Getting Started: BISD urges students to apply early for college

The Brownsville Independent School District is reaching out to high school seniors, urging them to get started early in applying for college or university admission and the financial aid to help pay for their education.

“A lot of our students are first-generation college (students), and so they really need assistance with the forms that must be completed,” said Pilar Janis, the district’s higher education counselor.

Those include the Apply Texas blanket application for college or university admission in Texas, the Common Application, which covers nearly 300 institutions nationwide, and the Free Application for Financial Student Aid, or, FAFSA.

For the first time this year, the FAFSA is an online-only application, meaning that students and parents must obtain an electronic pin number.

“It’s their electronic signature for all financial aid,” Janis said.

One way to get one is to visit the College Center, an outreach effort from 5 to 8 p.m. every Monday in Room 107 of the Central Administration Building at 708 Palm Blvd.

On Monday, Hanna High School senior Erika Hernandez was there getting information on scholarships and financial aid, as were Pace High School classmates Stephanie Cohen and Paulina Sosa. Later, several parents came in to get FASFA pin numbers, Janis said

Cohen plans to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Sosa, the current Pace valedictorian, has her sights set on Harvard, and Hernandez hopes to attend St. Edward’s University in Austin.

In each case, applying early for financial aid and scholarships will be important, as will the essay section of their applications because admission to the schools is so competitive.

Sosa said she wants to do everything as perfectly as possible since each year Harvard gets 20,000 applications for 2,000 available slots.

Cohen said money will be an issue.

Four years at MIT, costs about $200,000, Janis said, but added that almost all BISD students can afford a college or university education if they want to.

“In our district, 93 percent of the students qualify as economically disadvantaged,” Janis said. “That means that 93 percent of our students will find all of the money or most of the money to go to college.”

But they have to get started early. The deadline for applying for scholarships to the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, for example, is Dec. 1.

“And in financial aid, the early bird gets the worm,” Janis said.

Janis is BISD’s only higher education counselor, but she works in collaboration with college counselors at the district’s five high schools and admission officials at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

The College Center allows Janis to give individual attention to those who come in, particularly on application essays. Janis was an English teacher before becoming higher education counselor and said she has developed an eye over the years for what needs to go into a good essay.