Adviser gives students that extra little nudge

DURHAM -- Next week, seniors at Hillside High who have completed their college applications will wear little stickers that say: "I've applied. Have you?"

The messages, much like the "I voted" stickers on Election Day, are courtesy of Ebonie Leonard, a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who's encouraging others to follow her path to a college degree. Leonard, 22, works as an adviser at Hillside and Southern high schools in Durham as part of the Carolina College Advising Corps, a program that places recent college graduates in schools with low college attendance.

On Monday, Leonard and Hillside hosted a visit from UNC-CH admissions officials and Chancellor James Moeser, who talked to about 50 aspiring college students in the school's library.

The chancellor tossed Tar Heel T-shirts to students who correctly answered trivia questions about the university. Then he and his staff responded to a flurry of questions: What does it take to get admitted to UNC-CH? Do you have to apply early to get financial aid? How do you go about studying abroad?

Moeser asked how many planned to go to college. Many hands shot up.

"I don't have to tell you that's a million-dollar decision you just made," he said, citing the lifetime earnings potential. "To be successful in the 21st century, you really need a college education."

Leonard aims to get more students to that goal. On Monday, as students filed into the library, she buttonholed one for failing to respond to a recent e-mail message. "Did you send off your application?" she asked. "How did you feel about it?"

In Leonard's office at Hillside, a copy of the Dr. Seuss book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" is displayed prominently on a bookshelf. Leonard, who majored in sociology and plans to attend graduate school, works to dispel the notion that being smart isn't cool.

She recently tried to talk a student out of taking a year off between high school and college. "I said, 'What are you going to do for a year?' I was like, 'I don't think that's the best idea.' "

Leonard offers pep talks to students who don't think they're college material. She hounds students about submitting financial aid forms on time. She hopes to take a group of low-income students on a campus tour around North Carolina.

"I'm here for them," she said. "Any question they have, my door is always open."

Deon Tedder, a senior, asked Leonard to read his college essay. She told him to give it another try; he ripped it up and started over.

"With the application process, it's really stressful," Tedder said. "You're trying to figure out what they like and how you can impress them."

Tedder has applied to James Madison University in Virginia and UNC-CH. Leonard's enthusiasm for UNC-CH was contagious, Tedder said.

"She kind of pushes us to go for it," he said. "You know, you'll never know unless you try."

"We need to find out three or four more Ms. Leonards," Hillside Principal Earl Pappy said.

National data show that the average ratio of high school students to guidance counselors is 488 to one, said Nicole Hurd, executive director of the National College Advising Corps, which is based at UNC-CH.

"Our students are so under-served, and our guidance counselors are so overwhelmed," said Hurd, who started a similar program at the University of Virginia. "The idea was match [students] up with recent graduates that could get them excited about college."

The program, paid for in part by a $10 million grant by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, aims to open the doors of higher education to more poor and minority students. The national effort, which follows in the tradition of Teach for America and AmeriCorps, began in August with 60 graduates from 11 colleges and universities around the country.

The Carolina program now has four advisers working in high schools in Alamance, Chatham, Durham and Guilford counties. When fully implemented next year, nine advisers will work in 18 high schools from Ahoskie to Charlotte, including 14 threatened with closure by a judge last year because of failure rates.