In Tennessee September is known as College app and exploration month. Seniors are encouraged to apply to as many Tennessee colleges as they can because it’s only free from September 18th to the 30th.

Karns High School will be hosting a financial aid night on September 28, 2023. Seniors are encouraged to attend to learn more about financial aid and how it can be used to help. Financial aid is any type of funding that will aid students in paying for their postsecondary education. Students who attend will need to bring with them their social security number and parental information. 

“Tennessee started celebrating college app week to promote kids applying to college..it changed last year and they started celebrating college app and exploration month. And so during that month they asked colleges in the state of Tennessee to offer free applications for students,” said the college and career counselor Lyndsey Donnell.

One way that Karns is trying to help in the promotion of this month is by having seniors attend meetings in the library to apply for the Tennessee Promise scholarship. Tennessee promise is a scholarship that gives students two free years at a community or technical college. 

“Tennessee promise is a scholarship that was started 15 years ago by a company called Tennessee Achieves and it was first just in east Tennessee but the state took over the scholarship and now they offer it to every student in the state.. It’s a last dollar scholarship meaning you might get the hope scholarship or the coca cola scholarship and they’ll use all that money first and then Tennessee promise picks up the rest..,” said Donell.

The entire reasoning of why this month is being celebrated is to shed light on free college applications. A Lot of seniors didn’t have a clue that Tennessee was having a college app month, so this just helps them to start thinking about what colleges they might want to attend and to put in as many applications as possible.

Last week was a big week because all the UT schools such as UT Knoxville, UTC, and UT Martin, offered free apps for only one week. Certain private schools like Carson Newman and Maryville always have free apps. While colleges like ETSU offer them all month.

The college counselor guides the seniors through the application process and they get to sign the banner that says “I applied”. Afterwards they get insentives and get to register for door prizes and they have a $250 dollar scholarship that the counseling department gives away.

“It’s a good thing, I think younger students like myself need more opportunities like this because a lot of us can’t afford multiple college applications because after a while it gets expensive..,” said senior Case Whitaker.

Overall this whole month of college app is significant for senior students in the state of Tennessee. This is very beneficial and considerate due to the fact that applications are very expensive and it gives them something to rely on.