College Bound STL

Through an individualized, holistic, and multi-year commitment, CB empowers students from disadvantaged backgrounds to complete higher education and enter successful careers. College Bound students will navigate barriers to higher education attainment and enter successful careers and live fulfilling lives of choice and opportunity.

• About Us
  Our 7-9 year relationship starts in high school and lasts until students earn their degrees. We empower first-generation college students to live lives of choice and opportunity. CB students leverage their experiences to maximize growth and shape their futures.
  
  Students learn best from each other. Students engage in classes with their grade level peers to collaborate and develop strong learning habits. These habits include; class preparation, time management, non-fiction reading internalization, data analyzing, and reflection on achievement. Students are presented with strategies, asked to apply them to their current studies and then check in with their coaches on how the strategy is working towards their goals. They are encouraged to try multiple strategies to identify which ones they are most comfortable with and which ones yield the best results.
  
  Workshops are provided as refreshers for students as they go through their college career. They are invited back to discuss ways to study, how to prepare for exams and how to examine returned work from professors.
  
  Bayer Fund College Bound Summer Institute (CBSI), an intensive summer program that increases proficiencies in reading, study habits, self-regulation skills, and allows students the opportunity to earn college credit at no cost. College Bound classes are taught on the campus of the University of Missouri St. Louis (UMSL) by UMSL faculty. This gives our students the opportunity to:
  
  Take college courses on a college campus
  Be exposed to engaging, academically rigorous classes taught by college faculty
  Earn credit toward their degree.
  
  It’s a difficult task to prioritize standardized testing when our approach is individualized and identity driven. However, the ACT is still a barrier in most college applications and scholarship decisions. For this reason, College Bound has chosen to focus strongly on ACT instruction as a vehicle for other strong learning habits. Junior and senior students identify individual growth goals, work on personalized study plans and attend weekly classes. Students are provided personalized feedback from instructors and are taught how to reflect on learning behavior in connection to score growth.
  
  Habits need to be practiced and tested. To encourage strong study habits we encourage students to attend study office hours monthly hosted by College Bound Staff. Students are encouraged to develop strong study habits by attending monthly study office hours hosted by College Bound staff. They test different studying strategies from creating their own tests to teaching their peers. They then receive follow up coaching after their exam to identify what areas they can improve next time.
  
  College Bound’s high school students “make the grade” through our ACT prep, tutoring, math camps, and free college courses over the summer.
  
  Three full-time therapists help students cope with everything from test anxiety to grief and loss.
  
  From job shadowing in high school to resume advice and internship connections, we make sure students graduate with a plan.
  
  Our three-year pilot program with St. Louis Community College explores more pathways to degrees for first-generation, low-income students.
• Our Impact
  What started with two high schools and 36 students in 2006 has grown to serving over 40 high schools in the region and more than 550 students who benefit from individualized coaching every year. Our students are graduating college at a rate nearly 500% higher than their demographics would predict.
  
  Since our founding in 2006, we have succeeded in helping 99.9% of our graduating high school seniors earn admission to a four-year college, and graduate at five times the rate of their peers!
  
  In no place are we failing more than with populations who happen to come from low-income backgrounds. At College Bound, we believe in the untapped potential of young people with talent and ambition who will be the first in their family to successfully attain a college degree. At present, if a student comes from the lowest income quintile, their likelihood to complete a college degree hovers at 11%. Their high-income peers on the top scale are over five times more likely to complete college.
  
  What we know at College Bound is that our students are no less ambitious, no less intelligent, nor any less deserving than anyone. What they lack is knowledge, resources, and opportunities. This is at the heart of what we do at College Bound – to close these gaps so that completing higher education, and all the benefits that come with it, is not just a potential outcome, but a reality.
  
  Our college graduates are showing what is possible. They are becoming valuable members of the workforce and paying taxes. They are healthier, more likely to volunteer and vote, and they are inspiring communities with their success.