A systemic gap exists between the supply and demand for low-income talent. Each year, 880,000 low-income students graduate from high school, but only 46 percent enroll in college. Colleges spend tens of millions of dollars recruiting diverse, low-income talent, then scramble for the same few, high-testing students. In order to prepare all of America’s talent for the workforce, students must first be matched to colleges where they will thrive.

College advising is still grounded in the decades when only an elite portion of high school graduates went to college; guidance counselors could focus on this tiny group, and those students’ parents could manage their children’s applications. But in today’s global economy, a 12th-grade education is insufficient, and college guidance systems lag behind. For low-income students whose parents did not attend college, and whose public schools have an average student-to-counselor ratio of 400 to 1, the chasm is doubly wide.

College Summit works with students, high schools, and colleges to create and sustain a pipeline to college for low-income, academically mid-tier youth by: 1) running intensive, residential, four-day summer workshops, where students who have more college promise than their scores would suggest create college application materials that show their true strengths; 2) training teachers in two-role college guidance to play the manager role that college-experienced parents play for their own children; 3) making whole student review feasible for colleges by delivering comprehensive portfolios for low-income students matching internal admissions criteria.

Since 1999, 85 percent of College Summit Chicago (CSC) students have enrolled in college, nearly twice the national rate of 46 percent for high school graduates from the same income level. College Summit students stay in college at a rate of 80 percent. And 99 percent of CSC participants have graduated from high school.

FIPSE funding helped College Summit launch its Chicago operations and prove the success of its small group model. Now Chicago Public Schools (CPS) wants to implement a full senior-class model, for which state funds are being sought. By 2005, 30 percent of CPS high schools will implement this model, where all their seniors will prepare postsecondary plans.

In 2001, CSC served over 500 low-income Chicago students and trained over 100 teachers as College Summit Advisors, who received professional development credit from CPS. A line item in the CPS budget covered participation fees. CSC now includes four full-time staff, who are deepening relationships with partner high schools to increase implementation of the senior-year curriculum.

In 2002, Public/Private Ventures began the formative study of College Summit’s effect on college enrollment rates of five CPS high schools, performing site visits and interviewing participants. The summative study, to involve at least 20 of 35 CPS high schools implementing College Summit’s senior-year curriculum, will begin in spring 2003. College Summit will present at conferences including the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and the Education Trust.

Awards and Honors: College Summit was given the highest annual award of NACAC, the professional organization in the field of college access, for expanding college opportunity to under-represented youth. Also in 2001, College Summit was invited into the portfolio of New Profit, Inc., a venture philanthropy firm committed to developing new models for social change. The Miami Herald published an op-ed by College Summit and articles featuring College Summit appeared in the NonProfit Times, Washington Business Forward, and Blueprint Magazine.

ONLINE REFERENCE: 

College Summit
   http://www.collegesummit.org  

Kinney Zalesne
Project Director

College Summit
2600 Virginia Ave., NW
Suite 303
Washington, DC 20037
Tel: 202-965-1222
Fax: 202-965-8988

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