Common Black College App

[Dmmetler]

I thought that it might be useful to put down our impressions about this process, for future students. 

When L was in the first two years of high school, we were able to attend some of the HBCU awareness foundation's college fairs and activities. Honestly, when we first did, it was because I felt that getting a chance to talk to different schools that were not necessarily of high interest might be a good idea and make the rest of the process more comfortable. Once we got there, though, I really enjoyed the differences between the fairs-basically, HBCU admissions is much more a matching process than a recruitment one, where the goal is to find the school that is the best fit for the student as far as programming, academic rigor, location, and cost. It is, by far, the only college fair where my high achieving kid had ever been told "Honey, you're not a good fit because your test scores and grades are too good, so you should check out colleges A, B and C" or "We don't really have your major-I'm going to introduce you to my friend at X who does. She'll be able to help you". L came out from those experiences with two schools that were really interesting because of their programming, but also because of conversations with the representatives. 

 

The CBCA continues that process. It is a common application, where you only have to send transcripts and test scores ONCE, but it makes your student's application accessible to 54 HBCU's, mostly in the SE USA. The schools then can contact your student through the portal and ask for more information.  Or, as we discovered, send acceptance letters. All told, L got acceptances from 12 schools, and 8 more that asked for more information or just whether or not their school was interesting. Several of the schools not only sent acceptances, but pretty large merit scholarship offers, or information in how to apply for scholarships. I think she ended up hearing from all of the 1890 schools (where students majoring in agriculture or related programs can get full funding to attend from the USDA, guaranteed summer internships, and opportunities to be involved in research programs). 

 

While none of the schools ended up on L's short list, there are several which I plan to recommend to M, who is interested in veterinary medicine, because they have excellent vet school admissions and are financially reasonable, and seem supportive of students with EF needs. I also would love to see S. check some of them out because support for students with disabilities is high at some of the schools we have talked to directly, and they are MUCH less test score focused, so a student with learning disabilities who tests poorly seems likely to be able to find a fit. 

 

All told, I think that if you have a student who thinks that an HBCU might be of interest, or who might not look good on paper, it's worth it to do the app. If nothing else, it's kind of neat to get acceptances from schools just out of the blue :).

[LAS in LA]

Just got an email this week from College Board that DS would be receiving a message from HBCUs about applying. Thanks for the advance info!

ETA: actually the email was from the Common App (not CB). 

Edited March 12, 2021 by LAS in LA

[Sneezyone]

On 2/28/2021 at 1:50 PM, Dmmetler said:

I thought that it might be useful to put down our impressions about this process, for future students. 

When L was in the first two years of high school, we were able to attend some of the HBCU awareness foundation's college fairs and activities. Honestly, when we first did, it was because I felt that getting a chance to talk to different schools that were not necessarily of high interest might be a good idea and make the rest of the process more comfortable. Once we got there, though, I really enjoyed the differences between the fairs-basically, HBCU admissions is much more a matching process than a recruitment one, where the goal is to find the school that is the best fit for the student as far as programming, academic rigor, location, and cost. It is, by far, the only college fair where my high achieving kid had ever been told "Honey, you're not a good fit because your test scores and grades are too good, so you should check out colleges A, B and C" or "We don't really have your major-I'm going to introduce you to my friend at X who does. She'll be able to help you". L came out from those experiences with two schools that were really interesting because of their programming, but also because of conversations with the representatives. 

 

The CBCA continues that process. It is a common application, where you only have to send transcripts and test scores ONCE, but it makes your student's application accessible to 54 HBCU's, mostly in the SE USA. The schools then can contact your student through the portal and ask for more information.  Or, as we discovered, send acceptance letters. All told, L got acceptances from 12 schools, and 8 more that asked for more information or just whether or not their school was interesting. Several of the schools not only sent acceptances, but pretty large merit scholarship offers, or information in how to apply for scholarships. I think she ended up hearing from all of the 1890 schools (where students majoring in agriculture or related programs can get full funding to attend from the USDA, guaranteed summer internships, and opportunities to be involved in research programs). 

 

While none of the schools ended up on L's short list, there are several which I plan to recommend to M, who is interested in veterinary medicine, because they have excellent vet school admissions and are financially reasonable, and seem supportive of students with EF needs. I also would love to see S. check some of them out because support for students with disabilities is high at some of the schools we have talked to directly, and they are MUCH less test score focused, so a student with learning disabilities who tests poorly seems likely to be able to find a fit. 

 

All told, I think that if you have a student who thinks that an HBCU might be of interest, or who might not look good on paper, it's worth it to do the app. If nothing else, it's kind of neat to get acceptances from schools just out of the blue :).

My niece is attending an HBCU for vet school and my DD wants to attend one for engineering. The nurturing available there—accommodations, connections, recruitment opportunities, Greek life and campus spirit are just what my DD wants and needs. DDs preference offers jointly issued degrees with a state flagship so rigor won’t be an issue either. Glad to hear you had a good experience with the fairs! I’m hoping to take DD to some once we’re vaccinated.

[Dmmetler]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

My niece is attending an HBCU for vet school and my DD wants to attend one for engineering. The nurturing available there—accommodations, connections, recruitment opportunities, Greek life and campus spirit are just what my DD wants and needs. DDs preference offers jointly issued degrees with a state flagship so rigor won’t be an issue either. Glad to hear you had a good experience with the fairs! I’m hoping to take DD to some once we’re vaccinated.

The fairs were wonderful. They are doing them virtually this week in my region, but it's not the same. I hope that they are able to come back in the fall. The group here also, pre-COVID, would do bus trips to allow students to go as a group to visit schools (and meet with departmental reps, etc). I know many of my former students at an urban school had never been outside of Memphis, so this is wonderful program that exposes a lot of kids to opportunities they never knew existed. 

 

I have to be honest, I was kind of disappointed when a couple of schools fell off the list because they were just so nice.