Nearly 100 Evanston Township High School sophomores and juniors visited Northwestern on Wednesday as part of the seventh Kits & Cats initiative, held to give high school students a chance to experience different aspects of college life.

The event, which has occurred biannually since October 2011, included talks from NU and ETHS administrators, a visit to athletic facilities, student athletics panels and a speech from football coach Pat Fitzgerald.

ETHS students were also taken on campus tours led by NU students with similar academic interests.

“Students will get broken up into very small groups, around six to eight students per group paired with one Northwestern student, mostly undergrads,” said NU/ETHS partnership coordinator Kristen Perkins. “These NU students have designed sort of a customized tour on campus based on their interests.”

Kits & Cats was instituted as part of University President Morton Schapiro’s Good Neighbor, Great University program, which aims to provide scholarships to local high school students, such as those at ETHS. Wednesday’s program functions as an attempt to shed light on the college experience in general, Perkins said.

“When we first started Kits & Cats, it was somewhat Northwestern-centric,” Perkins said. “We used to use admissions tours and NU-admissions focused talks, so we’ve broadened it to make it more relevant to lots of different universities.”

There are currently 40 ETHS alumni enrolled at NU, with 14 in the class of 2018 alone.

McCormick senior Camaria Lehman, a volunteer with Kits & Cats, said she values helping high schoolers consider their options for continuing their educations.

“Connecting with students and showing them that college is an opportunity they should go after is really exciting,” Lehman said. “There are a lot of opportunities and great things to come for all of these students, and just being that small little piece of the pie is unbelievably special.”

These benefits aside, ETHS college and career coordinator Beth Arey said certain valuable elements are missing from the program.

“Things we’re not doing that students are looking for is to see the dorm rooms and residence hall living,” Arey said. “Also, the very first Kits & Cats day, we ate in the dining halls, and that’s particularly significant for students to see. But we have not been able to do that again.”

Weinberg junior Kevin Harris, Associated Student Government vice president for community relations and a Kits & Cats student volunteer, said he also enjoys creating personal connections with the ETHS students at Kits & Cats.

“The best part is not just leading the tour, but coming back afterward to Norris or wherever and having lunch with some of the students,” Harris said. “It’s a little more casual, and you kind of get to know them a little better over a casual lunch.”

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