Planning to Achieve Collegiate Excellence (PACE)

Purpose: In the United States, we are facing a rapid decline in the high school graduation rate. If NSCS can enlist help from its 625,000+ members throughout the country, we can make a difference.

That’s why NSCS has the Planning for Collegiate Excellence (PACE) program. It empowers chapters to create local mentoring programs for middle and high school students, so that these students graduate high school and go to college.

PACE has three components: mentor program; assemblies and March to College Day.

Mentor program: NSCS chapters partner with local middle and high schools (traditionally underserved populations) and meet with participants from those schools on a recurring basis to both encourage them to graduate high school and to give them the resources they need to get accepted into and pay for college.

Assemblies: NSCS chapters host assemblies at partnering schools on various topics covering college preparedness, i.e. expectations; financial aid; helpful high school courses; etc.

March to College Day: NSCS chapters host PACE program participants on their campus for a day of activities to get them excited about the idea of college.

Chapters across the country are doing great work. Here are three examples:

• At Montana State University-Bozeman, NSCS members held four March to College Days, including more than 500 middle school children in the process. The College Days featured presentations from 40 different professors, 70 college volunteers and more than a dozen university offices.
• At the University of Kansas, NSCS members partnered with 19 different K-12 schools, included 125 active tutors per semester and logged more than 1,200 tutoring hours.
• Baylor University’s chapter hosted their fifth annual March to College Day on March 23, 2007. The event featured more than 300 Waco-area high school students from five different schools. Speakers included former Baylor head coach Grant Teaff and two former Baylor athletes who went on to the NFL. Representatives from 20 different campus organizations and administrators from local community colleges spoke about the importance of a college education.