Guidance proves key to their future

BY DAVE MARCUS | dave.marcus@newsday.com

June 17, 2007

When Oyster Bay High School senior Daniel Bianculli wanted inside information about colleges, he had a high-powered helper.

Oyster Bay's guidance director, Gwyeth Smith Jr., visited Carnegie Mellon University last fall and briefed Bianculli on his return. He also pushed Bianculli to revise his application essay five times, and he made himself available after hours to meet with Dan and his mother, who works during the day in Manhattan.

At Brentwood High, senior Philippe Zamor, the student council president, didn't benefit from such individualized attention. He saw his guidance counselor infrequently. He didn't take the SAT until last November, months after others his age had first taken it. And he only made his first visit to a campus in January.

This spring, Bianculli was admitted to all six colleges to which he applied: Cornell, Vanderbilt, Binghamton, Lafayette, Rice and Carnegie Mellon. He chose Rice.

Zamor, meanwhile, had only one offer by the end of May: Briarcliffe College.

While many other factors contributed to the outcomes for the two students, Oyster Bay's personalized service and overall orientation toward college admissions were critical boosts for Bianculli. "Definitely," he said, "my school helped out a lot."

Zamor blames himself for "slacking off too much." But Mike Cohen, the outgoing superintendent of schools, suggests a larger problem: the disparity in Long Island schools.

"Long Island is the capital of educational apartheid in America," Cohen said. "Those with money and power have access to the top-tier colleges and universities. The others do not. Rather than breaking down barriers, our educational system sustains them."

That's not the view of James McKenna, superintendent of the Mattituck-Cutchogue district. "I don't think that poor students are being discriminated against," said McKenna, former president of the Suffolk County High School Principals Association. "They have a fair opportunity for college. The districts are doing the best they can to get kids into the best schools and give them the best opportunities."

Studies show that many factors influence whether students attend college. Last year, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education found access to college is "unduly limited" by factors such as "inadequate preparation, lack of information about college opportunities and persistent financial barriers."

The Spellings report drew on research that for years has indicated that college decisions are also tied to parents' education and aspirations of classmates, said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

"If you're surrounded by classmates who talk about going to college," he said, "then you're more likely to invest yourself in your education for several years before college and get excited about applying to college."

Over the last nine months, Newsday has followed nine public high school seniors through the college application process. Those who went to schools that stress college preparation ended up with lots of offers. Left with fewer options were students from Brentwood and Bridgehampton - schools that serve lower-income areas and that only now are catching up to better schools with Advanced Placement course offerings and SAT prep classes.

Even in Brentwood, Zamor only got a break when he got help from Cohen, who called college admissions officers to put in a word. Last week, Dowling College admitted him.

Angela Parisi, the guidance counselor at Bridgehampton Elementary and High School, says the staff at the school constantly talks about college. "But we can only do so much - the emphasis needs to come from home. And generally college isn't stressed in families that haven't attended college."

Parisi has tried to catch up to wealthier districts by taking students to visit campuses and personally signing up students for the SAT.

At Brentwood High, 70 percent of the students get free or reduced-price lunches because of their family's low incomes, said incoming superintendent Donna Jones. "We need to raise the bar and the expectations of our students," she said.

In the last couple of years, she said, Brentwood has sent several students to top colleges.

Still, a guidance counselor in Oyster Bay works with an average of 210 students. In Brentwood it's 375, said guidance director Ben Baglio. The National Association for College Admission Counseling recommends a high school caseload of 250 to 275.

Bridgehampton and Brentwood administrators say they are emphasizing college preparation. Brentwood is adding four AP courses next year, for a total of 17. The school recently made PSAT and AP exams free to all students.

"Brentwood is getting better with the college thing," Zamor said. "Unfortunately, for my luck it's getting better just when I'm leaving."