Nearly 200 District middle school students will get their first taste of college life when they visit Georgetown’s campus Thursday for the annual Kids 2 College Shadow Day.
The sixth graders from five middle schools in eastern D.C. have spent the last six weeks in a program designed to expose them to college opportunities. Twice a week, student facilitators from Georgetown and other universities visited schools to answer questions about college life and to help develop learning skills.
“The purpose of this is to give them the mentality of thinking past high school and teach them how to use their skills to make them better prepared,” Rashad Jones (SFS ‘06), one of the volunteers, said.
The program culminates in the college visit, which underscores the possibilities that await students in college, Charlene McKenzie, director of Educational Community Involvement Programs at the Center for Minority Educational Affairs, said.
“They get to see other college students, to see what a campus looks like, to see the dorms, to really have that college experience,” she said.
According to CMEA Program Director Derrick Lewis, over 100 Georgetown students have volunteered to help lead the school groups through classrooms and dormitories. Faculty, administrators and student athletes, among others, will make presentations on college life.
It’s the basketball players they want to see the most, volunteer Janieasha Freelove-Sewell (COL ‘08) said. “We got them all autographed photos of Jeff Green; basketball is the one thing they know about here,” she said.
Freelove-Sewell is one of the student facilitators who have visited Merritt Elementary School to talk to students about college.
“The first day we took pictures of them with a cap and gown on to put in their program binders, so that the first thing they see is themselves graduating,” she said.
The Kids 2 College program also helps students set college-oriented goals and makes students aware of what they need to do to go onto college, Chestivia Shoemaker said.
Shoemaker is the student counselor at Burrville Elementary School, whose two sixth grade classes will visit Georgetown. Many of the students in the program are on public assistance or come from single parent households, and this year, all are black, she said.
The program is funded by Sallie Mae and originated in Massachusetts. It currently matches 22 local schools to Washington-area universities. The program has expanded from Georgetown to other colleges in recent years, although it works with only a few of the 100+ elementary and middle schools in the D.C. school system, McKenzie said.
Programs such as Kids 2 College have led students to strive for college opportunities, Shoemaker said.
“When asked if they want to go to college, they not only put their hands up, but they can tell you that they want to go to Maryland or Georgetown or Princeton,” she said.
