By Jennifer Fernandez, News-Record.com

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Brian Woodard  knows how difficult it can be to get into college.

His family didn’t have a lot of money. And he struggled with a learning disability.

Yet here he is, a year after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill, spreading his message to local high school students.

“The most amazing thing is to see students who didn’t think they’d have the opportunity to go to college get that chance,” said Woodard, 24 . 

Woodard is one of two college graduates stationed at Rockingham County’s high schools through the Carolina College Advising Corps .

The group, started in 2007,  is part of the National College Advising Corps , a program that places recent college graduates in high schools to assist students with getting into college.

Advisers help students explore careers, research colleges and universities, complete applications, apply for waivers of application and testing fees, edit college essays, complete financial aid forms, and research and complete scholarship applications.

Guidance counselors, who typically handle college advising, get pulled in so many directions nowadays that it helps to have an extra person to go over college
issues with students, said Jennie Cox Bell , program coordinator for Carolina College Advising Corps.

About 20  advisers are stationed throughout the state, with a third of them at Piedmont Triad-area schools, including those in Guilford, Alamance, Davidson, Forsyth and Rockingham counties.

From August 2008  through January 2010 , advisers met with about 13,100  students, Bell said.

Rockingham’s posts are funded by the Reidsville Area Foundation and the Rockingham County Education Foundation.

Woodard and Kristen Simmons  split time at the county’s four high schools.

They work with all of the schools’ students, but the program focuses on reaching low-income students and those who are the first in their family to attend college.

“I think Brian and Kristen are particularly good at seeking out students who are college material but may not realize it,” Bell said.

Woodard reaches out to students in various ways. He offers presentations in class on various college-related topics. He speaks to students one on one. And while walking down the hall, he randomly points to students and asks them, “Where are you going?”

“It gets them thinking about it — kind of puts them on the spot,” he said.

Most seek help filling out the form to request federal financial aid. And they ask about whether their major is available at the schools that interest them, Woodard said.

This year, he went to middle schools to speak with students, and he took high school students on campus visits to several North Carolina colleges.

Many of them have never been to a college campus, even though this area boasts several public and private schools.

“In high school,” he said, “if I would have had something like this, it would have been awesome.”

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com