Tim Davis' job is undergoing a sort of metamorphosis.
It keeps getting bigger, hairier and more complex.
In recent years, he's had to facilitate more college visits, arrange more college informational sessions and find more scholarships.
But he's not a college recruiter or an admissions coordinator.
Davis is a high school guidance counselor at Lexington High School. His situation isn't an isolated case - it's a growing trend in Nebraska.
The rise in the immigrant Hispanic student population at high schools across Nebraska for the last 10 years has forced guidance counselors to adapt to their school's new minority populations.
For some guidance counselors, this has meant reaching out more to students and parents who might not always speak English or be as informed and determined to take the path toward college.
While many promising Hispanic students are recognized early in their high school careers by English as a second language teachers and encouraged to accelerate their workload to take on college preparatory classes, Davis said college awareness first takes root in middle school.
``We try to teach them good information in middle school about what course it will take to go to college,'' Davis said.
Besides allowing students to take college preparatory tests such as the ASVAB, PLAN and PSAT, Davis said his high school has implemented a program that targets an entire grade level of students.
The program, implemented this year and funded by the federal Perkins grant, allows specialized staff members to concentrate on just the incoming sophomore students.
``We did a career assessment with each sophomore and had a counselor sit down with each and advise them on their college plans,'' Davis said, ``and how to match their interests to a career and whether a two- or four-year college is best for them.''
Karen Clark, guidance counselor for Omaha South High School, said programs are available to help students and their parents fill out necessary forms.
Clark said her school arranges for counselors from the Education Quest Foundation to help minority students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Davis said 12 Hispanic families received help filling out their FAFSA forms when Education Quest was brought to the high school this year.
He said it was more convenient to bring the help to the family members, who he said might not otherwise have been assisted or known what to do.
``A lot of parents don't feel comfortable filling out the forms,'' Clark said.
Clark said she has seen colleges and organizations reach out to students to help ease students' journey to college.
She said places like the Chicano Awareness Center in Omaha allow high schools to coordinate their efforts with local agencies and ease parents' tensions because they are able to work with a neutral group.
She said it's a big deal for minorities to go to school miles away.
``I think that kids here need to know that it (college) can be just like home,'' Clark said.
Davis said these efforts pay off as more minorities are succeeding in college.
``I've seen recently that more top students are Hispanic,'' Davis said. ``As they stay here longer and take harder courses. I've seen students do better ... each year it gets progressively better.''
Amber Hunter, assistant director for admissions at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said personalized recruitment has helped increase UNL's incoming minority population in the 2005 freshman class by 25.7 percent.
In addition to offering overnight visit programs and participating in high school visits and college fairs, Hunter said she takes current UNL Hispanic students back to their high schools to conduct personalized visits.
She said former high school alumni help to show not only the community, but also younger minorities in high school, how attainable college can be.``The younger you start pushing to students ... the better chance you have of succeeding,'' Hunter said.
