Counselors Corner: Miscellaneous Information from College Board

Tiana Cornelius, a junior at Barnard College, told The New York Times that with a 1320 on the SAT® and a grade point average just shy of 4.0 she likely could have landed a spot at a top-tier university straight out of high school. But she figured, why bother? Not when she could save a ton of money by attending Rockland Community College in New York for two years instead of forking over $22,000 for tuition at Barnard.

On Dec. 15, The Times reported that many community colleges across the country are reshaping themselves to attract the best and the brightest of high school students with promises of huge savings and easy transfers to premier universities after just two short years. They are putting together the kind of curriculums that one might expect to be offered by a liberal arts university; even the pickiest admissions officers would be hard-pressed to call their students unprepared.

For instance, Miami-Dade Community College, the nation's biggest junior college with roughly 140,000 students, opened an honors program that requires nothing short of a 1200 on the SAT and a 3.7 GPA to get into. More than 168 community colleges now have such honors programs that are intended to catapult their students into the nation's top-rated four-year universities, compared to no more than two dozen just 15 years ago, The Times said.

Rosemary DuRocher Guidance Counselor Area: Panhandle through Brevard, including Orlando area	John Myers Guidance Counselor Area: Dade and Monroe counties
Kathy Walker Guidance Counselor Area: Pasco, Polk, Osceola, Indian River, and south to Broward