On Tuesday, Oct. 13, all 32 public colleges and universities in Colorado and several private institutions allowed all college applicants to apply at no charge.Calhan High School took full advantage of this opportunity by hosting an event for their students looking to enter college.This Colorado Free Application Day is part of the Colorado Applies Month, which is a five-week campaign that guides high school students and adult job seekers through the college application process.Calhan High School Principal Donovan Mitchell encouraged his students to participate in Colorado Applies month by hosting weekly meetings. The meetings were set in place to navigate My Colorado Journey, a tool made available through the state that gives students information about college.ìIt is a great tool,î Mitchell said. ìThere can be so much information that it can be a little bit overwhelming. We hope to learn from it and be better at the whole process next year.îA total of 96% of Calhan seniors either applied to schools or enrolled in the military this year. Many of those who applied to schools did so on the free application day.Overall, the free application day was a success, Mitchell said. However, applying to colleges was not the goal. The free application day allowed students access to a multitude of schools, whether their goal is to graduate from a technical school, a university or any other post-secondary education in the state.ìThe push itself is not necessarily for college,î Mitchell said. ìCollege is the way to go if what you want to do requires a degree. So what this was about was keeping options open for students Ö I told my students that the more options you have available to you, the better off you are going to be on graduation day. Something could happen to you over the next several months that could change your direction. We want our seniors to be armed with as many choices as possible when the day rolls around and they leave us.îAlthough this is the third year Colorado Free Application Day took place, it is the first year Calhan High School hosted an event for the occasion. To encourage participation, the school raffled off a used vehicle to students who participated. Students earned 10 entry tickets for every college they applied to.The vehicle, a 1998 Honda Accord, was donated from EDUCar, a used car dealership that is run and operated by Calhan School District. The program was created to foster entrepreneurship, on-the-job coaching, mentorship and job training to repair and sell used vehicles.Caylee Waldroop is the high school senior who won the car. Although she applied to seven colleges statewide, she hopes to get into Metropolitan State University in Denver and study psychology. She hopes to one day help others by pursuing a career in social work.ìThis was important to me because I have had a lot of struggles with grades, Waldroop said. ìIt was nice to apply to multiple colleges without having to pay the fee for every single college. Most people donít have the money for that. I am really grateful for this opportunity.î
