Ask teachers and parents: “Who is most influential person to a 17 year old?” The answer is almost inevitably another 17 year old! So we train 17 year olds to be college culture leaders in your schools.

“Culture of expectation”, “college going culture”, or “positive peer culture” -- our partners have a lot of ways of describing the importance of school culture to the achievement of their students. As all of them will tell you, activating students to support and maintain that culture is critical.

A critical mass of influential rising-seniors—carefully selected by school faculty with College Summit’s help—attends a four-day College Summit Workshop, held on a college campus the summer before senior year. At the workshop the students basically complete their college applications, as they learn how to encourage their peers to focus on their future plans and what it will take to make those plans a reality. When these trained peer leaders return to school in the fall, they are ready to build buzz and excitement in the College Summit classes and throughout the school.

For more than a decade, students from across the country have been transformed by College Summit workshops. Over the last 10 years, 79% of workshop participants have enrolled in college and 80% have stayed in college.