Resources
The resources described here are intended to provide alternate tools and information for achieving the strategies introduced in the toolbox. They include both online and print resources that may be helpful to school and outreach practitioners.
Academic Rigor and Programs
Advanced Placement Programs & Assessments
The College Board provides extensive information and materials for increasing the rigor of academic programs. Assessment information on College Board Assessments is also available. Information is also available on
International Baccalaureate Information
This site provides information about developing an International Baccalaureate program at high schools.
Making the Grade in College Prep:
A Guide for Improving College Preparation Programs (PDF)
Designed for use by pre-college professionals responsible for planning and assessment of high school college programs, this pamphlet classifies the range of college preparation programs available, analyzes problems, identifies needs for improvement in evaluation, investigates ways to intervene, and recommends the most successful interventions.
Academic Support
ACT Tools for Educators
ACT has a developed a number of tools to help teachers assess their students’ learning. Using a series of standardized exams, and ACT’s Standards for Transition statements, teachers can track students’ academic progress and identify what students need to learn to succeed in college preparatory courses and on college entrance examinations.
College Board AP Central
The online home for AP teachers provides rich subject specific content and preparation tools for teachers grades 6-12.
Addressing the Needs of a Diverse Student Population
Bridging Multiple Worlds Toolkit
This toolkit includes activities to help youth, staff, teachers, and community partners build pathways to college and career for students. Designed for a diverse student body, the activities help students visualize and achieve their future goals while offering information about how educational professionals and the community can provide guidance and support.
Admission Requirements for Freshman Students
College Is Possible
As part of a national educational campaign launched by the Coalition of American Colleges and Universities, this site offers general college information, including links to websites and brochures recommended by admissions and financial aid professionals.
Building Partnerships
GEAR UP Current Project Overview 2002
(U.S. Department of Education, Office of Post Secondary Education)
This national directory provides contact information and program descriptions of all GEAR UP projects. Practitioners can use this resource to establish networks with other programs and develop collaborative programming with projects in other schools and cities. School or outreach staff can also use this resource to identify the best practices noted within other GEAR UP programs that may be applicable to local programming efforts.
College Planning and Preparation
ACT Student Planning
This is a student-planning guide to aid students in choosing courses, scheduling and taking college entrance exams, and planning to apply for college admissions. The site also includes a link to career-planning information to help students identify the types of courses and forms of higher education they will need to meet their postsecondary career goals.
ACT Student Stories
This webpage contains stories of students at various points in their high school and postsecondary education careers. These stories highlight steps that students have taken to be successful as well as measures that students did not take, which have had negative consequences on their transition from high school to college. The stories make the college application process real to students and encourage them to plan for and apply to college early.
California Colleges GEAR UP Resources
This integrated system provides resources and tools for college planning in California. Sponsored by the federal GEAR UP program, it allows students, parents, and educators to access college preparation resources to promote a college-going culture for all students.
College Board Student Planning Tool
The College Board has developed a number of tools to help high school students plan their academic careers, including information about the college application process. This site includes course planning tips, action plans that discuss what students need to do each year in high school with regard to the college application process, and an online guidance tool to help students explore careers, colleges, and college majors. The course planning worksheet and the articles will help students plan and track their high school coursework to actively participate in planning their futures.
College: Making It Happen (video)
(California Education Round Table Intersegmental Coordinating Committee)
Created for parents to promote higher education to their children, this video highlights various colleges and universities, types of financial aid available, and the benefits of a college degree. Teachers can send the video home with a discussion sheet for students and their parents to use. Practitioners can hold a parent meeting to share the video, perhaps also inviting a panel of parents who have college students to answer questions after the viewing.
Family Firsts (Parent Version , Student Version - both are PDF)
Students who are the first in their family to consider college face significant challenges. These brochures help students and parents know what they need to know to prepare for and apply to college.
Early outreach activities provide educational opportunities and ongoing support for a growing number of underrepresented students. Early college awareness frequently targets low-income and first generation college-going students to better enable teachers, administrators, and school counselors to effectively serve these students.
Get Ready for College and Making College Affordable
Published through the Higher Education Information Center (HEIC) of The Education Resources Institute (TERI), these resource workbooks offer a comprehensive guide on the basics for college readiness and are based on decades of collaboration between high schools and colleges.
