Posse Scholarship

Students who lead in ways that grades and test scores miss: running a club, holding a family together, organizing something in the neighborhood. Posse was built to find exactly the students traditional admissions criteria overlook.

• Must be in the first term of senior year of high school
• Must be nominated by your high school or a community-based organization
• Must demonstrate leadership in school, community, or family
• Must demonstrate academic potential
• Must live in or attend school in a city Posse serves
• This is not a minority scholarship and not a need-based scholarship; it is open to students of all backgrounds

• Full-tuition scholarship funded by the partner college or university
• Eight months of pre-college training with your posse before you leave
• A built-in group of ten peers on campus
• On-campus mentoring and career support
• Access to the Posse alumni network

• A nomination from a counselor, teacher, principal, or community organization leader; students cannot apply directly
• Participation in the Dynamic Assessment Process, Posse's multi-stage group and individual evaluation, which runs over about three months
• Interviews with Posse staff and partner college representatives
• Standard college application to the matched partner institution

• Ask a counselor or a community program leader to nominate you as early as the second term of junior year. The nomination is the gate, and most students never ask.
• Call your local Posse office in January to get the exact dates for your city. Deadlines are not the same everywhere.
• The first assessment round is a large group activity. Judges are watching how you include other people, not how much you talk.
• Look up which colleges partner with your city's Posse chapter before you start, so you can speak honestly about why those schools fit you.
• Keep your regular college applications moving. Posse selection runs in parallel and is highly competitive.

Posse operates in more than 20 cities and runs general, STEM, and Arts tracks. The foundation reports a 90 percent graduation rate for Posse Scholars compared with 59 percent nationwide, and says 57 percent of scholars are first-generation college students.