, advisors held University of California and California State University application overview workshops as well as a Community College presentation in order to provide students with the help they need as they think about their options and fill out their college applications.
“The purpose of the walkthroughs is to go through the application step-by-step. We know it can be really really confusing and there are some questions that might seem straightforward but they’re a little bit nuanced and so doing all that by yourself can be kind of hard,” said Gonzalez. “We don’t want to assume that everything is common knowledge because it’s okay if you don’t know every single thing about the application, it’s new to everybody so we want to be able to talk about all that.”
After the workshop, many students felt more informed about how to fill out the application.
Kyleigh Visperas, 12, felt that the workshop clarified many portions of the application and was helpful overall.
“I had been a little unsure about a few topics and I was hoping that this meeting would help to address them. I didn’t need anything specifically addressed so it was nice to hear a lot of the information there,” said Visperas.
Senior Anvay Deshpande also felt that the workshop was extremely helpful and helped to clarify the application.
“The information given in the workshop was very helpful and helped me to better understand how to complete the applications. It (helped) to answer both big and small doubts and uncertainties people have about applying for college,” said Deshpande. “I chose to attend this workshop because I wanted to complete my applications with no doubts and uncertainties. I learned about how to put in your seventh and eighth grade courses in the CSU application and what the scholarship tab on the UC application does.”
DCAC also plans to host more workshops in the future, including application labs for all college application types.
“We’re going to do college application open labs throughout the month of November, which are going to be geared towards any type of application and it’s just creating a space where students can come in and work on any type of application, it doesn’t have to be UC or CSU and we can help them with that,” said Gonzalez. “Next semester we’re going to be having workshops for community college applications for all of the seven local community colleges that we have here in the Bay and each of them are going to come out and do the same thing with the CSU and UC apps except for community college, so they’ll lead them through the whole application so they can apply right then and there.”
The Academic Counseling department also recently hosted a financial aid night for seniors and their families on the various types of aid and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and Dream Act applications, as well as answered any questions parents may have had regarding financial aid as their senior started college application. For this workshop, Evergreen Valley Community College financial aid expert Annette Ruiz-Esparza was brought in to do a presentation for the students and families. “We had Annette Ruiz-Esparza from Evergreen Valley College as our presenter to basically give all the parents and students that attended all the information rundown on all the financial aid information, like what to expect (and) the differences between loans and grants,” said Academic Counselor Judy Pataky-Hannon.
For any seniors looking to attend a college workshop in the near future, the Fall Cash for College Financial Aid Workshop, hosted by the Academic counseling department, is being held on Nov. 17 from 5-7 pm in the library for any families who are applying for financial aid and may need help. For more information on any of the coming college application open labs, scholarships, and presentations happening in the near future, follow the DCAC Instagram @dcac_phs.