The field of college access is filled with great people doing great work. Yet, over the last 40 years, the likelihood of a student from a low-income family going to college remains unchanged.  We cannot expect to see low-income families sending their children to college at anywhere near the same rate as middle- or upper-income families until we have established a process that works for students regardless of their income.  Making college going part of the high school curriculum is the only way to ensure that all students, no matter their Grade Point Average (GPA), test scores or family income, can get the information and support to plan and prepare for their best option after high school.

Our partner schools incorporate College Summit’s curriculum and tools into a postsecondary planning course, which is offered for credit during the existing school day. This ensures that partner schools successfully integrate our standards-based, data-driven curriculum with other coursework and the school routine. Our approach is to build the capacity of schools and their districts to do this work themselves.

Our postsecondary planning course, based around our College Summit Navigator Curriculum, provides students with a safe and supportive space within the school day in which to explore, apply to, and prepare for a variety of postsecondary options. Through participation in the College Summit class, students will create a Senior Portfolio, which includes all of the planning milestones and products that seniors need in order to apply to and succeed in formal and informal postsecondary learning opportunities. As students create these products, they practice valuable transferrable skills which will help them persist and achieve in postsecondary life, including goal-setting, action planning, research and reflection.

There are different ways to structure the class based on time and frequency, and College Summit staff will work with each school to determine the best approach. Analysis of the structure from across the country indicates that 60 minutes or more per week throughout the school year are necessary for students to complete the key curricular outcomes and to esupport their peers in creating actionable postsecondary plans.