In late November, CHS students from all grade levels visited the eighth-grade advisories of five Ann Arbor public middle schools, including Scarlett, Tappan, Forsythe, Slauson and Clague, to tell middle schoolers more about the opportunities offered at CHS.
Counselor Brian Williams, who’s been on CHS’s staff for 11 years, has seen the evolution of the program and how these past four years have created a more diverse student body for our school.
“We used to have really unbalanced numbers from certain middle schools, like the five big public ones,” Williams said. “We want to make sure that we’re getting a bigger application pool from other middle schools that we normally aren’t attracting students from. Since this program, it’s been changing, and it’s nice to see that.”
The school’s diversity isn’t all credited to the change in outreach strategies, but student involvement and program preparation have made the school more appealing. Students spend weeks preparing in small groups, run by teachers, to sharpen talking points and stories.
Mira Authier, a CHS sophomore involved in outreach, spoke with eighth graders at Forsythe and Slauson about Community’s unique academic programs and clubs, including our Foundations of Science (FOS) program, forum and CET.
She noticed that many middle schoolers who are hesitant about CHS worry they’ll miss out on the big-school atmosphere and traditional high school events that they would get if they attended their home schools, but attending a smaller school doesn’t have to mean losing those experiences.
“You won’t miss out on the big school feel even though you’re going to a small school because we have split enrollment, and you can still play sports,” Authier said.
Forum Council Co-President Mallory Towers talked to middle schoolers about the opportunities that are available at CHS, not just within the building, but outside, like creating your own class through the CR program and taking college classes at Washtenaw Community College or the University of Michigan.
Towers’ biggest goal for middle school outreach is getting the eighth graders to realize that Community is so much more than what it might seem and what they might have heard about it. By talking about the opportunities that she didn’t know about when she decided to go to CHS, prospective students have more information.
“I just hope that kids will learn all of the things that make us unique,” Towers said. “I feel like learning about the CR program, college classes, all the teachers, the open block, and getting it explained to me by someone who’s actually going through it, really would have helped me make my decision easier.”
This year, two new slides were added to the presentation. One of them was a table that displayed CHS as the school with the highest SAT score in the state of Michigan for schools without entrance exams, and the other slide was a map of where CHS class of 2025 graduates are now.
Both Authier and Towers think that showing this kind of data helps challenge misconceptions about the academic rigor at CHS.
“It’s showing that we’re still able to perform well, and we’re still being prepared for the next stages of our lives,” Towers said. “Being able to show that through our test scores really helps prove our point that even without APs, there are so many opportunities for students to learn. So I really think this was just showing them that we might not have those advanced classes, but we’re still learning the same amount.”
Outreach is essential for students who may feel nervous about applying, and it helps them get excited for high school and their futures. Towers points out that the numbers have shown us why it’s important we continue having middle school outreach. It’s crucial to get more students interested and applying by making sure middle schoolers understand exactly what makes Community different.
“It’s important because a lot of kids are scared to apply or don’t know what they’re applying for,” Authier said. “I hope they realize it’s not scary — it’s exciting.”
