Memphis Area College Night provides students with an introduction to more than 100 colleges and universities

Memphis high school students Steven Brown, Paris Brown, and Natalina Gallardo each had their own goals in mind when attending the annual Memphis Area College Night (MACN) Monday evening.For Freedom Preparatory Academy student Steven Brown, that goal was making a plan for when he graduates high school and pursues a major in communication.“My college guidance counselors at my school, they actually set up a future for us to be here today. It was a open opportunity for me. I signed up for it and now I'm here trying to make sure I have a plan for when I leave high school for my senior year,” said Brown.Most of Brown’s top picks including the University of Tennessee at Martin, University of Memphis, and Lane College were present at MACN.Fellow Freedom Prep student Paris Brown came to the event for different reasons. She wanted to gain more information to make the best college choice for her goal of becoming a bio technician.“I'm hoping to gain more information about more colleges that I haven’t already researched on my own and also ask around about the majors that I wanna do and just you know, just see new people and stuff like that,” said Paris Brown.A few of the schools on her radar include top choice the University of California, Berkeley, along with the University of Arizona, and the University of Memphis.Aspiring Air Force Reserve officer and current City University Schools student Natalina Gallardo attended the event hoping to use the opportunity to learn more about colleges and universities that offer criminal justice and criminology majors.“I'm hoping to gain more experience and more research in different schools that have majors I want to achieve in or, you know, pursue?” said Gallardo. “The field I wanna work in is really Air Force but do like Reserves so I can have a civil life and then have an outside job and then go in for weekends to serve.”Gallardo’s top choice, the Southern Illinois University Carbondale, had staff present at the event.These three high school seniors were among a crowd of students from across Memphis who attended the annual event that included more than 100 colleges and universities. The event’s goal is to provide students with information on colleges they’re interested in and help them find schools that pique their interest.“The long-running, annual Memphis Area College Night (MACN) is an exciting program bringing in representatives from over 100 colleges and universities from around the country. MACN is open to high school students from throughout the Memphis area and surrounding communities and is free to attend. Its fall date allows seniors a final look at colleges and provides juniors and sophomores a jump start to the college process,” wrote the planning committee.Freedom Preparatory Academy brought 85 juniors and seniors for college and career exposure.“We wanted our kids to know what colleges are available all over the United States, not just the ones that come to visit our school. The internet is really big and there's 3500 colleges that are out there. So we felt like this was a way to help narrow down a number of them as they're figuring out where they want to apply as juniors or where they're going to continue looking to apply as seniors,” said M.L. Webber, Freedom Prep Assistant Head of School.The 42 students from City University Schools attended the event as part of their Senior Scholars Capstone class. It’s designed to prepare students like Gallardo for college.“This field trip is a part of our senior scholars that has to take what is called our senior seminar or our Senior Capstone class. This class is designed for our seniors to help them navigate and apply to different colleges,” said LaKeitha Burns-Baker, school counselor.Seniors at City University must apply to 25 domestic colleges and two international colleges as part of the graduation requirements. The school also requires each senior to obtain at least one scholarship and four admissions to college to qualify for graduation.MACN offered an opportunity for those students to reach those graduation requirements through exposure to different colleges across the country.MACN also provides additional resources for college-bound students such as ACT registration and college matching tools, and FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and scholarship search engines for parents.