Helpful World Wide Web Sites for College-Bound Students and Parents
(The College Board)
This brochure identifies websites that may be useful to college-bound students. Classroom teachers can incorporate this resource into their college research sessions in computer labs. Practitioners can use the document for personal research and to find information on a range of topics such as college exploration and financial aid.
Preparing for College
This web site, created by the University of Southern California, offers detailed descriptions on how to prepare for college, beginning in junior high school.
Standards for Transition
ACT’s Educational Planning and Assessment System provides data that enables school support personnel to help students plan for and prepare for college. The system comprises EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT Assessment.
Steps to College
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), which is made up of college admission officers and guidance counselors from around the country, offers many Web resources featuring step-by-step information about planning for and applying to college and nearly every college preparation Web resource available to students.
Change
Reinventing Education Change Toolkit
This toolkit is the result of a collaborative partnership to help educators and other professionals more effectively implement change in their schools. Education leaders can read about their colleagues’ successful experiences with the toolkit and then examine their own situations to identify weaknesses and other areas in need of improvement. Relevant advice and resources for planning are also included.
Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution
Written as a field guide, Breaking Ranks II is a researched-based continuation of the discussion on the change needed in American High Schools. Breaking Ranks II was developed to improve the learning experience of every student by providing high school principals and their leadership teams with illustrations of possible entry points or areas in which to begin reform, strategies for implementing successful reform, and profiles of successes, challenges, and results of implementation.
National Commission on the High School Senior Year (PDF)
Released in 2001, this report addresses the research-based strategies on changing the American High School.
Data Collection and Analysis Tools
ACT Tools for Educators
ACT has developed a number of tools to help teachers assess their students’ learning. Using a series of standardized exams and ACT’s Standards for Transition statements, teachers can track students’ academic progress and identify what students need to learn to succeed in college preparatory courses and on the ACT college entrance exam.
ACT's Educational Planning and Assessment System provides data that enables school support personnel to help students plan for and prepare for college. The system comprises EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT Assessment.
Pathways to School Improvement
The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) offers a resource page that has links to a number of how-tos, a survey for diagnosis of existing efforts, and supporting research.
The Public Education Network (PEN)
PEN has developed a data collection framework to help organizations utilize a community approach to provide integrated services to children and families.
Financial Planning and Application
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
All forms for application for Federal Student aid are available on this site.
Guidance and Support
American School Counselor Association
This site contains publications and other useful information for school counselors to support students in achieving their academic and personal goals.
American Student Achievement Institute (ASAI)
ASAI’s goal is to eliminate achievement gaps and promote academic achievement for all students, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
Counselor Competencies and the Role of Pre-College Counseling
These National Association for College Admission Counseling publications identify and develop eight essential competencies for counselors, as well as outline the components that make for an effective pre-college guidance and counseling program in PDF format.
School Guidance and Counseling
Developed by the Texas Education Agency, this comprehensive Web resource for Texas schools includes resources to enhance the role of counseling and college awareness in secondary school curriculum.
Mentoring Programs
The National Mentoring Center
This collaboration between the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory provides a wealth of resources including research publications, frequently asked questions, and training information.
The National Mentoring Partnership
This website provides tools and tips to create a mentoring program, ideas for improving mentoring, and lists of mentoring partnerships on the state and private levels.
Yes, You Can: Establishing Mentoring Programs to Prepare Youth for College
This report is a comprehensive guide to starting your own mentoring program. (November 1998, U.S. Department of Education, Partnership for Family Involvement in Education)
Contemporary Issues in Mentoring (PDF)
This study examines a range of current issues in mentoring. (Jean Baldwin Grossman, 2002, Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures)
Middle School
Think college? Me? Now?
A Handbook for Students in Middle School and Junior High School
This colorful, easy-to-read handbook gives tips and information on how to make college a dream come true. Counselors can use this resource to introduce middle school students to college. Students can use this resource to answer questions about college (e.g., what are the different types of colleges? How does one pay for college? What high school courses need to be taken to prepare? What jobs can be obtained afterward?).
College ED
College Ed was developed to inspire every single student to attend and succeed in
college. It introduces the process to middle school students who are often unaware of the importance of college. It includes information on how to prepare, how to apply, how to pay for college and where to go to college.
College Outreach Programs
Directory of TRIO Programs, 2000-2001
This directory provides contact information for all of the TRIO programs in the United States, a useful resource in networking, establishing intersegmental program objectives, and supporting students in their transitions between education systems.
