Webster High School Academic and Career Plans and School Visits
About five years ago, Webster High School reviewed how we were supporting our students in their Academic and Career Plans (ACP). We took a look at how we were exposing students to different secondary schooling options - 4 year universities, 2 year colleges and technical schools. We found that we were giving students exposure to these schools mainly through two avenues. The first was college fairs. College fair events are held at a school (we went to UW Barron County) and have representatives from many different institutions at a booth answering questions and handing out information. The other avenue was to bring students to a specific campus during a "preview day." During these events a school will open up their campus for high schools to bring large groups of students to take tours and have other opportunities to ask questions and gather information. We discovered two main frustrations with these events. The first is that there are so many other high school students it became more of a social event for many of our students. Also, because of the large number of students we did not feel our students were getting the intimate feel of what a school was really like. The atmosphere was not conducive to giving our students the "school" experience.
We knew that many of our students have not had exposure to these different types of institutions and a lot of that was due to geography. We wanted our students to be exposed to what "student life was like" when you attended one of these schools. To accomplish this we began setting up our own visits to institutions where just Webster students were visiting. We contacted the colleges and set up tours. The tours included information about applying, registering for classes and different programs the school offers. We also asked that our students be able to sit in on at least one class to get a feel for what that is like. Another part of the tour that our students have given us strong feedback about is a student panel where we listen to students talk about their school experiences and our students have a chance to ask them questions.
We set up four visits annually to different institutions and ask our students to attend a minimum of two as it fits their academic and career plan. The spring of their junior year we visit UW-Eau Claire and Hamline as 4 year university visits. In the fall of their senior year we visit Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in Rice Lake and UW Eau Claire Barron County in Rice Lake (2 year). Overall we feel this has exposed more of our students to secondary school options and has given them very valuable information and experiences on what it is like to be a student at these different types of institutions.
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