Decision Day Discourse

By: Trebor Rose, Winter Brooks, Sukiya Jones, and Antonique McMichales

Decision Day falls annually on May 1. The day on which high school seniors make their decision regarding what they’ll do for college and their adult lives.

Students and staff are encouraged to dress in clothes showing off their colleges and careers. on the above dates.

Decision day for CMHS students was on May 1, as is the case for most schools. However, some colleges can delay the date, as seen this year when Amherst College, Purdue University, and Pepperdine University pushed their dates back to May 15, 2024.

With Decision Day at the tailend of the seniors’ school year, with only twenty-two days until the CMHS seniors’ last day remaining this year, it’d be only fitting that this important date is at the forefront of the end of a student’s K-12 education.

Usually, May 1 is the deadline for a college to send out the verdicts for hundreds, possibly thousands, of students, and with such a large number of college students-to-be, the college will just have an automated program send out the verdicts on May 1 after a decision has been made.

“Some colleges that I’ve heard of? I have to say, like, U of I, NIC, and just kind of things like that.” were Cynthia Cairo’s recommendations for colleges for those ending their Crete-Monee K-12 journey.

The University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University are both rather cheap if you go in-state, with both hovering around $10,000, with University of Illinois being more expensive at $15,714 compared to NIU’s $12,662. However, at more than two hours from Crete, Monee, and University Park, NIU is more convenient to get to as it’s usually between one and two hours of driving to get there. Both universities also have the benefit of being rather well-known, which causes students to gravitate towards these two big universities.

“So, I personally recommend going to the community college Prairie State for two years to get your associates, and also because it doesn’t cost that much, which is why I plan on going before I go onto a better college,” Jaylen Aimiuwu said as his recommendation for a good choice of future education after high school.

An in-state tuition for PSC only costs $9,342, which makes it even cheaper than NIU’s $12,662. This two-year community college is located in Chicago Heights, which is a drive of only between twelve and twenty minutes from the main three locations of CM201-U. Coupled with a decent reputation, with an average review of three-and-a-half stars out of five, it’d be a good choice for an ex-CMHS student who’s looking for a way to give a kick-start to their adult life.

“I think most colleges in Illinois, if you don’t wanna go far away from home, are pretty good, like Southern Illinois Carbondale, Southern Illinois Edwardsville, and, yeah, those are pretty close to home, but Eastern Illinois, Wesleyan University, Governors State, these are schools to go to at this time of year,” Sukiyah Jones recommended for her picks of good colleges to go to after high school.

Southern Illinois Carbondale is rated with four-and-a-half stars out of five, though its quality is offset by a rather high tuition ($15,416) and a four-hour-and-thirty-seven-minute drive to get there.

Its Edwardsvillean cousin, however, has a drive time of just under four hours and a tuition of just $12,558, and a rating of 3.7 stars, so it’d just be marginally better for commutes.

However, Governor’s State is essentially Crete-Monee College as it’s located in University Park, one of the locations serviced by this school district, has a tuition of only $10,468, and an above-average rating of 3.5 stars out of five.