Welcome to College Summit

Our Outcomes

College Summit’s mission is founded on one metric: to increase the college enrollment rate of low-income students. We build the capacity of our partner high schools to increase their students’ college-going rate, and to build a college-going culture.

College Summit first began working with entire high schools in 2003-2004. Our first cohort of high schools produced a statistically significant increase in college enrollment rates school-wide, based on external data from college registrars.

These students are staying in college. College Summit college freshmen made it to their sophomore year at the same rate as students from all income groups across the country.

Tracking Student Progress in Our High Schools

As college enrollment is something that can only be tracked annually, College Summit provides our school partners with monthly data on key indicators (such as percentage of a senior class completing college lists, personal statements, and sending applications) that are essential to a student's transition to college.  Since beginning our senior class programming in 2003, the percent of students sending applications has increased significantly.

Peer Influencers

At the core of our capacity-building work with school districts are our tools for training influential students within the high school to influence their peers and build college-going culture. We have been honing these tools for over 10 years and have significant data on the success of these student influencers.

Since 1993, we have trained more than 9,500 student influencers. The high school GPA for these students has been mid-tier: 2.9 (on a 4.0 scale). Yet they have enrolled in college at a rate of 79%, significantly above the national college enrollment rate among low-income students of 46%. These Peer Leaders don’t just make it to college, they stay in college. The retention rate for these students has been 80% - above the national rate across all demographics.