Scholarships and college visits provide answers to concerned high school seniors and their parents, before beginning to apply for colleges and universities. In previous years the school district has held in person meetings to discuss questions with college representatives. Now, due to the COVID19 pandemic, those meetings have been converted to virtual Zoom meetings.

“What is important to you to have at a college or university?”- Natalie Debbas

   The virtual meetings have appeared to bring many positive changes in the college visits. For example, students do not need to miss class in order to attend. In addition, many more college representatives have found the time to talk to high school students, which they would not have had the time to do otherwise.

    However, there were about 200 students from VUSD in the Ventura Community College visit, Thursday, Sept. 17, at 1 p.m., which made asking questions aloud impossible. Senior Nhu Phan, who attended the event, found that the “process was kind of crazy… [but] there were no drawbacks, except maybe for people who had lots of questions and would like to talk face to face instead of typing in the chat.”

   Students are able to ask questions in the chat about topics that may or may not have been covered in the presentation. There are many questions a student can ask and Buena’s representative and college and career center counselor, Natalie Debbas, suggests that students should “sit down and really think to yourself…. ‘What is important to you to have at a college or university?’”

   In these meetings, one of the topics most college representatives will cover is scholarships. This is an extremely important topic for many students as they try to come up with a solution to paying for college. Some colleges and universities offer scholarships to their alumni and outside scholarships such as FAFSA, the Dream Act, or non-income based scholarships, can help pay for college, or any necessities you may have during your college experience. There is a financial aid night in English Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. and another in Spanish Oct. 8 at 6 p.m. for which the link is provided in the document embedded in the photo caption.

   Debbas, believes “Unless you’re rich and or famous, you should apply for scholarships!” She also hosts Zoom meetings for multiple workshops to learn how to apply for scholarships and colleges, which are listed in the embedded link.