Peer Advisers Head Back to the Country

Rural peer advisers are current college students who fan out to rural schools and communities to answer questions, provide information, and share first-person insights with students, parents, and high school counselors. Left to right: Jack Taylor x’26, Avery Simpson x’25, and McKenna Riley x’25. Bryce Richter

McKenna Riley x’25 loved growing up in the small town of Rockland, Wisconsin. She also loves attending a Big Ten university with more than 50,000 students. She melds these two worlds as a rural peer adviser for UW–Madison’s College for Rural Wisconsin (CRW) program.

Rural peer advisers are current college students who fan out to rural schools and communities to answer questions, provide information, and share first-person insights with students, parents, and high school counselors. The initiative works to increase college access for rural, farm, and small-town students in Wisconsin, regardless of whether they choose to apply to UW–Madison or elsewhere.

Traditionally, many universities invite prospective students to come to them, which might not be financially or logistically feasible for some rural students, says Jennifer Blazek MS’10, MA’10, CRW’s director. “While we can’t bring the whole campus to rural students, we can bring a lot of the materials and the mentoring and the support to them,” she says.

Growing up, Riley knew of only one person who attended UW–Madison. “I hope to be able to give the sort of help to students and families that I wish I had got as a kid,” she says. “I’m eager to share what I’ve learned about going to college to anyone who wants to listen.”

CRW adviser Avery Simpson x’25 grew up 30 minutes from Madison, but she says city life was largely foreign to her before college. “As strange as it seems, I really worried about crossing the streets,” she says, “and I had never been on a city bus.”

Simpson is majoring in elementary education and hopes to teach middle school students one day, ideally in rural Wisconsin. Getting to talk to so many rural students as a peer adviser has given her insights into their challenges, she says.

“We get a lot of questions about finances. … Also, they want to know if college is really worth it. I think it is [so] impactful for them to get to sit down with someone face to face who is already in college and talk about that.”

Published in the Winter 2024 issue