Making a Decision About College: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Teaching Case
Lad L. Dell
2003
Contents:
Case Narrative
Marisela Castillo
Marisela is well liked by those who know her at school and she's earned a
reputation for being a hard worker. She excels in the sciences and her teachers
have taken note. Her biology teacher was able to match her interests with medicine
and children, and set her up with a volunteer position at the local hospital
that her mother works at. Marisela loves going to the hospital and spending
time with the children there. It has solidified her resolve to become a pediatrician.
“It's hard to describe the feeling I have when I go to the hospital.
I get all excited. And the kids, their faces just light up when I see them.
My mom tells me that it's not always happy at the hospital and that there is
a lot of pain too, but I know that I could see myself working there, not as
an orderly or a nurse, but as a doctor!”
Marisela also loves working with children in part because she has helped her
mother raise her three younger siblings: Ana is 12 years old, Miguel is 10 years
old, and Rosa is 7 years old. Because Claudia works two jobs, Marisela usually
prepares nightly meals and makes sure that her brother and sisters complete
their schoolwork. After washing the dishes and cleaning up after them, Marisela
finally has time to devote to her own studies. It's not uncommon for her bedroom
light to be on past midnight.
“I know that I stay up late to finish my homework, but that's what I
have to do to help my mom and my brother and sisters out. Sometimes I wish I
had it like some of the other kids at school who don't have to work or take
care of their brothers and sisters. They get to hang out, play sports, and do
more after school things. It's not easy, but I'm doing the best that I can.”
Because Marisela wants to be a doctor, she applied to colleges with strong
reputations in premedical studies. With the help of a fee waiver, she applied
to six schools across the country. Marisela was eager for April 1st to come,
the day that admission decision letters from colleges usually arrive. As the
postal carrier rounded the corner, she burst out the door to intercept the mail
before it was even deposited in the mailbox: one small envelope and two big
ones. She opened up the small one first and found out that she was denied admission
to UCLA. The next two were from UC Riverside and Washington University and they
were both acceptance letters. Over the course of the week, Marisela received
acceptance letters from Johns Hopkins University and Brown University and a
deny letter from Stanford University.
“Wow! I got accepted to four of my colleges! I'm kinda bummed that UCLA
and Stanford didn't accept me, but that's okay. Johns Hopkins was my dream school
and Brown has an accelerated medical program, and they're all giving me a lot
of financial aid. I wonder what Mom is going to say. I mean, I'll have to go
away from home. Who's going to look after Ana, Miguel, and Rosa? I really wanna
be a doctor, but I'm worried about going so far away from my family.”
Later that night, Marisela called her Aunt Clara in Sacramento As usual, Clara
comforted Marisela from a distance. “Marisela, you don't worry about mi
hermana Claudia. You just worry about becoming a doctor.”
Claudia Castillo
Claudia came to California from El Salvador to flee the war and to give her
children a better life. Her sister Clara, who had immigrated a few years earlier
encouraged her. The father of Claudia's children, on the other hand, refused
to leave El Salvador and fought her to keep the kids in their home country.
Claudia had to escape in the middle of the night in order to get away. She fears
that he might track them down one of these days.
“It's not easy balancing two jobs and raising four children. Before Clara
moved to Sacramento I could at least get some help from her. Now, by the time
I get home, I just want to lie down. I barely have the energy to eat the meal
that my dear Marisela so diligently prepares every night. I wonder if things
are ever going to get any easier?”
Claudia works the night shift at the hospital as a midwife and during the day
at a local restaurant. She wishes she had more time to spend with her children,
but she has to work to be able to pay the rent and provide them with food and
clothes. Claudia raised her children with the belief that they could be anything
that they wanted to be as long as they worked hard. She has always encouraged
them to do well at school. Now that it was time for Marisela to go off to college
to pursue her dreams, Claudia was torn between her hopes for her daughter, but
also her dependence on her.
“I'm so proud of Marisela. She's a good student, a great sister to her
siblings, and a wonderful daughter. I don't know what I would do without her.
I want her to be successful in life and have it easier than I did, but I don't
know if going away to school will be good for her. She's so young and I worry
about her safety and how she'll be treated. My sister Clara tells me that this
is why we came to California, for a better life for our children, but Marisela
will be so far away from home and her family. Maybe it's better that she go
to the nearby community college.”
Linda Ruiz, Biology Teacher
“Marisela is special. Not too many girls are interested in the sciences
and the fact that Marisela excels in them is wonderful. I can see her going
really far in life. The sky's the limit. I also have a lot of respect for the
additional responsibility that she takes on at her age. It's not easy having
to juggle challenging schoolwork with a part-time job and taking care of younger
siblings. Frankly, I don't know how she does it or where she finds the energy.”
Linda has been teaching for three years and also is a first-generation college
graduate. She sees a lot of herself in Marisela and hopes that Marisela won't
be held back by her family responsibilities. Linda, too, had an aptitude for
the sciences when she was young and aspired to be a doctor. She had a hard time
convincing her parents that she should go away for college. She ended up having
to strike a deal with them by attending a community college for the first two
years before she could go “away” to college. Though she eventually
earned her bachelor of science, she feels that she would have gone farther in
her career had she gone away to college right after high school.
