Third Floor: Closing the scholarship gap | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

Those are probably fighting words, but I hope I'm going to be excused from a pummeling if I point to the notable gap between scholarship dollars reported by these county high schools and students at the other nine,

Severna Park and Old Mill each reported that their students pulled in more than $8 million in scholarship offers this spring, followed by Annapolis at more than $6 million.

The only other north county school to even come close to that kind of success was Northeast in Pasadena, where seniors reported approaching a healthy $3.3 million. North County and Meade high schools ranked last with $1.9 million and $1 million, respectively.

It's Gayle Cicero's job to figure out the reason for the gap, and close it.

As the coordinator of counseling services for county schools, one step she's taken is to make a Web-based tool called Naviance available to all students by October. This search engine, which will cost less than $15,000, allows students to compare colleges, track acceptance and enrollment statistics and hunt for scholarship opportunities.

The idea is that no matter what your background, whether you've been lured back to public schools by the International Baccalaureate programs or your parents dropped out of high school, this system is designed to simplify finding the right college and winning scholarships.

"We're trying to even the playing field for this kind of stuff," Gayle said. "If you're in a home that has Internet access and gets the newspaper you might be very attuned to scholarship opportunities. What about a family where keeping up on things isn't part of their lifestyle?"

Tested out at Broadneck and Chesapeake high schools over the past two years, Naviance gives each student an individual account. Students should be able to search out money for college they otherwise might never know existed.

"I really do expect to see an increase in two areas over time," Gayle said. "More kids accessing post secondary education, and I anticipate seeing an increase in scholarship money."

At Chesapeake High, which made Naviance available to students last year, Principal Patricia Plitt attributes part of the school's $1.3 million increase in scholarships to the Web-based system.

She also credits an involved guidance department that has worked hard to keep students, often burned out by the college acceptance process, focused on meeting deadlines, writing essays and filling out applications for scholarships.

"They've centralized the process, offering one-stop shopping. That helped students to come out and apply for more," she said.

That's another key point in closing the gap. It's not just software that will make a difference, it's people. The school system recently added registrars to high school guidance offices to free counselors from paperwork and give them more time to, well, counsel.

At North County High, counselors arranged transportation to an SAT exam site for more than 50 kids, students who otherwise wouldn't have even considered college.

At Glen Burnie High, a single student pulled in $625,000 worth of scholarship offers, more than a third of the school's $2.1 million total. John Ziegler credited help from his father, a teacher at Meade, rather than his guidance counselors.

John had support at home some of his peers in north county schools didn't have, daily exposure to adults with college degrees, help at home filling out the applications and an expectation of success.

"The time line and the paperwork and the planning that it takes to get through that process is unbelievable," Gayle said. "It's all these deadlines and time lines. It's a very overwhelming process for a mom who also has to work to met all these deadlines."

Would Naviance have made a difference for his classmates? Check back next year.

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Rick Hutzell is the editor of the Maryland Gazette. E-mail him at rhutzell@mdgazette.com