She’s going to Penn State.
And I haven’t seen any indication that she applied to the black common app colleges.
Wonder how she did on her standardized testing. Apparently it did not matter…
Thanks for fixing the quotebox, skieurope 
Media will hype up anything to get more hits. What would impress me more is a kid applying to two colleges: first choice and a back up.
She’s going to Penn State BEAVER because they gave her a volleyball scholarship.
This is a community college in the middle of nowhere with about 600 students, with direct guaranteed Admission to Penn state main campus after two years (when she’ll lose her volleyball scholarship). Hopefully yellow ribbon will help her pay for the last two years.
This is a kid with no obvious college guidance but lots of hard work and perseverance, whose school and family clearly know very little about college, and who did what she thought she needed to do.
The article explains very little and is sensationalist.
I wish there was a dedicated college counselor assigned to lower performing schools so that high performing kids at these schools received appropriate guidance. S/he could be assigned to several schools and be specialized in helping lower income/high achieving kids.
^ That is an excellent idea. I truly hate seeing these stories because it just perpetuates the cycle of poor college admissions guidance to low income students, especially URMs. This student would have had better options with far fewer, targeted applications. And it’s not racist to point that out.
Of course it’s not - this applies to urban, rural, white, black, brown kids…
What is this kid, who’s Volleyball captain and valedictorian, going to do at Beaver? Seriously. Did she choose it because she could play volleyball and couldn’t at UGA (where she’d be an autoadmit)? Did someone explain to her there’s a difference between Beaver and Penn state in general? How alone she’ll be? Sure she’ll knock out some gen ed classes in a smaller setting than at UGA but … I don’t know if she had any help in making her choice and how it makes sense. 
"This student would have had better options with far fewer, targeted applications. "
Not sure how that is determined to be true without all the facts.
“Did she choose it because she could play volleyball”?
Kids frequently do choose a school for sports, (even though I would not want my own kids making that choice). But the most common reason for a kid to choose a “lesser” school is economic, isn’t it? That’s usually advised as a good choice around here. Could that have been a second reason for choosing Beaver?
Lots of assumptions being made about this student and her reasoning, without supporting evidence.
I tried to watch the video about her announcement at her school. She continuously said Penn State (didn’t mention Beaver), and tv news also says penn state, but the print articles say Beaver. She signed a NLI so seems to be getting a sports scholarship. Unfortunately the school video was long and hard to hear , but if someone is willing to watch it I’ll look later to see if I can find the link. Of course anyone can feel free to pull it up.
There was a girl last year who started a club at her low income inner city school to help other classmates with the application process. Now that is impressive, IMO. IIRC she also got into some very high # of schools, but unlike this student, she may have applied through the black common app.
@Postmodern Reasonable assumptions are being made based on available information and my own experiences (I mentor low income and first gen high school students). She’s a val, from a low performing school, from a low to moderate income family, in a state with a generous scholarship program. I promise you had I worked with her she wouldn’t have been going to Penn State Beaver. She may have had to play club volleyball, but that would have been far wiser. There is nothing to suggest that she received appropriate guidance. Quite the opposite, by all indications she did not.
There are very, very few that will and they are very difficult to get into.
Also, there is a limit on the number of fee waivers that can be used for the CA. Any beyond that require separate paperwork.
Poor kids aren’t getting the advantages a upper middle class parents think they are, even if they do manage to have the stats and experiences to be good candidates for the few colleges that can afford to educate them for what their families can afford.
Her mom was apparently very involved with her application process. Hard to know what she did or did not understand about the process or what other variables in their personal lives contributed to this decision.
Oh and correction- she did say Penn State Beaver when she announced. Was hard to hear.
Though its unfortunate she didnt seem to know about Questbridge or Posse
I did watch the signing ceremony and she does say Penn State, but in the comments someone said ‘Beaver’. If she is at Penn State, it is a full COA scholarship for D1 volleyball… If it is at Beaver, that is not an NCAA program, so it wouldn’t be an NLI (although many people do say they are ‘signing an NLI’ even for Div III schools when it is not an NCAA NLI) and really no telling what the athletic scholarship is.
Non- NCAA athletics set their own rules for scholarships (NAIA, JUCO, or USCAA).
I hope they have it all figured out.
I’m skeptical if it’s Penn State main campus for volleyball… very late for a recruit and she’d have to be a superstar in her sport.
No, it’s Penn State Beaver, a 2-year branch with about 600 students in the middle of nowhere. And I doubt that they offer Athletic scholarships so her choice makes no sense.
(Alo I don’t see how Penn State oos can be the same cost or cheaper as UGA instate).
“Lots of assumptions being made about this student and her reasoning, without supporting evidence.”
On this point we are in total agreement.
I would really like to know her reasoning.
It’s good at sports for such a small school (it’s not NCAA because it’s too small, but it’s similar to a small-scale Div 3) but it’s not a school I’d imagine a valedictorian or salutatorian would attend, especially from OOS.
Perhaps they offered an academic full ride?
But Penn State is known to be stingy and offer very little even to instate students.
It’s 40K OOS (which for a community college is outrageous :neutral: )
The journalists didn’t really ask and it’s the big missing gap: she didn’t know where to go… how did she decide?