Dear Admission Possible friends,

As a friend of Admission Possible, we want you to be the first to know about the most recent expansion news! 

With a positive track record of growth in Minnesota’s Twin Cities and a successful first out-of-state expansion to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, our Board of Directors voted unanimously in December to continue our national expansion efforts with the launch of a Central Office this month.

Working under a plan that calls for Admission Possible branch operations in as many as 10 cities by 2015, the Central Office will support mature sites like the Twin Cities, help grow emerging sites like Milwaukee, and identify and launch new sites across the country.  Based on the eight-month strategic planning work Admission Possible senior management completed with the support of McKinsey & Company, our organization will grow as a single 501c3 nonprofit creating streamlined back-office services housed in the Central Office and benefiting all sites.

We are committed to sustaining and growing our services in the communities in which we already work while helping new communities build our program in their markets.  The Board has asked me to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of our Central Office, and I am excited to take on this challenge.  An executive search will begin this month for a proven leader to serve as Executive Director of Admission Possible of the Greater Twin Cities.

At the heart of this growth are the alarming statistics that low-income youth are still entering college at one-third the rate of their higher income peers and that every year nationwide 200,000 low-income students graduate from high school prepared for college, but don’t go.  This is an enormous loss of potential for a student who – with a college education – could break out of the cycle of poverty forever, and for a nation that needs an educated workforce and citizenry to ensure its future global competitiveness.

It has been with your support over the last nine years that Admission Possible has been able to succeed in helping 98 percent of our students earn admission to college and to grow from serving 35 students to nearly 3,700 students annually in 23 high schools across two metro areas and on more than 80 college campuses.  We know it will be with your continued partnership that we are able to answer President Obama’s call to grow our effective model to reach students in need across the nation:

“Admission Possible operates in just two states now, so imagine if it were 10 or 20 or 50.” – President Obama, June 2009 (Click here to watch the video.)

We are excited to continue this work to help promising low-income high school students achieve their dreams of a college education and a new life path, because we know that when admission is possible, anything is possible. 

Sincerely,

Jim