“It's just not the same living at home and going to college, especially
in the beginning. Freshman year is when you build social networks and become
part of the college community. I'm not saying that I wasn't able to find my
niche once I transferred from the community college, but I do know that it was
a little bit harder. There are experiences living at college that you can't
replicate being at home. What I have come to realize is that college is important
for the learning that occurs in the classroom, but equally important is the
learning that happens outside of the classroom. You can't buy experience. I
hope that Marisela will have that opportunity.”
Jonathan Stewart, Guidance Counselor
Jonathan has lived in Palmdale all of his life. He's been a guidance counselor
at Palmdale High School for over 15 years and has taught there for 10 years
also. He has a caseload of 550 students. The bulk of his time is spent coordinating
students' class schedules and handling any disciplinary issues that come up.
Not much of his time is devoted to career or college counseling, as evidenced
by the cookie-cutter type letters of recommendation that he puts out for his
counselees who are applying to college.
“To be honest, I don't know Marisela all that well. She hasn't gotten
into any trouble so I don't see her all that much. I met with her once to explain
the fee waiver for her college applications. From what I know, she's a pretty
good student and well liked by her peers and teachers. She has one of the toughest
schedules a student could have with four AP courses this year, two of them in
the sciences. I think she has to take care of her younger siblings because her
mother works a lot. That being the case, maybe it's better that she stay local.
I'm sure her mother would be happy.”
Ricardo Vargas, University Admissions Counselor
Ricardo has been an admissions counselor for Johns Hopkins University for
the past year. He is originally from the Los Angeles area and spent his formative
years there. After graduating from high school, he went to college on the East
Coast to, in his words, “get away from his family.”
“I knew that I didn't want to go to school near home. I wanted to have
a new experience and didn't think staying in Southern California would give
me what I wanted. My mom went to college in the Midwest and my father went to
college in the Northeast. They both studied abroad too. They showed me the importance
of trying new things and seeing new places, so I try to convey that to the prospective
students that I meet. I think Marisela would have a great experience at Hopkins
and it would definitely put her on the right path for medical school.”
Marisela's Decision
May 1st, the deadline to reply to the colleges, is two weeks away ...
Marisela only has two weeks to decide where she will be next year after she
graduates from Palmdale High School. So far she has visited UC Riverside, which
is about 90 miles away from Palmdale, with her mom. She wasn't convinced that
UCR was the right place for her, but she didn't dislike it either. Johns Hopkins
University extended the offer to fly her out to their campus for their open
house and she happily accepted.
Deep down, Claudia wanted what was best for her daughter, but as Marisela boarded
the plane bound for Baltimore, she couldn't resist reiterating to Marisela how
much she and the family would miss her if she went so far away. Comfortably
cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet in a deep, puffy bed of clouds, Marisela
was torn; how could she pursue her dreams and at the same time make her mom
and family happy?
This case is primarily fictional, but loosely built on the cumulative experiences
of the author.
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Discussion Questions
- What are Claudia's views and values about where Marisela goes to college?
How do Claudia's ambitions for Marisela and dependence on Marisela affect
her feelings about college?
- How does Claudia understand her influence over Marisela's decision?
- How has or can the school emphasize the value of higher education and “going
away to college” to Claudia (i.e., visits to college, speaking with admissions
counselors)?
- What role does the community have in supporting Latino students' aspirations
for higher education?
- Who has Marisela expressed her feelings to? How could school personnel create
an atmosphere for discussing these feelings?
- How can Linda Ruiz, the biology teacher, relate better to Claudia about
Marisela's dilemma? What has her communication with Claudia been like so far?
- How does Ricardo Vargas, the admissions counselor from Johns Hopkins, understand
Marisela's home situation? How is he sensitive or insensitive to her home
situation? What could he do to help Marisela?
- How can John Stewart, the guidance counselor, be more helpful?
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Resources for Family Involvement and Preparation
for College
Bridging Worlds Website at www.bridgingworlds.org/selectedpublications.html
This website features several articles by Catherine Cooper and her colleagues
at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which focus on ethnic minority
youth.
Fry, R. (2002, September). Latinos in higher education: Many enroll, too
few graduate. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Available at pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=11.
This report considers the discrepancy between enrollment in higher education
and degree completion for Latino students and suggests policy initiatives to
address this problem.
Lowell, B. L., & Suro, R. (2002, December). The improving educational
profile of Latino immigrants. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Available
at pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=14.
Despite the persistence of an achievement gap between immigrants and native-born
U.S. populations, this report finds that the educational profile of the adult
population of Latino immigrants has improved in the past 30 years. This page
also has a link to education data for California, Florida, Illinois, New York,
and Texas.
National Public Radio. (2002). Educating Latinos: An NPR special report. Washington,
DC: Author. Available at www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/nov/educating_latinos/index.html.
NPR explores several topics about Latino education, including the bilingual
education debate, educating Latinas, and the continuing achievement gap between
generations of Latino immigrants.
Ruiz-de-Velasco, J., Fix, M., & Chu Clewell, B. (2000, December 1). Overlooked
and underserved: Immigrant students in U.S. secondary schools. Washington
DC, Urban Institute. Available at www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=310022.
This report describes the Program in Immigrant Education, its challenges, and
schools' responses.
Tornatzky, L. G., Cutler, R., & Lee, J. (2002, April). College knowledge:
What Latino parents need to know and why they don't know it. Claremont,
CA: Tomás Rivera Policy Institute.
This study highlights the levels of Latino parents' knowledge about preparing
their children for college and includes recommendations to increase Latino college
enrollment.
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