Hundreds of senior students gather in the library of Plainwell High School from Monday, Oct. 3 to Friday, Oct. 7 awaiting their opportunity to take advantage of College Week.  Entering raffles with raffle tickets from meeting different post-high school plan criteria to try to win different prizes.

Many students do not know how or what to do after high school.  College week is meant to open the eyes of seniors to what and where they would like to do with their post-high school plans.

“Our goal for college week is to see and help kids that normally wouldn’t have asked for help, get a plan for post-high school,” said Registrar Paige Mulka.

“College week gives students access to the materials necessary to complete college applications that they may not have anywhere else,” said College Advisor Autumn Kearney

To encourage students to choose college as a post-high school plan, the school has received grants to allow students to win prizes.  Some of these prizes include mini fridges, beats headphones, Chrome books, gift cards, and more.

“I am going to enter my tickets in either the TV or iPad so that I could sell it,” said Logan Lucas ‘17.

“I want the bluetooth speaker because when I go to the beach, I don’t have one,” Michael Dekema ‘17.

For students to earn the raffle tickets necessary to win the prizes, they can do a number of things from just completing college applications, to following Plainwell’s social media pages.  Students are allowed to earn a maximum of 13 raffle tickets, eight during the week of Oct. 3 to Oct. 7, and an added five during the month of October.

“I followed trojanscollege on Instagram to get the raffle ticket, and to get an extra follower once they followed me back,” said Hartman ‘17.

Several of the college week prizes. Photo By Nick Girolami ’17

College Week allows for students to apply to any number of colleges depending on their personal needs and wants.  Students are encouraged to take advantage of the many schools that are free to apply to all the time, and especially the ones that waive their application fee for the week of Oct. 3.

“I am probably going to apply to three or four different schools to keep my options open.  I want to make sure the college I pick to go to is my absolute top choice,” said Joel Hartman ‘17.

“I am only applying to one college because I have thought about it and feel it’s in my best interest to take this path,” said Carson Spratt ‘17.

For those students that are not looking at for college as their first option right out of high school, there is plenty of other opportunities.  Going straight into the workforce or applying to the  military are a couple options students can choose.

“We offer practice job applications and military pamphlets for students to look through and try to help them decide how they want to start the rest of their lives,” said Kearney.