Hazel Franz

EARLY TIGER ACCESS

Hazel Frans is one of only forty Kansas high school Freshmen and Sophomores accepted into the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science (KAMS), an early college program at Fort Hays State University. She will start at Fort Hays University at the beginning of junior year when she is only sixteen years old. I had the opportunity to interview Hazel about her nerves, application process, and so much more. By Noel Mohammed Reporter How were you introduced to this whole idea of taking college classes at Fort Hays

The scholarship you were awarded allows you to live on-campus. How do you feel

State University? When I was in fifth grade my seek teacher’s daughter went to the program. She introduced the entire class to the concept of going to college early and provided us with information. When I was in seventh grade we visited the college on the preview day and I was really excited and thought it was a really nice program.

You said in the email that you had to go through the same process as most Seniors do when you applied. How was that for you?

It was interesting. I went and took the ACT in December, visited the college, filled out a lengthy application, wrote a lot of essays, emails, and just a lot of back and forth communication. There was just a lot of stress about getting into the program and wondering if I was going to be accepted or denied.

If another kid wants to apply for the same scholarship what is a piece of advice you’d like to share with them? I would tell them

to think about their stories pertaining to whatever program they are trying to get into. Let’s say it’s the science program so they should talk about how you’ve been really into science your whole life, how you’ve been looking at studies, researching. Talk about how you handle harder classes, if you’re good with kids talk about that, how you volunteer, just have a lot of stories. about that? The college has a separate dorm building for all the kids in the KAMS program. You can get your own room and pay a little bit more, or you share a room and it is a little less. It’s far away and it’s a little bit scary to live on my own at fifteen or sixteen. Would you start next year as a sophomore or the year after as a junior? I will be doing it as a junior and senior. It is a two-year program. I applied for early admission most people apply as a sophomore but I did it as a freshman, so I have to wait a year.

How do you apply for this? If you’re a

freshman or a sophomore you apply before December of 2020, so if you’re a sophomore then you’re kind of late but if you go to their website they have applications, they have links to scholarships. If you applied you can get room and board free, and the tuition is already paid for when you get accepted. So you can just go to the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science website and it will have a lot of information there.

Why did you pitch yourself as a story? I

thought it would be a nice little break from spring sports. To learn more about the academic process, especially early college, because a lot of students don’t know that there are a lot of college opportunities they can apply for. It is just a way to show that if you want you can get out of high school early and accomplish a lot of amazing things even when you haven’t graduated.