Increasing Access to College: Extending Possibilities for All Students
This book examines pre-college enrichment programs that offer a specific and immediate remedy to increasing the access of underrepresented students to college. It outlines a model of college preparation program effectiveness and can be used in developing workshops/seminars. The book is an excellent reference tool for those interested in developing effective college preparation programs or who are looking for a model for program development and evaluation. It can also be used to evaluate existing and future college preparation programs. (William G. Tierney and Linda Serra Hagedorn, 2002, New York: State University of New York Press) ISBN: 0-7914-5364-2
Parent and Family Support
America Goes Back to School
This site provides a resource to help build school-family-community partnerships that will improve education across the country.
Family Friendly Schools
Designed to engage students, families, and communities in academic achievement, this website offers relationship-building strategies, tools, and other information.
Families, Schools, Communities Learning Together (PDF)
Published by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, this 71-page booklet contains all of the key components identified in the Social Support section of this college readiness toolbox.
The Coalition for Community Schools
The Coalition works toward improving education and helping students learn and grow while supporting and strengthening their families and communities. Community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities – before, during, and after school, seven days a week. Links to a number of tools to help establish and sustain school-family-community partnerships are also included.
National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP)
NCCEP offers a series of web pages to serve as a starting place for communities to explore engagement with schools for the purpose of improving underserved students' access to college.
Making Family and Community Connections
This workshop, one of a series of education-related workshops for educators, provides a step-by-step method for setting up family and community connections with schools. Links to research and diagnostic support are included, as well as schedules and other how-to instructions for implementation.
Parents and Counselors Together (PACT)
Offered by the National Association of College Admission Counselors, PACT is a program that brings together the parent and the counselor in an effort to guide the student along the wide range of educational options by encouraging achievement and familiarizing parents, educators, and concerned community representatives with the college admission and financial aid process. This guide is widely used in parent workshops and education guidance as early as in elementary school and is perfect for first generation college-going students.
Washington Mutual Parent Resource Guide (PDF)
This multilingual publication (English, Spanish and Creole) is used by Miami-Dade County public schools principals and teachers to increase parent involvement.
Peer Support Programs
Students for Other Students (S.O.S.) Handbook
S.O.S. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the funding, development, and operation of peer tutoring programs in public primary and secondary schools. Their website and the S.O.S. Handbook serve as a resource for schools that want to put a student-to-student tutoring program in place. Each school district is encouraged to first develop its own guidelines and protocols that make sense for its own unique needs and resources. Then S.O.S. works with school administrators and teachers to solve problems and develop highly effective peer tutoring programs.
Catalyst Teaching: Student Collaboration
Though this Web resource is geared specifically toward college students at the University of Washington, the Web-based tools offered are appropriate for modeling and replicating at a variety of levels. Examples of collaborative activities that foster student collaboration in the learning process online are included.
Peer Design Review
The activity on this website can be used to critique peer projects in any medium.
Policy
Standards for Success Project
This site features a national project focusing on standards, assessments, and college readiness for high school students. Specifically, the site provides detailed information on the benefits and difficulties associated with K-16 assessment alignment.
Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP)
On this website is detailed information about the EAOP, a college-preparatory program geared toward helping middle and high school students with demonstrated potential get to college. Student services include an array of academic-enrichment activities and programs that feature challenging courses, academic advising, and preparation for standardized tests, on-campus residential programs, Saturday Academies, and educational programs for families. The site provides a program overview, descriptions of the various University of California campus school-based programs, an online library, a college planning calendar, and a directory of program offices.
Rethinking High School: The Next Frontier for State Policymakers (PDF)
This report provides information about four states – California, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont – that are attempting to change high schools supported by state policy. The report includes examples of successful strategies and recommendations.
Preparing for College: Building Expectations, Changing Realities (PDF)
This publication provides a research-based overview of college preparation. Proposing nine key components of college preparation programs, the report provides a succinct approach to thinking about college preparation.
Student Success: Statewide P-16 Systems (PDF)
This document is a set of essays was drawn fro the SHEEO P-16 Initiative. It is intended to highlight the key components of an integrated educational system that can be replicated in many states and areas.
What is P-16 Education? A Primer for Legislators
This publication is a practical introduction to the concept, language and policy issues of an integrated system of public education.
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