The "College Bound" Focus: Summit High School Students Look Ahead

The Summit College Bound Program

While the Summit high school students enjoy their Junior Counselor roles as peer leaders during the summer, their involvement with Summit does not end there. In conjunction with the Summer Olympics Program, high school students spend the school year prepping for the position and growing in academics and character in the Summit College Bound Program.

This program complements Summit's other programs by focusing on academic and character development, career presentations, college visits, individual advising and goal-setting as the students look to their futures beyond high school.

Summit College Tours

For the past few years, Summit College Bound students have had the opportunity to visit various colleges all over the country. Many of these students will be the first in their family to attend college, so this gives them the opportunity to ask questions and get an insight into higher education. Summit students are invigorated by the experience, which gives them a larger scope of what is possible for their lives and this translates into an increased enthusiasm for their high school academics.

Over this last spring break in 2014, the boys' program visited colleges on the West Coast, including the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, and USC, while the girls visited colleges on the East Coast, including the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, NYU, Harvard, MIT and Notre Dame.

College Bound Students Give Back

Summit College Bound students and Junior Counselors Valeria Serna, Nashali De Leon and Diana Lopez have loved the experience of exploring new cities and visiting different colleges with Summit so much that they decided to "pay it forward" to future generations of Summit students. These girls are going to be Seniors this fall at St. Anthony High School, and they claim that the Summit College Tours really motivated them to think about their futures. As Junior Counselors working with the girls in the program, they would like to see these girls get to have the same opportunities that they feel have benefited them so much:

This past spring, Summit gave us the wonderful opportunity to explore a number of universities on the East Coast. What once seemed nearly impossible was placed within our reach thanks to Summit. The College Tour broadened our horizons and made us realize there was a whole new set of possibilities awaiting us; all we had to do was set our goals and take it step by step to achieve them.

This trip inspired us to give the same opportunity to the next generation of Summit students, especially for those girls who we have watched grow up before our eyes. As Junior Counselors, we are almost like "big sisters" to the girls, and we try to help them grow into strong young women.

Because of this, we have made it our goal to raise money for the next group of girls who are in the same position we were.We believe that every girl deserves to be able to see past the restrictions that would cause her to set her sights low, such as not being able to travel, or not being able to afford it. The trips that we have gone on with Summit have inspired us to see our limitless potential for the future, and it means so much to us that future generations of Summit students can receive this gift as well.

- Nashali De Leon & Valeria Serna