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 The mission of Prep for Prep is to identify and nurture a generation of leaders from minority group backgrounds who have the education, the skills, and the commitment to help guide this society towards a significant narrowing of the gap between the rhetoric of the American Dream and its blemished reality. As a strategy for developing leaders from minority groups, Prep for Prep seeks to identify those boys and girls who are most likely to benefit from attending academically-demanding independent schools. The Program attempts to prepare these youngsters for success at such schools and to instill in them a commitment to educational achievement as a means of developing their leadership potential.
Prep for Prep is a vehicle for social change, not a means of dispensing social welfare. The Program seeks out the "best and the brightest" young people who are willing to accept the challenge of transforming their own lives through the highest possible utilization of their intellectual and other abilities. Prep for Prep is an affirmation that the potential for academic excellence exists in all ethnic groups.
Prep for Prep builds on existing strengths. The Program identifies youngsters who have a realistic chance of succeeding in a demanding academic program and in a challenging social environment. The admissions process gives preference to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Nearly every student admitted to Prep requires very substantial scholarship aid in order to attend an independent school. However, the dynamics of the Program are best served by a broad socio-economic mix.
 Prep for Prep looks to the private sector in education because there it finds the combination of high academic standards, individual attention, and personal accountability that the Program believes is essential to ensure its students' success. In addition to fostering academic achievement, an independent school education can serve also to broaden a minority student's awareness and understanding of American society. In pursuing a strategy of independent school enrollment as a means of increasing the number of well-educated leaders from minority group backgrounds, Prep for Prep believes it is also serving the interests of the independent schools, which have a long-stated commitment to increasing the ethnic diversity of their student bodies.
Prep for Prep attempts to be a community, membership in which strengthens the resolve of each student to master the unfamiliar aspects of the independent school and college environment. Each graduate's continuing membership in Prep for Prep, it is hoped, will also promote a sense of social responsibility and, through networking, increase the potential for effective leadership.
The Program hopes to instill in each student an ethic of leadership, a sense of purpose, a commitment to social change, and an appreciation of the role of education in empowering people. The mission of Prep for Prep is to guide exceptionally able and motivated young people from minority groups towards a belief that they are full and vital members of our larger, shared community.
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