Fall College Tours: From Minnesota to Boston

Above: Hamline alum/PS staffer Alana with Cin, a senior at Washburn and a hopeful future Hamline Piper, on our MEA Boot Camp college tours.

October and November have been eventful months for Project Success college tours! By the end of this week, we will have brought more than 400 students to 19 colleges across the region and the country.

We hosted our annual, three-day MEA Boot Camp in October, visiting 12 colleges and universities over that time. We will also be touring Carleton, St. Olaf, Winona State, University of Minnesota Morris and University of St. Thomas in the coming week. And for the second year, we are partnering with Minneapolis Public Schools’ Division of Global Education to bring a group of 11th and 12th graders, most of whom are English Learner (EL) students, to Boston University and Harvard University.

The students headed to Boston hail from 13 different MPS high schools, and were nominated by their school principals and EL lead teachers to take part in the trip.

Our college tours are one of the ways we empower students to think about their futures and create actionable plans to achieve their dreams. Last year’s Boston college tour was an unforgettable experience for the students and the Project Success staff who joined us. With the help of our partner Lifetouch Photography, we were able to capture many of the student’s reflections in our video, Seeing is Believing.

“[This trip] gave me so much hope. I want to be the first one in my family to attend college.” – Yasin, participant in Project Success 2015 Boston college tours

Every college campus visit, including our tours this weekend, will be an opportunity for students to explore their goals, reflect on their own values, and feel better prepared to take on the college admissions process. In addition to accompanying students on campus tours, our Project Success staff facilitate workshops with our curriculum – developed to prepare students for college life, allow them to explore their personal priorities, and better understand the options they have to pay for college.

All of these opportunities will encourage students to create unique future plans that best suit them as individuals and ignite a world of possibilities for them.

Thank you to Minneapolis Public Schools for their ongoing partnership.

Connect with Project Success on Facebook and Twitter, and check out hashtag #PSCollegeTour to follow our journey.