EduBound: Improving the College Application and Transition Process for First-Generation Students

Contributors: Elana Hummel, Ethan Sylvia, Hank Tadeusiak

Problem Solution Overview

Because they are the first in their family to go to college, many first generation college students do not have access to college planning resources. Therefore, first generation college students are more likely than their continuing-generation peers to depart from postsecondary school after the first year and not return. Resources that first-generation students often rely on to understand the college admissions process include high school counselors, University-specific first-generation student programs, and other various academic advisors and mentors. The biggest issue here is that the quality of advice each student receives varies from school to school. While one student may have a supportive and helpful counselor or advisor, another student may have an advisor who is discouraging and unaccommodating. Additionally, many first-generation students discover in their first year of college that their high school courses did not prepare them for college-level courses, even if they were described as “advanced” or count as college credits. There are also various online articles and websites that can be helpful for first-generation college students, but they are often vague and lack a complete overview of big picture decisions, such as deciding whether or not to take the SAT or deciding which college to attend. Having one centralized, interactive resource for first-generation students could greatly improve the success of these students and help them feel more confident as they transition from high school to college. This is why we decided to design EduBound, a web application for high school students who will be the first generation in their family to attend college, to provide resources and guidance to students looking to further their education.

Design Research Goals, Stakeholders, and Participants

While our target user group is high school students planning to attend college, we decided to reach out to current first-generation college students for our user research. For our research plan, we used a survey with direct storytelling as an additional question. We decided to use this method because of the limited time we had to conduct our user research and because it is often difficult to find the time to set up meetings with other college students. We received 13 responses for our survey questions. 7 of the 13 participants who completed the survey also completed the direct storytelling question. All participants were first generation students currently attending the University of Washington. Based on where we did recruiting, our participants were a mixture of STEM, design, and economics majors.

Design Research Results and Themes

There are many themes we discovered across questions as a part of our user research. One of the first barriers that survey respondents faced was a lack of preparation from their high school courses. Many of these students took AP classes at their high school and felt their experience in these classes poorly prepared them for college. Students reported that these AP classes didn’t encourage the independent learning that is required to succeed in college, and poorly prepared for UW. Students that enrolled in community college classes or in programs like Running Start found their experience to prepare them much better for UW, as the classes and learning are structured similarly to university.

We also asked in our survey what resources students felt were most useful or non useful. First-generation college students reported that a lack of parental guidance made the college application process much more difficult. Mentoring figures are useful for these students because they provide resources as well presenting information for the general timeline of significant events for applying to college. However, some schools have a lack of quality college counselors or advisors, and students without parental support might find this an impediment when figuring out their plan for college. This lack of a mentor figure can make certain tasks difficult to complete for first generation college, one example being the FAFSA. Students reported lack of understanding of financial lingo was an impediment for completing the FAFSA. One participant reported that their parents could only provide tax documentation for the FAFSA but was unable to help complete it.

Based on the direct-storytelling responses we got, impostor syndrome is incredibly common among first-generation students. Many of the students cited a lack of resources and support as the main cause of their feelings of impostor syndrome.

Proposed Design

Our proposed design is a web application that will add an additional layer of support for first generation students. We sought a solution that would be free to use and easy to access from any device a student may have.

Given the needs outlined in our research results, our design would provide a centralized source of information to supplement the mentorship of an actual advisor. In order to accomplish this, the design would include a timeline-like feature that walks a first generation student through significant events in the college application process. For each event, the application would provide key resources as well as estimated “due dates” ensuring first-generation students stay on track. Our design would also enable students to find college readiness courses that would help develop better study habits and introduce the rigor of college-level coursework.

Above is our storyboard detailing the user experience for Markus as he uses our app to find free resources near him that will help prepare him for collegiate level courses. The key design features in this flow of our app are the “Near Me” and “Most Popular Resources’’ sections, both allow Markus to find effective, college preparatory courses. While other parts of the app surround the time period of actively applying to college, this flow allows Markus to prepare for college even in the earlier years of high school.

Conclusion

EduBound hopes to aid the many first generation college students that do not have access to college planning resources or mentor figures to guide them through the application process. Our ultimate goal is to better prepare first generation students for collegiate academics and make them feel more comfortable with the overall application process.