For poor urban communities college readiness programs play a key role in exposing students to post secondary opportunities.

Posse is a merit based scholarship accessible to students from 10 urban communities across the country including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. The scholarship connects diverse applicants with elite institutions.

For students from poor communities, college prep programs and scholarship programs like Posse are essential. They help students game the system by equipping them with the tools to succeed and connecting them with these elite institutions that many have never heard of or considered as an option.

The POSSE scholarship is just one of the many programs aimed at serving urban youth. Questbridge is another program however its focus is on low-income students from both rural and urban backgrounds.

Programs like these do not just exist for undergraduate opportunities. There are mobility programs that start from elementary school to grants underserved communities to exclusive boarding schools. An example, is Prep9. “PREP 9 helps the brightest and most hardworking African American and Latino students in New York City and the metropolitan areas of Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut prepare for success at leading independent boarding schools across the Northeast (prepforprep.org)”.These programs are have become such a huge part of urban access to post secondary education, that many of the urban minorities at elite institutions have benefited from one.