The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

835: The number of YES Prep Students on spring college tours

March 10, 2010 by Jeremy Jones

13…835…30,600…53…45…40… Numbers Everywhere But What Do They Mean?

You like numbers?   Well, try these on as YES Prep Public Schools embarks on a historic week of having the most ever spring college tours occur in the same week all across the country!   So, you ready for a little numbers game?   Here goes:

·         13 – number of spring college tours happening from four different YES Prep high school campuses - Southeast, North Central, Southwest and East End!

·         835 - number of students and staff participating on these trips

·         30,600 – number of miles that will be travelled this week either by plane, bus or 15-passenger vans

·         53 – number of colleges and universities that will be visited this week alone by YES Prep

·         45 – number of YES Prep alumni at these colleges

·         40 – number of cities that will be visited

·         54 – average degree for temperature where the students will be visiting this week

·         2,800 – estimated number of slices of pizza to be consumed this week alone!

·         20 – number of Sam’s Club or grocery store runs just this week alone

·         5 – number of buggies needed to transport our students in Amish country in Pennsylvania

·         4 – number of Flying Fish that students will see thrown in Pike’s Place Market in Seattle

·         3 – average number of times students will fall down trying to ice skate in Millennium Park in Chicago

·         2 – number of NBA games to be watched on the road

·         2 – number of oceans that students will see this week – the Atlantic and Pacific

So why do we do these tours? Exposure and informed decision-making – that’s why!   Choosing a college and where to spend four years of your life should never be left to a fancy brochure or the web.   Rather, being on the campus or city and asking yourself the simple question of “can I see myself here?” only truly happens when a student is there, up close and personal.  Students at YES Prep are afforded amazing opportunities and one of the most important ones that they must earn is our annual spring college tours. In fact, if a student starts with us in 6^th grade, by the time they reach their senior year, they will have visited over 20 different colleges – from large to small, public to private, denominational to non-denominational, liberal arts to highly specialized – the higher education system and all it offers awaits them.

There’s no mystery or hidden answers when we easily point to our stats and see that over 70% of our students attend college outside of the greater Houston area.   This is by no means a slam or disrespect to Houston area colleges as this is where the greatest concentration of students attend college; however, choosing to do so should never be due the local college being the ONLY college visited, if that.   Instead, it should be based on an informed decision to attend college here locally or even not to attend based on having visited colleges all across the country.  

One of our core values is “Creating Opportunities that Would Otherwise Not Exist.” To me, there’s no better way to exemplify this than through our spring college tours.   So in the end, what do all these numbers add up to be? Just like the MasterCard commercial, they’re PRICELESS!

For more information about YES Prep and Spring trips, become a fan of YES Prep on the Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/yesprep and follow @EddyExplorer and @YESPrep on Twitter.

Finishing his third year as the Director of College Initiatives, Donald is responsible for working with YES Prep Southeast’s college counseling team to continue building upon their successful program, as well as the other YES Prep campuses to help launch their respective college counseling and alumni support programs as they grow their high school programs. Prior to this, Donald served as the Director of College Counseling and Alumni Programs for YES Prep Southeast. 

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