In one way or another, college is approaching for many in high school, whether that is submitting and polishing applications if you’re a senior, or learning what school entails after high school for underclassmen. This has many students feeling unprepared, or not knowing what to expect. A high school senior Whitney Bird says, “It has felt extremely overwhelming, and once I finish something there’s always something else to do.” Fortunately, OSHS offers a program to help guide you through these difficulties, and it aims to help all grades learn what the college process entails, and helps expose students to the different local options available to them.
The program offered at OSHS is called CCR and it stands for College and Career Readiness. Mrs. Using and Mrs. Fawcett both direct the program, and organize events. With these programs, they help students draft and polish their application essays and they give vital feedback on how to improve students’ writing, and allows stressed students to not have to go through the process alone.
The program also helps guide the choosing of schools, and even provide visits of popular options for inclined students. They host meetings during flex, for local and surrounding colleges to come in and do a quick presentation on what each college is best suited for. This allows the students to see the best options, and which college is going to feel right to them. At one of the visits, Bryant University came and spoke about their programs, and allowed for students to become more involved and educated in the college process. They spoke about what colleges look for in an application, the different majors and minors offered at Bryant University, and what the overall environment of college life is like. Other colleges like Sacred Heart, Suffolk, Quinnipiac and more have this same process, and allow students to picture what it would be like to attend.
Worried about the cost of school? CCR also addresses this by funding and sourcing scholarships for a variety of majors and fields that students are interested in. OSHS itself funds over 200,000 dollars annually for scholarships for seniors, and many students apply for between five to thirty scholarships each. Referencing this, Mrs. Fawcett, the head of the scholarship program here at OSHS, stated, “We’ve seen students get a lot of money.” Because of this program here at OSHS, students, with the help of CCR, have been able to get upwards of $30,000. Keep an eye out for the CCR Newsletter for more opportunities.
