Paul Bass Photo
Trip organizer and LEAP Youth Development Director Elvert Eden with Career High junior Deja Scott, Hillhouse High School senior Forel Kourouma, and Wilbur Cross sophomore Nicholas Mayne.
Forty-five New Haven high-school students on a winter vacation-week tour of college campuses — organized by their employer, the academics and athletics agency LEAP — spent their final day at Old Dominion and Hampton universities. Two students wrote in about what they learned.
A New Favorite
Old Dominion bumped its way up to one of my main choices!
The environment is fresh, encouraging and accepting, and the campus is gorgeous and modern. Tuition is affordable at about $35 – 40,000, including room and board and fees. The average GPA and SAT requirements do not worry me because both are goals that I have either already reached, or am confident that I can, at 3.25 and 1,100.
Something I really loved was the diversity that I saw immediately upon walking on campus; people of color, Asian, Caucasian, etc. Wonderful. I also love that they have private bathrooms that you would have to share with a maximum of three people, and that you may apply for the honors building where you would share with ONE other person.
Old Dominion has a safe, and I believe free, taxi service called Safe Ride, that will take you around campus during late hours in case the feeling of being unsafe presents itself. Also, there are blue emergency poles around campus, where you can contact an emergency operator, which is a great safety technique. In addition to these, you may not enter anything without your ID that you receive on the first day. No one who isn’t a student should be in any building on campus for reasons except under special circumstances.
—Deja Scott, 16 Co-op High School
2 Campus Views
Hampton University is one of the best historically black colleges in the country. The university offers a variety of ways for its students to acquire scholarships. 56 percent of all students enrolled in Hampton University are on a full need-based scholarship. Their tuition plus room and board are all covered.
One of the best scholarships offered at Hampton University is the ROTC scholarship. This scholarship pays for room and board along with tuition while also providing a monthly allowance to its scholars. The university has both army and navy ROTC. They are ranked second in the nation in their navy ROTC program according to the tour guide.
Old Dominion University was the largest university we’ve visited, with more than 26,000 total students. The university has beautiful facilities such as their main fitness area. When we went into the fitness room, everyone in our group stood in shock of how “complete” the fitness area was. The fitness area had a basketball court, track, swimming pool, climbing rock, and many other things.
My favorite part of the tour was an introduction to a building called the Entrepreneur Center. If you have an idea, you can bring it to that building and they will help you turn that idea into reality.
—Forel Kourouma, 16, Hillhouse High School
Previous installments:
• LEAP College Tour Hits Widener, Coppin State
• College Tour LEAPs To D.C.
• Richmond Wows New Haven
I'm struck by the fact that the students in this and the preceding articles spend very little time discussing academics. I suspect that suburban kids have similar reactions to the campuses they visit, but I still find it sad that kids seem to find facilities such as semi-private bathrooms more salient than the learning that takes place on campus.