"I never would have dropped out if I'd had my posse with me."
That remark from a college drop-out inspired the Posse Foundation's innovative program that has sent thousands of young people to college in groups of ten. More than 90% graduate.
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Photo credit: Posse Foundation annual report
This fall, Nicole Quiles,18, of New York City, will begin her freshman year at Franklin and Marshall College. She'll be living away from home, attending a predominantly white college in a semi-rural community in Pennsylvania. It has the potential to be a bewildering, even intimidating experience. But she won't be facing it alone.
When Nicole arrives on campus, she will arrive with her "posse" -- nine other young people from New York also going to Franklin and Marshall who she has spent this year getting to know and together preparing for this big moment in their young lives.
"I don't know how I would have entered going to college without such great people around, such a great community," she told me this week.
Sekou Cherif, also 18, will be there too.
"I feel like we're an amazing group," he said. "It's so much fun just being around them. It's a lot of people like us going with us. But also, I think it's just a support system."
Nicole, Sekou and the others were accepted as a group by F&M through the Posse Foundation (www.possefoundation.org) which sends cohorts of college freshmen -- posses -- to college together as a kind of mutual support system.
This fall, 820 young women and men -- the freshman Class of 2026 -- will be attending 60 different colleges and universities, each of them as part of a group of ten who will have gotten to know one another in training sessions, team-building exercises and workshops, and just from hanging out together since the beginning of this year.
There is no "typical" Posse scholar. Most attended public schools in big cities. The racial breakdown is: 34.2 percent Black, 31.4 percent Latino, 11.3 percent Asian-American and 9 percent White. Most of the students are from low or lower-middle-income backgrounds. More than 60 percent are the first generation in their family to go to college. All receive full scholarships, based on merit. Those with financial need have their room, board and other expenses covered, too.
By a variety of measures, the formula works. Most Posse scholars don't just survive in college, they thrive.
Photo credit: Posse Foundation
In its 30-plus year existence, Posse students have achieved an astonishing record of success. More than 90 percent of Posse scholars earn their bachelor degree. By comparison, a little over 60 percent of all students graduate within six years of starting college, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Department of Education.
But success is measured by more than just graduation rates. The Posse Foundations says nearly 80 percent of the students it sends to college hold formal leadership roles on campus, including student body presidents, founders of college clubs and organizations.
Deborah Bial with Posse students
A few months ago, I spoke to Deborah Bial, the founder and CEO of the Posse Foundation about the origins of Posse, its mission and its record of achievement. Here is a condensed excerpt of our conversation.
RC: When and where did the whole Posse concept come from?
DB: In the 1980s, the word posse was still a cool word in the youth culture. There was a kid that dropped out of college who said, "'I never would have dropped out if I had my posse with me." And we thought, great idea. Why not send a team, a cohort, a posse of young people together to college. That's how it started.
RC: Where were you even heard this and got the idea that this could become a model for a program?
DB: I was working at a youth organization in downtown, in New York City, with all these great kids. I was running workshops after school at Curtis High School on Staten island and the Manhattan Center for Science and Math in East Harlem. These kids were just super smart and super talented (but) a lot of them were going to college and then dropping out, and then that one kid said that.
RC: Do you remember who the kid was and where you were that you happened to overhear this?
DB: It was one of the kids at this organization who was super super smart. He'd gotten into an Ivy League institution with a scholarship and then had dropped out.
RC: What made you think there was a (larger) problem that this idea might address?
DB: Many colleges and universities, especially the elite institutions, predominantly white institutions, we're really making concerted efforts to think about how to diversify their student bodies. But they were very heavily reliant on the SAT and at that time and, frankly, Ron, today, there's a big discrepancy between who scores the best on these tests. White and Asian kids were scoring way better than Black and Latinx kids, and all of them were vying for (say) a Dominican kid who had a perfect test score. Everyone wanted that person. But we knew from working in the schools that there were so many smart kids, as you know, who could compete, who could do well, who were brilliant but they weren't going to show up on the radar screen of a Vanderbilt or a Northwestern or a Bryn Mawr. And they may not even be considering those schools. So we said we'll find those kids. There's not enough of these high-scoring young people from backgrounds of color to go around to all these schools. But there are so many kids, if you just look beyond the test score, you can find some great students. In fact, we'll find them for you. That was the issue that we were addressing at the time.
Deborah Bial with Posse scholars
RC: How did it start? It's one thing to say, "Hey, I have a great idea." What did you do next?
DB: So we knew somebody that was a very renowned professor at Vanderbilt University and he talked to the officials at Vanderbilt and they said we'll take a chance on this program. Vanderbilt was super white, very wealthy, girls wore dresses to football games. They needed somebody to help them (diversify) and they said we're to take a chance on this idea and we'll admit some Posses. They took that first Posse. In 1990, the first Posse matriculated at Vanderbilt University. I'll give you some numbers. Since 1989, we have identified more than 10,000 Posse scholars. We've just selected the 10,000th Posse scholar. They've won $1.8 billion in scholarships. They graduate at rates of 90 percent, and they will become leaders in the workforce. We operate out of 10 brick and mortar cities, cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, right? And this past year during the pandemic (2021) we've doubled the number of cities from which we recruit Posse kids from because now we can do it virtually. And we've added cities, like Philly, Memphis, Dallas, Cleveland.
RC: Tell me about the first Posse. How many were they? How did you select them? How did they do?
DB: The first posse only had five kids. Now every Posse has ten kids. so the first posse was a small group. They all did amazing. They graduated on time with honors. I like to tell the story of Shirley Collado. Shirley, a Dominican kid, grew up in Brooklyn. Her dad drove a yellow taxi in New York. And she did not have good SAT scores, terrible SAT scores, but super smart kid, very dynamic, very outgoing . We get her into V. She graduates with honors, gets her doctorate in clinical psychology from Duke University, becomes the dean of the college at Middlebury and a few years ago, Shirley becomes the president of Ithaca College. She's the first Dominican-American to be president of a 4-year college in the entire United States. That's an example and she's not an exception to the rule. You know, these young people are really amazing. They're fabulous.
RC: How do you know that she or that group of five wouldn't have succeeded otherwise?
DB: I think they would succeed.
RC: Then how did Posse help them in a way they otherwise might not have been?
DB: I think there are a number of things going on. One is: could Shirley have made it without Posse? I think so. Would she have gone to Vanderbilt? No. That's because Vanderbilt was not on her radar screen. But it's also because Vanderbilt wouldn't have thought to admit her. So there's this combined barrier, like two barriers meeting. She could succeed without us. But could she succeed more with Posse? And I think the answer is yes because you have a group to back you up. There's a posse in every class. First year. Second year. Third year. Seniors. Forty students on a campus That's a built-in, multi-racial community. That's an example of equity and inclusion at work. And it changes how students feel a sense of belonging and also how they're seen by other students on campus. I think she would have succeeded. We're picking highly talented kids. But they're often undermatched. You've heard that term, right? That they go to colleges and universities that they'll do fine at. But they could go to a school that's more competitive and also do well there.
RC: What happens once they get to college, how do they operate once they get to college, as a posse?
DB: We have the most comprehensive program of our kind in the United States. We select them (in their) senior year in December. In January, they begin an eight-month pre-college program where once a week they're coming after school for a workshop. You know about these. Leadership development. Academic excellence. When they get to campus, there's a four-year campus program so they're matched, their Posse gets matched with a mentor, usually it's a tenured faculty mentor. They meet once a week as a group. They meet once every other week with their mentor individually. There's a retreat that addresses social and political issues. There's campus visits from us. So it's a very robust program connected to internships, jobs, career advising, coaching.
RC: How do you identify who are promising students. You're not going by test scores, so what are you looking at?
DB: There's something that we've designed called the Dynamic Assessment Process, DAP for short. It's a three-month long interview process. Every year, across the country, students are nominated for the Posse scholarship. They're nominated by principals, by college counselors. by community organizations, by churches. Seventeen thousand students a year are nominated for like 800 spots. Very competitive. But here's what's non-traditional. The first interview is a large group interview with a hundred students in a room. And the student walks into the room, she knows she's been nominated, and for three hours we run these kids through a series of activities that have them working together in small groups. Building robots out of Legos. Running a discussion lab about genetic testing. Creating a public service announcement. And our evaluators are looking for leadership, communication skills, ability to work well with your peers in a team, problem-solving skills, things that don't show up on a paper and pencil test.
RC: I was 16, when I was a high school senior. I wonder if you would have detected leadership skills and communication skills in me at the age of 16.
DB: What do you think?
RC: Well, they weren't obvious.
DB: You don't think so?
RC: I don't know. I assume the test (and group sessions and interviews are) designed to reveal skills that may not be so obvious. Is that the idea?
DB: I think sometimes they're obvious.
RC: Well, sometimes they may not be. Some 16-year-olds exhibit pretty visible leadership skills at that age. But I think some don't. A lot of people don't come into their own until later.
Photo credit: Posse Foundation
DB: I think what happens is we miss some. But every measure or assessment measure misses kids. That's why you need multiple measures. That's why you need tests and grades and lists of your extracurricular activities and essays. DAP gives a student a chance to shine through a series of activities that allow evaluators to see the real person, the whole person.
RC: Do you ignore achievement test scores?
DB: We mostly are uninterested in test scores, but they're often included on the application for the university so we see those scores. We ask a student if they want to tell us anything about their test scores. But, Ron, you know now test scores are becoming mostly optional.
RC: But when you create a posse, even if they're all high potential kids, let's call them, isn't it still an artificially organized group? Let's say you and I, we graduate high school together and they put us in the same posse. I may not like you. You may not like me.
DB: A posse is not meant to be your best friends. They're meant to be a group that will be there for you if you need them, to look out for you, to have your back. Often, Posse scholars become best friends and they almost always feel like they're part of a family. Because you're going through this intense period of your life together as a group. First day of college, you're rooting for each other. When something bad happens, you're there for each other. It's amazing. And it works. You've heard the term "Posse love"? [I had not] We didn't make that up. That just evolved from the Posse scholars who talk about Posse love that they feel for each other. because they're there for each other. It's hard to go alone to some (new) place. When you're with a team, it changes the dynamic.
Photo credit: Posse Foundation
Something that I always stress when I am talking to someone writing a story, because I worry that they're not going to ask ... Posse is one of the only national programs that I've ever heard of that addresses diversity and equity and inclusion, racial justice, that uses a strength-based model. Most programs that focus on getting more kids of color on campus are deficit-based models. Those are programs for at-risk, poor, minority, needy, underprivileged, underserved students, and those programs are great. They're important. But if that's the only way that we think about how we're going to deliberately build diverse student bodies then we create this unintentional caste system.
Posse is a merit-based, leadership program. We don't screen for race. We don't screen for need. That is a core element of who we are. People see Posse as this great college access program and that is not it at all. We are a college success program but the mission of Posse is to deliberately, to aggressively build a leadership network for this country that reflects the demographics of the United States, the population. We want college presidents, like Shirley, CEOs, senators. We want superintendents of schools to be Posse scholars, not to make the leadership look different, but to change the quality of leadership.
Cover photo credit: Posse Foundation