NACAC Spring 2019: Did You Know?

I attended my first National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) College Fair in Santa Clara today. I learned so much in such a short amount of time! Here are a few highlights I don’t want to forget.

Did You Know….

Western Undergraduate Exchange colleges offer huge tuition discounts to students in the exchange states, which include the US West from Alaska and Hawaii to North and South Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico. These discounts range up to almost $10,000 and make many western colleges comparable to UC’s tuition of $12,570.

University of Nevada Las Vegas is not only a WUE campus but is very friendly to transfer students. While in some cases WUE scholarships only apply to freshman, UNLV allows transfer students to earn them as well. They also have a great Exploring Majors program for students who aren’t certain about what they want to study. (Western Oregon University also has transfer-friendly scholarships and policies.)

Southern Utah University has a fascinating mix of associate, bachelor, and certificate programs, including an extensive program in aviation and a 3-year accelerated bachelor’s degree. They publish their scholarship matrix online and provide full tuition to high-performing students.

The University of Hawai’i at Manoa is home to the HI-SEAS Mars simulation site, created glowing mice in their genetics lab, and offers a Marine Option Program which adds marine ecology to any major at any UH campus. And they offer a degree in Ethnomathematics. Now that’s just cool.

Although the college admissions scandal has left a bad air around college admissions, the reality is that my own kids, their classmates and friends, and my high school students still have the best chance of career success by getting a postsecondary education after high school. The more I know about the whole system, the better I can serve anyone who reaches out to me. ~KM