High school seniors get help applying to colleges

NEGAUNEE — High school seniors from thirteen Upper Peninsula schools are receiving help this week in their efforts to apply to college.

This is Michigan’s fourth annual College Application Week. The goal of the week is to give every graduating senior who wants to attend college the opportunity to apply. They’re using some time specially set aside during the class day to complete at least one application to a post-secondary program.

“My mom works at Northern (Michigan University), so I have free tuition,” Negaunee High School senior Michael Wilber said. “I kind of thought to myself — because Northern wasn’t my first choice of a school — if I’m going to save myself around $80,000, then that’d be a pretty good thing to do. I think I want to go into business, some kind of business degree, whether it be management or marketing or maybe even find my way in some financial portion of business.”

During the program, students can apply to any Michigan college or university they’re interested in. If they’ve already finished the applications that they want to send, they can get help applying for scholarships and other financial aid.

“The teachers, the guidance office, are all on board helping us get the programs, the paperwork, everything,” Negaunee senior Ashley Burns said. “Financial aid, scholarships, all going to the right direction to make us move into that next step. I’m looking at some nursing programs, especially at Northern, because they have one that you can go into traveling for that, so I want to go around the U.S. or something just to help people. I’ve been looking at (the University of Michigan) and (Michigan State University).”

Staff members from Negaunee High School, MARESA and the grant-funded TRIO program volunteered their time outside of working hours to help Negaunee students fill out applications through the program.

Six of the thirteen U.P. schools taking part are in either Marquette County or Alger County. The other seven are spread across the U.P. from Bessemer to Newberry.