College applications are daunting. This program is preparing Native high school students for success

According to the most recent U.S. Census, there are only 27 American Indian or Alaska Native people living in State College, Pa. One of them is Lilith Thompson, a rising high school senior and member of the Cherokee nation.

Most of what Thompson knows about what it means to be Cherokee comes from her mother and her family. She and her mother have taken Cherokee language lessons together, and visited her family in Oklahoma who still live on their allotted land. But outside of those lessons from her grandparents and great-uncle, she hasn’t spent much time with many other Native people, including those her age.

Until this past week.

Thompson joined nearly 100 other Native high school students from across the country at the University of Pennsylvania for College Horizons, a program designed to prepare Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students to apply to college.

Over the course of the week, the rising junior and senior students learned from admissions representatives and faculty members from other colleges and universities about the ins and outs of the application process, and connected with each other over their Indigenous heritage.

Native students are traditionally underrepresented in American colleges and universities — according to research from the Postsecondary National Policy Institute, only 22% of Native Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, compared with 40% of the overall population.

At College Horizons, the students and staff discussed what it is like for Native students to transition into college, and how to thrive and find community once they are there.

“It’s been amazing. I’ve never really had something like this and it’s just been really informative and I’ve learned so much. I’ve met people who are Navajo, I’ve met people who are Lumbee, and I met people who are [from the] Cherokee Nation,” Thompson said.

“It’s just very fascinating to see all of our different backgrounds, and to see it doesn’t matter who you are, the pressures that we’ve had, we’re all ... family here. It’s very empowering.”

Penn has hosted College Horizons twice before, in 2012 and 2018. The program began in New Mexico in 1998, but has grown to host multiple summer sessions at different universities, and serves about 200 students a year.

At Penn’s College Horizons this past week, students came from 19 states and 33 tribal nations, Alaskan Native villages or Hawaiian Islands.

“We get students from all walks of life in Indian country. Indian country is vast,” said Christine Suina, program coordinator for College Horizons.

“We’ve got students who come from the reservation, who know their language, their culture. We’ve got other students whose families moved to urban areas, to cities, to suburbs.”

The students were split into groups of about a dozen each, and throughout the week they spent time with volunteer counselors who taught them what they will need for the demanding application process. From sharpening their essays and meeting with admissions representatives at a college fair, to learning about financial aid and how to strategize early decision versus regular decision, Suina said that the students left with all of the tools they need to be strong applicants.

But at the same time, she explained that while the focus of the program is on the next few years of the students’ lives, College Horizons also holds a longer view for their impacts.

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“Our program is really about nation building. Many of our students, they become the first doctors, lawyers, professors [in their families]. Some of the people in our program become the movers and the shakers of Indian country,” she said.

“What we’re working on is helping the students tell their story of who they are, where they come from, knowing that these students are going to go back to their communities and help their people and their families survive [as] we’ve survived all of these years.”

Tina P. Fragoso, coordinator of Native American recruitment at Penn, said that even for someone like her, who has worked with College Horizons for years, bringing so many Native students together makes it “the best week of our lives.”

“For me, to see a courtyard full of Native students, I can never unsee that again. A lot of these students, they may have come from small communities where they’re [the] only [Native] one, or they might come from communities where everybody’s the same tribe,” she said.

To end the week, the program held a “traditional night,” where students were invited to show each other pieces of their own Native heritage, including song, dance and important cultural objects.

“They’re all coming here and seeing other people that are committed to education, who are leaders in their community, and they’re going to be their colleagues. ... I think it really sets them up for what’s going to happen next in our world.”

Grace Beard, a member of the Lumbee Nation of North Carolina and a rising senior from Warren, N.J., has been hearing about College Horizons for years. Both of her older siblings went through the program; they raved about the experience meeting other Native students for the first time, and used what they learned to get into Penn and Yale. There was a lot of hype to live up to, but her experience has been just as memorable as her brother and sister’s.

“Honestly, this is definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had,” she said.

Coming into the program, Beard was scared that she would be judged for not being “Native enough.” She doesn’t live on a reservation and she is white-passing; outside of her family, she doesn’t know a single Native person from her hometown or the schools she’s attended.

But that fear quickly went away once she met other Native students whose experiences have been just like hers, and who have dealt with feelings of isolation and endured microaggressions.

“I have never had the opportunity to be around this many Native people before besides tribal gatherings. And ... it’s really nice to be able to talk to other people about struggles that you’ve never been able to talk to anyone about before,” she said.

The college application prep has eased her stress, too. Beard feels more confident about studying for standardized tests now, and said that working with the program’s essay specialist has helped unlock a section of her brain.

She’s not sure yet of what exactly she will study in college, but knows that she wants to use what she learns to tell Native perspectives and stories.

“If I don’t do it and if other native people aren’t going to do it, then who’s going to do it? Who is going to tell these Native stories if you don’t take it into your own hands?” she said.

“In a way, it’s decolonizing the world to share these stories of perseverance after colonization and how so much effort was put to push my people down [yet] we’re still here and we’re still resilient.”