CollegeBound Days of Summer: Tackling Summer Melt
There’s nothing quite like summer. A time to kick back, slow down, and enjoy long days in the sunshine. While summer is certainly a good time to recharge, those of us who work in the field of college access and success, we also know that summer is a critical time for our new CBI alumni to take the next steps in enrolling and matriculating into college or other postsecondary plans–but, due to various factors, that isn’t always the case. This phenomenon is known as ‘summer melt,’ and it can happen for any number of reasons. Students might take on a full-time job in the summer and decide it’s more financially responsible to keep working instead of taking on student loan debt. Or, the enrollment paperwork from colleges and training programs can be complex and overwhelming for students who do not understand the requirements, nor have anybody to help guide them through the process.
In this piece, we’ll highlight some of the ways that we address summer melt, and specifically, how our CollegeBound Initiative (CBI) team ensures that the dog days of summer are also the CollegeBound days of summer for our new CBI alumni!
Transitioning from high school to college
According to the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, 10-40% of college bound students across the country fail to enroll in college or postsecondary programs in the fall following high school graduation–and summer melt tends to hit students growing up in underserved communities the hardest.
Our college access program, CBI, partners with high-need public high schools so we understand these communities and their challenges well.
Students impacted hardest by summer melt are also often the first in their families to attend college–so the stakes are especially high for these families. We work with our students to ensure they are equipped with the tools they need to create prosperity for themselves and generations to come. To address this issue and specifically tackle summer melt, CBI launched a program in 2011 called Bridge To College. It proved to be an effective strategy, and we saw promising potential in helping more students follow through with their intentions to enroll in college. Since launching the program just over ten years ago, we have consistently increased first-semester enrollment by 10-15%.
The central component of Bridge To College are the College Transition Coaches (CTCs), part-time interns who work closely with our school-based directors of college counseling (DCCs) in providing direct support to students in ensuring they are reaching all of the necessary milestones when enrolling in college. CTCs are current college students who are also CBI alumni– so the college enrollment processes and experience is still fresh in their minds!
The primary role of CTCs is to create connections with graduating seniors as they leave high school and look ahead to their postsecondary plans. Throughout the summer following high school graduation, CTCs are tasked with hosting “Transition to College” workshops with recent graduates and providing hands-on support with college enrollment tasks like scanning documents, validating financial information, and other requirements.
As we’ve heard in research about summer melt, and in our own experiences, innovative solutions don’t necessarily need to be complex nor large-scale–but rather providing one-on-one support and assistance with administrative requirements can send our graduates onwards and over the bridge to college.
Preparing new CBI alumni for college access
While Bridge To College focuses on helping students enroll in college, our Alumni Engagement team is dedicated to helping them succeed when they get there! Beginning during senior year, the team makes in-school visits and offers several workshops throughout the year to get students acquainted with the services and support available to them as CBI alumni following graduation.
One of the team’s signature summer programs is the Collegiate Sendoff, featuring four digital magazines that are distributed to new CBI alumni in the summer between high school and college.
The guides highlight four topics for college success:
- academic achievement
- financial aid
- financial literacy
- health & wellness
The Collegiate Sendoff guides are evergreen and developed in hopes that CBI alumni will refer to them as they navigate the different world that is college life! In addition to these efforts, the team continues to grow the CBI alumni networking platform, SL Net Connect. The platform offers a job board, groups, event listings, ability to find a mentor or mentee, and messaging features to help grow and deepen connections within our network.
A jumpstart on college applications
In addition to supporting new CBI alumni in their transition to their postsecondary lives, our CBI team also encourages rising high school seniors to take advantage of the summer months and get a headstart on the college application process before the new school kicks into full gear.
The program, CollegeBound Summer Institute (CBSI), was delivered virtually once again this year and included a dynamic website, and weekly emails and social media content dedicated to four parts of the application process:
- College essays
- Financial aid
- Financial literacy
- Building a college list
Each week featured presentations by DCCs, virtual college tours with CBI alumni, content from our partners like uAspire, Story2, and ROAM NYC. Check out some of the content on our Instagram feed.
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