Despite the hardships and adversity that constantly pervade their lives, some students in these communities manage to succeed in school. Some are motivated by their parents. Many others do so on their own, through sheer strength of character. Gifted, talented and fiercely determined, these students often stand out from their peers at an early age, earning exceptional grades from kindergarten through high school. Many dream of college as their only way out of a dead-end existence, the one way to make a better life for their families — but have no idea how to begin to achieve that dream… without Bright Prospect.
The Bright Prospect Scholar Support Program serves students from 13 high schools in California's Inland Empire, including the cities of Pomona, Ontario, Montclair, Chino, Covina, Upland and Walnut. In most of these high schools, before Bright Prospect, few low-income students continued with post-secondary education of any type – virtually none to top-ranked private colleges – and of those who began college, two out of three failed to achieve a bachelors degree.
The Bright Prospect Academy of Young Scholars has served students at three Pomona High Schools – Ganesha, Garey and Pomona since 2006, and also Ontario and Montclair High Schools beginning in the summer of 2010. Since its founding in the summer of 2006, the Academy has already resulted in a discernable change in the culture at the high schools it serves. It has fostered a large, growing and highly respected peer group at each school in which academic achievement is ardently pursued, and whose members are firmly committed to the goal of a achieving a college degree, and to helping one another achieve it.
