"Freshmen Focus" Overnight

Going along with the trend of colleges communicating with younger and younger students, officials at Siena Heights University (Mich.) are reaching out to high school freshmen through an innovative overnight program. Planned for next week, January 21 and 22, the program, called "Freshmen Focus: What Is College All About?", will involve 70 students from Lenawee Intermediate School District's Hudson High School as well as their chaperones.

In a time where students are beginning the college search process as early as junior high school, SHU Assistant Director of Admissions Sarah Baker Korth says Hudson ninth-graders who attend will get an early preview of college life. The students will get a taste of the academic, cultural, social, and emotional aspects of being a college student.

On the first day, participating students will attend a specially designed class, look at career options, and visit with current college students, faculty, and staff. Other activities include attending a women’s varsity basketball game, completing a campus scavenger hunt, and playing games in the student union. A separate program being planned to help educate the parents of high school students on the college process.

Baker Korth notes that there will be measures in place to track attitudinal changes in the ninth-graders before, during, and after their campus experience. Students will also be surveyed, and that information recorded for assessment purposes.

With the high percentage of first-generation college students in Lenawee County, it especially makes sense that SHU would embark on this type of program.