New College Access Toolkit: Early Awareness, Middle Grades

Posted by National College Access Network on September 5, 2016

Over the past year, the National College Access Network (NCAN) has been researching and collecting information about early awareness strategies and programs. Early awareness programs typically begin in middle school and start the college conversation early, so students can make the right choices before high school that will lead them to the college of their choice. Through research, interviews, and collaboration with early awareness program administrators across the country, it became clear that early awareness practices were increasing, but access to the tools to develop those programs was not. NCAN decided to take on that gap and connect college access programs with the tools they need to develop or enhance early awareness strategies.

We created a new toolkit specifically pertaining to early awareness resources, which expands on our previous collection of resources for grades 9 and 10, and includes resources for the middle grades. The toolkit contains three aspects: a list of resources, descriptions of the resources, and a table of information regarding more comprehensive early awareness programs. The first list of resources links to the tool in question, and indicates the target grade level and audience. The second table provides brief descriptions of each tool, along with a link to the source. The third and final table references programs like GEAR UP and AVID, which are scaled programs that schools and districts can utilize.

Toolkit: http://www.collegeaccess.org/EarlyAwarenessMiddle

Read more on NCAN’s blog.
http://www.collegeaccess.org/BlogItem?dg=a1aca69d33144c30996082947150a700