With Nearly A 100 Percent College Application Rate, Garfield Is Setting A New Standard For Outcomes And Expectations

By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium

Garfield High School has what it calls a “college culture”. As a flagship school in the Seattle School District, Garfield prides itself in its continued effort to provide students with an environment that fosters the desire of its students to apply for and attend college.

While many inner-city public schools across the country struggle to increase attendance and graduation rates, Garfield’s record of getting students to apply for college and their acceptance rates should be celebrated by all. According to Garfield’s school profile for 2022-23, 80 % of their students are accepted to a four-year college, 19% are accepted to a two-year college, 1% are accepted into technical or certification program, and 0% of their students are choosing to embark on military careers.

According to Kenneth Courtney, a counselor at Garfield High School, 105 out of 144 seniors of his student caseload have applied to four-year colleges, and 40 have taken steps to complete the process to use the Seattle Promise Scholarship program, which allows graduates of Seattle Public Schools to attend one of the three Seattle Colleges tuition free for up to two years. Courtney says that there is some overlap in the numbers because they encourage students to use Seattle Promise as a backup option.

“Garfield has a pretty high college going rate,” says Courtney. “Almost 100 percent of our students apply to college.”

“Consistently 70 percent go on to a 4-year college, 20 percent to 2-year colleges and that’s pretty historical data and that is because we are a “college going culture” which is unusual for a lot of schools in the state, that are public schools,” he added.

“Garfield knows the importance of college-going culture, and not all students are on a 4-year university track immediately following high school graduation,” says Melody McMillan, Sr. Executive Director of Seattle Promise. “With programs like Seattle Promise, we have introduced a way for us to talk about college that makes it accessible to all students, regardless of GPA, income, ability, or country of birth. That’s not just changing culture, its changing lives, families, and communities.”

With programs like the Highly Capable Cohort Program, a program for gifted students formerly known as the APP Program, and the Seattle Colleges’ Promise Scholarship program, a collaboration between the local colleges and the Seattle Public high schools, students at Garfield are provided with excellent resources that helps encourage them towards a pathway of furthering their education.

“Garfield has historically had a strong college-going culture focused on students transitioning to 4-year colleges and universities,” says Lee Westrick, a Seattle Promise Outreach Specialist. “Seattle Promise has broadened that conversation to include pathways to the community college system.”

According to lead counselors with SPS, many high school students enter their senior year completely unaware about the college application process, and because of this many of them are under pressure to meet college application deadlines and by default limit their choice of schools to apply to and/or attend. However, due to the culture that has been created at Garfield, many students, even as freshmen, have expressed a desire to attend a college or university.

“I would say close to 100 percent of our students in the ninth-grade state that they want to go to college,” says Courtney. “That’s their plan.”

Dr. Dwane Chappelle, Director of the City of Seattle Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL), says that the number of students in Seattle Public Schools that are applying for and attending college is an acknowledgment that the investments that the City of Seattle is making in education through the Seattle Promise and other educational programs are paying off.

“We all agree that the “going to college culture” is very important for our young people here in Seattle and the Seattle Promise Program is another avenue that DEEL is providing for our good partners at Garfield High School for their youth and their scholars,” says Chappelle. “I say this because we have the Promise Program, but we also have Upward Bound, which is another program at Garfield, and another avenue our scholars get to take advantage of that helps them prepare for college and careers.

Dr. Brittany Ota-Malloy, postsecondary manager at DEEL, believes that college affordability is a key component for many students when it comes to applying to colleges. According to Ota-Malloy, by applying to be part of the Seattle Promise program many students also feel comfortable applying to other schools because they have the comfort of knowing that regardless of the financial circumstances that they will be able to attend a college after graduating from high school.

“Promise has been a contributor to the college going mindset that’s growing at Garfield,” says Ota-Malloy. “We are seeing the number of students who have applied to and enrolled in Seattle Promise since 2018 has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, and I think that is a good indicator that Seattle Promise is having a strong impact in the schools and the work Seattle Promise outreach specialists are doing to engage students in their junior and senior years are definitely making a difference in helping our students successfully navigate their transition into college.”

Going to college is a dream for many and an expectation for others. Until now, the conversation about whether or not a student would apply to or attend college was predicated on the culture presented to them by their environment at home. But what is transpiring at Garfield is an example of when the environment of a school creates an expectation within the building that its students will go to college, the dialogue among students shifts from I wish, I want, or I hope to go to college to I will and I am.

“The college-going conversation is bigger than it used to be,” says Westrick. “Garfield has always had a strong college-going culture and expectation for their graduates. We say everyone should go to college but it’s complicated. Seattle Promise has helped broaden that conversation to include other postsecondary pathways outside of the traditional 4-year college or university. It’s now a more comprehensive conversation about what it means to be in the world after high school.”

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