The Mission

Our Mission is to empower underprivileged, highly motivated high school juniors and seniors with the knowledge and resources to attend the country’s best colleges and universities.

The Scoop

Every Future strives to break down the barriers that typically prevent inner city students from attending four year, post secondary institutions.

Our program consists of 2 components:

1.Helping students study for the ACT college entrance exam

2.Pairing students with a volunteer adviser in the Chicago area who will help with every step of the college application process: assisting students in choosing colleges to apply to; writing college essays; completing college applications; and applying for scholarships.

The Reasons

College counselors at low performing Chicago public high schools are busy trying to make sure that all of the students of the senior class graduate. Often, they do not have time to focus their efforts on the top performing students who need guidance with the application process to top post secondary institutions. These students are often the first generation to apply to college and their parents therefore lack the experience and knowledge to aid their children in the application process.

A large percentage of these top students end up attending community colleges and getting two year associates degrees, instead of going to top universities to become lawyers, doctors, engineers or teachers. Every Future wants to supplement the counslers and parents and give these students every opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Our Answer

Every Future is going to match these top performing students with volunteer advisers to take them through the college application process. These advisers will help the students choose what colleges to apply to, get application fees waived, complete college applications, write essays and apply for scholarships and financial aid.

Unlike most mentoring programs, Every Future Volunteer Advisers will not need to make a large face-time commitment to work with a student. Volunteer Advisers can assist the students with the application process almost entirely online. This flexibility allows Every Future to recruit smart, motivated, successful professionals who are normally too busy to donate their time to charity work and allows busy professionals the opportunity to make a difference as an Every Future Adviser.

Once the Every Future Students are selected, they will be enrolled in an ACT Prep Course (provided by One-to-One Learning Center) which they will complete during their junior year to improve their ACT scores. After taking the ACT, the students will be paired with a volunteer adviser to help them begin the application process. The advisers will stay with their students through the first semester of their senior year, helping them choose what colleges to apply to, get application fees waived, complete their applications and essays, and find scholarships and/or financial aid to attend the student's university of choice. Volunteer professionals will aid the students and the volunteer advisers throughout the process. The students will participate in seminars on pertinent topics such as essay writing, resume building, and life skills.

All participating juniors and seniors will mentor at least two sophomores, to show them how hard work can pay off. By the time they are juniors, Every Future can only help those students who have done well enough in high school to go to a good college or university. Having successful seniors mentor sophomores will show the underclassmen how hard work can pay off. We hope to motivate all students at Every Future schools to study hard so that they can become Every Future students when they are juniors.

After a few years, Every Future hopes to take the students to the top post-secondary institutions in Chicago to inspire the students to think big.

One day, we hope to have Every Future advisers and students across the nation.