| Last updated on September 5, 2007 |
Prep for Prep is a long-term investment strategy to develop the leadership potential of able young people from segments of society grossly under-represented in the leadership pool from which all of our major institutions draw. By expanding the nation's leadership resources, we aim to impact indirectly on a set of inter-related problems that threaten to rend our society. Prep's strategy is to identify talented students from minority group backgrounds, prepare them for placement in independent schools, and provide a sense of community, peer support, critical post-placement services, and a range of leadership development opportunities. The Prep Community includes over 3,000 students and alumni.
Description:
The mission of Prep for Prep is to identify and nurture a generation of leaders from minority group backgrounds who have the education, the skills, and the commitment to help guide this society towards a significant narrowing of the gap between the rhetoric of the American Dream and its blemished reality. As a strategy for developing leaders from minority groups, Prep for Prep seeks to identify those boys and girls who are most likely to benefit from attending academically-demanding independent schools. The Program attempts to prepare these youngsters for success at such schools and to instill in them a commitment to educational achievement as a means of developing their leadership potential.
Prep for Prep is a vehicle for social change, not a means of dispensing social welfare. The Program seeks out the "best and the brightest" young people who are willing to accept the challenge of transforming their own lives through the highest possible utilization of their intellectual and other abilities. Prep for Prep is an affirmation that the potential for academic excellence exists in all ethnic groups.
Prep for Prep builds on existing strengths. The Program identifies youngsters who have a realistic chance of succeeding in a demanding academic program and in a challenging social environment. The admissions process gives preference to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Nearly every student admitted to Prep requires very substantial scholarship aid in order to attend an independent school. However, the dynamics of the Program are best served by a broad socio-economic mix.
Prep for Prep looks to the private sector in education because there it finds the combination of high academic standards, individual attention, and personal accountability that the Program believes is essential to ensure its students' success. In addition to fostering academic achievement, an independent school education can serve also to broaden a minority student's awareness and understanding of American society. In pursuing a strategy of independent school enrollment as a means of increasing the number of well-educated leaders from minority group backgrounds, Prep for Prep believes it is also serving the interests of the independent schools, which have a long-stated commitment to increasing the ethnic diversity of their student bodies.
Prep for Prep attempts to be a community, membership in which strengthens the resolve of each student to master the unfamiliar aspects of the independent school and college environment. Each graduate's continuing membership in Prep for Prep, it is hoped, will also promote a sense of social responsibility and, through networking, increase the potential for effective leadership.
The Program hopes to instill in each student an ethic of leadership, a sense of purpose, a commitment to social change, and an appreciation of the role of education in empowering people. The mission of Prep for Prep is to guide exceptionally able and motivated young people from minority groups towards a belief that they are full and vital members of our larger, shared community.
History:
Prep for Prep: Measures of Success
This year, 4,066 students competed for 222 spots in the program, an acceptance rate of 6%.
At least 75% of a contingent (annually admitted cohort of students) typically completes the 14-month Preparatory Component.
Overall, 40% of Prep for Prep college graduates have earned their degrees from Ivy League universities, while 84% have graduated from colleges characterized as “most selective” by US News & World Report.
This year, 852 Prep students are enrolled in over 50 independent day and boarding schools in New York City and the northeast, such as Andover (21), Brearley (37), Collegiate (38), Dalton (34), Exeter (25), Horace Mann (54), and Nightingale-Bamford (29).
628 Prep alumni/ae currently attend such leading colleges and universities as Brown (27), Columbia (30), Dartmouth (18), Harvard (32), Penn (36), Princeton (22), Wesleyan (58), and Yale (23).
This summer, a total of 212 job/internship opportunities were made available to Prep students through our Summer Jobs Bank and Career Paths Plus! Industries represented include finance, law, communications, entertainment & media, healthcare, education, arts & culture, sports, fashion, and architecture. The collaborations were clearly successful—evaluations revealed that 62% of our high school interns’ employers felt them to be among the best summer interns with whom they had ever worked, and another 29% felt that our students were better than average.
Beyond college, Prep alumni/ae continue to achieve at the highest levels. As of April 2003, 69% of Prep’s college graduates out of school ten years or more had earned or were pursuing advanced degrees. Among those students who had been out of school five years or more, the percentage was 50%.
Among the 951 college graduates as of April 2003, Prep counted over 750 employed alumni/ae and 115 more full-time graduate students. Education was the leading industry in which Prep alumni/ae were employed (20%), followed by finance (16%), business (13%), law (9%), and health care (7%). Our graduate student population was comprised largely of law students (about 40); PhD and EdD candidates (25); medical students (20); and MBA candidates (15). Columbia, Harvard, and Penn were the most frequently attended graduate schools.
Over the last five years, Prep’s college graduates have contributed at an average rate of 62% toward our Annual Alumni/ae Giving Campaign. By comparison, the National Association of Independent Schools cited the national average of independent school alumni/ae giving in 2002-03 at just 19%.
Contact person: Michael O'Leary, Project Director, (email)
Address:
Web Site: None specified
Directions:
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Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: 72 St 123 |
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