Decked out in their college spirit wear, counselors and teachers will be emphasizing the importance of college education from Monday, Nov. 3 to Friday, Nov. 7 to support Michigan College Application Week.

“Michigan made this initiative to really help students understand the importance of (college), to increase their awareness about college,” counselor Milissa Pierce said. “So the state put out this initiative and invited counselors all across the state to participate in this event.”

Pierce hopes that teachers’ discussions of their college experiences will encourage students to apply.

“Every teacher is gonna have a different journey, just like every student is,” Pierce said.

Although senior Sara Fresard already applied to college, she found her teachers’ advice helpful.

“I think that it’s valid,” Fresard said. “A lot of the teachers and a lot of the people I’ve talked to said that they went to big schools, and they kind of, not necessarily regret the decision, but they thought if they went to a smaller school, it would have been more helpful.”

On Wednesday, Nov. 5, counselors will meet with seniors who have not applied yet to talk about completing the process.

“We’re going to make sure that all the seniors have submitted some kind of application, if possible, even if it’s just going to community college, if they don’t know what they want to do yet,” Pierce said. “What we’re going to do is encourage them to submit an application to a community college, so that they at least have something done,”

While the majority of the senior class has already applied, Pierce hopes that Michigan College Application Week will help those still involved in the process.

“64.4% of the students have already applied. We’ll be targeting that other 35.4%, and maybe, by the time we do this on Wednesday, it’ll be less than 35%,” Pierce said. “So our goal is to call down all the students who haven’t already applied yet and to just discover why haven’t they applied. Are they in the process? Do they need any help? We’re gonna be available in a lab—we’re going to have fee waivers if students need them.”