EMERGE is a multiyear, personalized college advising program that prepares academically high-performing, first-generation and economically disadvantaged students to attend and graduate from the nation’s most selective colleges and universities. This first-ever causal study of EMERGE compared students who were admitted to HISD’s EMERGE program with comparable students who applied but were not admitted and were close to the admission cutoff. The analyses showed students admitted to HISD’s EMERGE program were significantly more likely to apply to selective colleges, submit more applications to selective colleges, and enroll in selective colleges.
Finishing What My Parents Started: College Aspirations among EMERGE Students
This brief describes findings from interviews with high-performing high school sophomores from low-socioeconomic backgrounds who applied and were accepted into EMERGE during spring 2018, before any exposure to EMERGE programming. The goal of this study was to understand how students develop college aspirations and search for postsecondary institutions.
