Talk:College Possible

I am proposing an improvement/ replacement of this entry, which uses a lot of promotional language and no citations, to a version that is more in align with Wikipedia's guidelines on maintaining a neutral point of view and using only verifiable information. This page has been deleted before for being overly promotional, so this has been a recurring problem.

I volunteer with Admission Possible's communications team, and because of this conflict of interest, I'm hoping to get the input of other editors. Please take a look at the proposed version and suggest or make any changes you can think of. Your help is appreciated! Jenbendewood (talk) 18:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * ❌ See below comment under 'Improving this article'. Also, please reply at that section or below it so we can keep the proposal intact. Shearonink (talk) 02:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposed replacement follows:

Admission Possible is a nonprofit AmeriCorps organization whose mission is to help academically motivated, low-income students earn admission to and graduate from college. Its model utilizes recent college graduates as near-peer mentors to students lacking the social resources to successfully navigate the high school to college transition. Headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the organization currently serves students in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area and in Milwaukee.

History
Admission Possible was chartered as a nonprofit in September of 2000, beginning operations in two Saint Paul public high schools the next spring. By the 2008-09 school year, the organization was serving students in 17 schools across Minneapolis-Saint Paul and opened a second site in Milwaukee. In the current 2010-11 school year, the organization serves approximately 1,400 juniors and seniors in 17 Minneapolis-Saint Paul high schools and 230 juniors and seniors in 7 Milwaukee high schools.

Partner high schools
In the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area: In Milwaukee:
 * Saint Paul Public Schools
 * Central High School
 * Como Park High School
 * Harding High School
 * Highland Park High School
 * Humbolt High School
 * Johnson High School
 * Minneapolis Public Schools
 * Edison High School
 * Patrick Henry High School
 * Roosevelt High School
 * Greater metro area schools
 * Columbia Heights High School
 * Coon Rapids High School
 * Robbinsdale Armstrong High School
 * Robbinsdale Cooper High School
 * St. Louis Park High School
 * Public charter schools
 * Community of Peace Academy (Saint Paul)
 * Higher Ground Academy (Saint Paul)
 * Ubah Medical Academy (Hopkins)
 * Milwaukee Public Schools
 * Alexander Hamilton High School
 * International Peace Academy
 * Milwaukee School of Languages
 * Riverside University High School
 * South Division High School
 * Northwest Secondary School
 * Milwaukee Choice Schools
 * Saint Joan Antida

Programming
Admission Possible operates at no cost to students; however, students are expected to complete eight hours of community service each year. To be accepted, applicants must qualify as low-income (in practice this means being eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches) and they must maintain a GPA of 2.0 or higher.

Average family income of accepted students is under $25,000 per year, and average GPA of students in the program is between 2.7 to 3.0. Over 90% of participants are students of color. In the Twin Cities, 32% of students are Hmong, 17% are African immigrants, and 15% are African-American; in Milwaukee, 43% of students are African-American and 26% are Latino/a.

A New York Times article from November 2005 quotes CEO Jim McCorkell as saying: “My starting idea was what if we replicated Kaplan for poor kids.” Students accepted into the program participate in over 320 hours of after-school sessions over their junior and senior years. Curriculum in the junior year is focused on ACT preparation, in the senior year on applying to college and for financial aid. Students also lead college awareness workshops for freshmen and sophomores in their school, in cooperation with their AmeriCorps coach, and participate in organized volunteer projects. The program has recently been expanding to include more services to program alumni enrolled in college, including support in renewing financial aid and help in utilizing the college’s own student resources.

Evaluation
The organization reports a 21% average ACT score increase during students’ junior year. It also reports that 98% of all of its students gain acceptance into any post-secondary institution. Wilder Research (an arm of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation of Saint Paul) performed an external evaluation of Admission Possible in 2006, and substantiated its claim that 91% of the organization’s students enrolled in college—a figure higher than comparable programs. The organization is currently undergoing an external, randomized controlled evaluation to address the problem of selection bias in previous program evaluations.

The Charities Review Council deems that it “meets all standards”.

Recognition
McCorkell was named an Ashoka Fellow, a recognition for social entrepreneurship, in 2006. The organization has been recognized with awards from the National Association for College Admission Counseling,, College Board, and the National College Access Network.

Improving this article
In my opinion the major problem with the article right now is the quality (or lack thereof) of the references, most of the citations are from the article subject's own website. Outside references - newspapers, magazine, TV stations' websites, etc. - that are from reliable sources are needed. Any possible tone issues can be handled by keeping a neutral point of view. Also, there might be some possible confusion between two entirely different organizations here - adMISSION POSSIBLE (from San Francisco, website ending with a '.com') and Admission Possible (from Minneapolis, website ending in a '.org'). User:Jenbendewood, while it can be difficult to edit an article when one has a relationship or close knowledge of the subject, it is not impossible. I suggest that you improve this article as you see fit, I'll keep an eye on it and you can also contact me with any questions on my talkpage. Shearonink (talk) 02:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these suggestions! I just swapped out a lot of the website references in the Programming section in favor of outside references. Jenbendewood (talk) 19:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on College Possible. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111215145807/http://www.admissionpossible.org/americorps.html to http://www.admissionpossible.org/americorps.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101109162012/http://www.admissionpossible.org/history.html to http://www.admissionpossible.org/history.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110713043752/http://insightnews.com/education/5161-admission-possible-students-scare-up-10000-pound-donation-for-foodshelf- to http://insightnews.com/education/5161-admission-possible-students-scare-up-10000-pound-donation-for-foodshelf-
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111216180432/http://www.admissionpossible.org/collegeprogram.html to http://www.admissionpossible.org/collegeprogram.html
 * Added tag to http://www.admissionpossible.org/uploads/harvard_comparative_historical_analysis_results_-_june_201.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110429032749/http://www.ashoka.org/fellow/3925 to http://www.ashoka.org/fellow/3925

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:51, 10 August 2017 (UTC)