Our first group of high schools achieved a statistically significant increase in college enrollment rates school-wide, based on external data from college registrars.
These students are not just getting to college, they 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.
As college enrollment is something that can only be tracked annually, College Summit provides our school partners with monthly data on completion of key tasks 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.

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.

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship honors organization at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland