Is the program as good as it sounds?
Light squeezes in through velvety blackout curtains, serving as the telltale preemptive alarm clock set for 6:30. Backpacks slump to the floor right as the first-hour bell rings and absence slips begin coming in.
Third hour marks monarchs from one stage to the next, gilded in winged glory, ready for the pilgrimage south. Fifth hour splits for lunch, and trigonometry spins in circles, fluttering onto worksheets. Seventh hour eclipses the day with new words and phrases circulating from one tense to the next, and a junior’s sunset is marked with absolutely anything from work to football to theatre to math team.
Juniors go on college visits and take AP tests, assessing the waters of adulthood, staring into the depths from the dock. PSEO students, on the other hand, cannonball right in. Emma Praske, a would-be current senior in high school, is one of them.
Praske, 17, is a sophomore at the University of Northwestern (St. Paul) and a full-time PSEO (Postsecondary Enrollment Options) student, pursuing her Associate’s of Arts and Liberal Studies. Hundreds, if not thousands of other students around the state are pursuing the same thing she is – including those at MA.
“Students have the opportunity to really personalize their own education at whatever school they’re at,” Blake Mayes, MA Upper School’s Assistant Principal, said. “If your school doesn’t offer something, and you know that a local college does, you have the opportunity to take that class for free. It’s a unique program to Minnesota.”
PSEO’s two tracks, full-time and part-time, allow students to either fully become a college student, or take classes while still in high school.
Full-Time PSEO
Praske and Mayes chose full-time PSEO, where “you’re essentially becoming a college student early,” said Praske. Praske, at Northwestern, entered as a junior and has been in the program since. Mayes attended North Central University as a journalism major.
“The application I did was titled PSEO, but it was considered a college application,” Praske said. “And then it just depends on the school; how competitive it is, like a normal college.” Full-time PSEO students attend all their classes at that college, some asynchronous, some fully in person, like Praske and Mayes. Depending on what the university’s expectations are, a student can live on or off campus.
Part-Time PSEO
Students doing part-time PSEO usually take one or two classes not offered at their high school, and earn college credit through a college, while still retaining the high school, or homeschool, experience. Gabi Jankowski, a senior at MA, is such a student, currently enrolled in statistics at the University of Northwestern.
“High school students have the opportunity to take college level classes,” Jankowski said. “It’s basically like AP but without the AP exam, and you just get the credit.”
Students at MA have taken anything ranging from Jankowski’s statistics to Finnish, almost always online during a free hour.
“Because we have really specific graduation requirements, juniors and seniors can typically take a maximum of one PSEO class per semester,” Mayes said. “And it does need to be asynchronous, because there can be a lot of conflict with meeting time, and that’s not something that the high school’s built to sustainably manage.”
Advantages of PSEO
Praske has found that PSEO has helped her learn far more than what she felt she learned in high school.
“The main advantage was that I was just ready to be done with high school classes, and I was ready for more of a challenge,” Praske said.
PSEO also allows students to take more college credits, and, if they know their major, can get a head start in the workforce. PSEO has given Praske, and thousands of others, the opportunity to take accelerated courses not normally offered to them. Students can work at their own pace and take classes catered to their interests or academic needs.
“Sometimes in class, teachers go through things too slow and I’m bored, or too fast and I don’t know what’s going on,” Jankowski said. “So it’s really nice because I can mediate how fast I’m going.”
Full-time PSEO has also allowed students to come out of unfavorable highschool experiences. If a student doesn’t like their high school or has social conflicts, PSEO can be an out.
“When I was trying to make changes in my life, it was hard to find a new group,” said Mayes. “In many ways, it was nice to have a fresh start and be with like-minded people at a Christian university.”
Disadvantages of PSEO
Yet, despite the advantages of taking specified classes and going at one’s own pace, PSEO carries major drawbacks.
“You have to realize that when you go into it, you’re 16. You’re a junior,” Praske said. “No 16-year-old has the same capabilities as an 18-year-old in life.”
Oftentimes, PSEO students can feel swamped with the unexpected burden of college work, and have less support than a normal college student would.
“You need to be someone who’s organized, who’s self-motivated, who’s on top of things, because no one’s going to be supporting you along the way,” Mayes said. “You’re going to have to carve out that time and be disciplined.”
PSEO students from both tracks can lack both higschool and college support in their courses.
Full-time PSEO students can often struggle with figuring out their majors at such an early age.
“That was the really big downside, was that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do until I was the age where most people declared a major,” Mayes said. “But I was basically done.” Because PSEO students graduate so much earlier than normal, often two full years ahead, students have to make the daunting decisions current high school seniors struggle with at an earlier age.
College students live on campus and attend events, while PSEO students don’t have access to a high school’s events, nor a college campuses’ events.
“I wasn’t going to games, I wasn’t going to dances, I wasn’t going to plays,” Mayes said. “I wasn’t doing any of that traditional high school stuff.”
The daunting differences in lifestyles and life stages students are in at college compared to highschool also makes it difficult to connect and get involved at a college campus.
“I’m in class with 24-year-olds who are about to go into their master’s program and have their own apartment, which is strange,” Praske said. “It’s harder to relate with someone who’s in a different phase than you and living a totally different lifestyle than you.”
Part-time PSEO students can also miss out – not on their highschool events, but classes and the community that comes with a shared course.
“I sometimes get a bit of FOMO,” Jankowski said. “When I hear my friends talking about their statistics classes, I’ll be like, ‘Oh man, that sounds really, really fun, what you guys are doing in class.’”
Takeaways
But when asked whether they regret their PSEO experiences, both Praske and Jankowski agree that they’d still commit to their decisions. For Praske, enrolling as a PSEO student at Northwestern was the best decision she could have made at the time.
Still, the program isn’t perfect, nor is it the best option for every student. Praske wishes Northwestern had more dedicated PSEO advisors, which tend to have a high turnover rate.
“You have to figure out your own answers, since you don’t have the same level of stuff that’s in a normal support system,” Praske said.
Colleges could consider implementing required social events, especially in the early weeks for students to attend, “which personally I would hate to do, but it would be good,” Praske said. “Most of us are isolated and don’t know how to get un-isolated, because you don’t have the level of connection with other students.”
Additionally, once PSEO students have entered the program, it’s hard to back out, especially if a student, like Praske, is already knee-deep in credits.
“Know ahead of time what classes you’re interested in,” Jankowski said. “Explore your options, but have a big sense of what you’re thinking.”
MA students interested in PSEO can talk to Mayes as the Assistant Principal and will apply independently.