Posse Foundation

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The Posse Foundation is a non-profit organization that identifies, recruits, and trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams called "Posses" of ten to twelve Posse scholars. These teams are then prepared, through an intensive eight-month Pre-Collegiate Training Program, for enrollment at top-tier universities nationwide to pursue their academics and to help promote cross-cultural communication on college campuses.

1 Success of Program
2 Goals of the Posse Foundation
3 External links

[edit] Success of Program

The Posse Program has exhibited great success over the past 14 years placing 1,228 students into colleges and universities. These students have won over $112 million in scholarships from Posse partner universities and are persisting and graduating at 90 %—a rate higher than the national averages at institutions of higher education. Twenty-six colleges and universities, such as Brandeis, Claremont McKenna College, Oberlin, and Bryn Mawr are currently partnered with the program. Posse currently has sites in five major cities across the United States: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.

[edit] Goals of the Posse Foundation

Posse has three goals designed to address some critical issues of importance to institutions of higher education in the United States today:

1.) To expand the pool from which top colleges and universities can recruit outstanding young leaders from diverse backgrounds.

2.) To help these institutions build more interactive campus environments so that they can become more welcoming institutions for people from all backgrounds.

3.) To ensure that Posse Scholars persist in their academic studies and graduate so they can take on leadership positions in the workforce. (From the Posse Foundation Website.)

[edit] Goal 1

University admissions offices in the United States often search for ways to identify “non-traditional” candidates who might contribute greatly to and benefit greatly from their institutions. Such universities want to continue to increase access for students from diverse backgrounds. As a result of its belief that traditional measures sometimes miss capable students, Posse has developed an alternative evaluation strategy called the Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP), hoping to identify urban youth leaders who can succeed despite varying scores on tests such as the SAT. The Posse Foundation hopes to help more students from urban high schools to enter top colleges and universities.

[edit] Goal 2

According to the Posse Foundation, many colleges and universities experience a climate where students from different backgrounds find little opportunity to interact. The Posse Foundation aims to train students to improve their leadership skills so that they can help colleges and universities address diversity issues on campus.

[edit] Goal 3

The Posse foundation hopes to improve college retention and completion rates for students of different cultural and racial backgrounds.

[edit] Posse Scholars Pre-College Training Program

Eight months before Posse Scholars begin their college career, they will attend a weekly pre-college training program. The goal of this training program is to prepare Posse Scholars for all possible academic, social and personal challenges they may face in their college career.