Potential on the Periphery : : College Access from the Ground Up / / Omari Scott Simmons.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Simmons, Omari Scott,
• TeilnehmendeR: Hewitt, Damon T.
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2018]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (157 p.) :; 7 figures, 7 tables

Even high-performing students sometimes need assistance to transform their high school achievement into a higher education outcome that matches their potential, especially when those students come from vulnerable backgrounds. Without intervention, many of these students, lost in the transition between secondary school and higher education, would not attend selective colleges that provide greater opportunities. Potential on the Periphery profiles the Simmons Memorial Foundation (SMF), a grassroots non-profit organization co-founded by author Omari Scott Simmons, that promotes college access for students in North Carolina and Delaware. Simmons discusses how the organization has helped students secure admission and succeed in college, using this example to contextualize the broader realm of existing education practice, academic theory, and public policy. Using data gleaned from interviews with past student participants in the programs run by the SMF, Simmons illuminates the underlying factors thwarting student achievement, such as inadequate information about college options, limited opportunities for social capital acquisition, financial pressures, self-doubt, and political weakness. Simmons then identifies policy solutions and pragmatic strategies that college access organizations can adopt to address these factors.