Mission
Woodrow Wilson’s Early College Initiative supports bridge-building between institutions of higher education and secondary schools, so that more and better-prepared students from underrepresented and underserved populations graduate from college.
The Woodrow Wilson
Early College High School Initiative
Early College Home | Early College Approach | School Partnerships | Resources
Making College Real
For students who may have never imagined college, Woodrow Wilson Early Colleges provide rigorous high school and college classes in small school settings. These Early Colleges challenge students with college-level work, as well as tailored support services and a practical understanding of what it takes to get to college and succeed.
The Woodrow Wilson Early College Network—initially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—involves college and university faculty closely in every aspect of teaching, learning, and operations in small middle and high schools. The outcome: These schools make college real for students in high-need districts.
Early College Approach
Through both institutional innovation and the professional development of teachers, the Woodrow Wilson Early College Initiative aims to make academic excellence the standard for all students, and to enable students to complete their degrees in more timely and cost-effective ways. More...
Partner Organizations & Sponsors
The Woodrow Wilson Early College High Schools
The Early Colleges High School Initiative (Earlycolleges.org)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Sidney E. Frank Foundation
John & Laura Overdeck
Resources
The Woodrow Wilson Foundation has developed a series of resources to support our network of Early College partnerships and other school-university partnerships focused on improving secondary education and increasing college access and success for underserved students. More...
If You’re Interested
Please note: Participation in the Early College Initiative is restricted to colleges and high schools, and is by invitation only. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation cannot enroll individual students in Early College High Schools. Interested parties may contact Rob Baird, Vice President for School-University Partnerships, at (609) 452-7007, ext. 122, for more information.
Highlights
- CAL Prep, an early college partnership between Aspire Public Schools and UC Berkeley, graduated its first senior class on June 12. Congratulations to all of the graduates and everyone at CAL Prep who helped them achieve their goals.
Read more about their college admissions and interviews with 6 of the graduates. - Five Lessons on College Retention from Early Colleges, an article by Cecilia L. Cunningham and Roberta S. Matthews, appeared in the April 18 edition of Community College Week. The article describes effective tactics to keep students in college used in early colleges supported by the Middle College National Consortium (MCNC) and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
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Angel Jackson and Kiana Murphy (pictured right), early college students at Friendship Collegiate Academy in Washington DC, were recently awarded the Gates Millennium Scholarship! The Gates Millennium Scholars program provides 1,000 talented students with renewable scholarship awards covering the cost of undergraduate education; ACademic Empowerment (ACE) services to encourage academic excellence; mentoring services for academic and personal development; and an online resource center that provides internship, fellowship and scholarship information. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation congratulates Kiana Murphy and Angel Jackson on their academic accomplishments.
Kiana Murphy - Rhona Weinstein and Leo White of UC Berkeley, Andrea Venezia and Laura Jaeger of WestEd, and Megan Reed of CAL Prep Academy presented research papers in a session at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association in New Orleans. The session, “Thinking Outside the Box: Which Student Supports Are Necessary in High-Expectation High-Need Schools?,” focused on three studies of student support resources and practices within the national Woodrow Wilson Early College Network. Kathy Hughes of Teacher’s College, Columbia University was the Discussant, and the session was chaired by Kristen Vogt, associate director of early college. For more information about the studies, contact Kristen Vogt or Laura Jaeger.
- Kristen Vogt, associate director of early college, was joined by Holly Harrison of Hunter College and Kathe Karlson of Manhattan Hunter Science High School in a presentation at the American College Personnel Association Annual Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. The three presented the innovations put in place by the MHSHS/Hunter early college partnership to support students as they make their transition from high school to college. For more information, contact Kristen Vogt.
- Five Friendship Collegiate Academy seniors were named 2011 Posse Scholars by the Posse Foundation. This is the most winners from any public or private school not only in Washington D.C., but in the metropolitan region. Over 1600 students from over 100 public and private high school in the region competed for 62 merit-based Posse scholarships. View news story