{"id":3230,"date":"2019-04-24T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/?p=3230"},"modified":"2019-04-16T12:20:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T16:20:53","slug":"perspective-college-admission-leaves-low-income-students-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/04\/24\/perspective-college-admission-leaves-low-income-students-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"Perspective: College Admission Leaves Low-Income Students Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy of Personal Statement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The college admission process is complex and the fight for equity and access within it is far from over.<\/p>\n

Enoch Jemmott, now a senior at Queens College (NY), recently shared his experience as a low-income student navigating the college admission process in a The New York Times<\/em> piece titled, \u201cThe Implicit Punishment of Daring to Go to College When Poor.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI came to realize that, in every step along the way, we had to do more because we had less,\u201d Jemmott wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In his high school, he didn\u2019t have access to a school counselor or an adult that could walk him through the process. Though he knew the SAT existed, he didn\u2019t know much beyond that. And as for college essay help \u2013 forget it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were also on our own when it came time to fill out the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid: the document you have to fill out if you need financial aid \u2014 which was the case for nearly everyone in my high school. And the FAFSA can be numbingly complex for families without a high level of financial literacy \u2014 which was also the case for nearly everyone in my high school,\u201d Jemmott wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe FAFSA is pages upon pages of details about your parents\u2019 finances. I had never filed taxes, so I didn\u2019t know what half of the terms meant. It was scary because there was so much at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenges didn\u2019t stop after he received his college acceptance letters. Figuring out if he could afford to enroll prompted another round of complicated financial documentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat some rich families bribe their children\u2019s way into college is the least of our problems,\u201d Jemmott wrote, referring to the recent bribery scandal.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re more concerned by the college guidance gap and the maze of applying for financial aid. It shouldn\u2019t be that difficult, fiscally or strategically, to get college advice and to fill out the FAFSA. Higher education\u2019s admissions system should be designed to support our success, not to suppress it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more from Jemmott in The New York Times<\/em><\/a> and see his experience onscreen in the documentary Personal Statement<\/em>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Ashley Dobson is NACAC\u2019s senior communications manager for content and social media. You can reach her at adobson@nacacnet.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The college admission process is complex and the fight for equity and access within it is far from over. Enoch Jemmott, now a senior at Queens College (NY), recently shared his experience as a low-income student navigating the college admission process in a The New York Times piece titled, \u201cThe Implicit Punishment of Daring to … Continue reading Perspective: College Admission Leaves Low-Income Students Behind<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access","category-importance-of-school-counselors"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Ashley Dobson","author_link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/author\/ashley-dobson\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peWmJq-Q6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}