FS Hosts College Summit Workshop in July

College Summit, a leading national non-profit organization, will be conducting workshops for up to 340 high school seniors this summer to ensure that West Virginia students who can make it in college actually make it to college.

The organization will sponsor eight four-day workshops at the state's colleges and universities, including a workshop at Fairmont State, planned for July 7-10.

"At our workshops, students complete an online college application, receive quality one-on-one college counseling and write a personal statement they can utilize for scholarships or as an entrance essay for college," said Randy Shillingburg, Director of Development for College Summit West Virginia. "We inundate students with resources in order to instill in them the belief that they are "ollege material," while providing them with the "know how" to get to college."

Fairmont State's GEAR UP Partnership grant is sponsoring the workshop at FS.

"Fairmont State GEAR UP is proud to be a partner of College Summit," said Amie Fazalare, FS GEAR UP Director. "One of the main goals of GEAR UP is to provide resources and support to high school seniors during the college application process. College Summit begins this support during the summer workshop and provides resources to the students throughout their senior year of high school."

GEAR UP is a six-year, federally funded program that aims to significantly increase the number of students who are prepared to succeed in education beyond high school. In 1999, Fairmont State received the largest of 164 partnership grants awarded throughout the United States. GEAR UP serves 16,553 seventh- through 12th-grade students in 29 middle schools and 18 high schools in nine counties. The Fairmont State GEAR UP grant serves Barbour, Dodriddge, Harrison, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Randolph, Taylor and Tucker counties. Fairmont State is in the process of applying for a new six-year GEAR UP grant that will expand the program into five additional counties.

College Summit is a comprehensive "college transition system" that includes intensive summer workshops, a comprehensive curriculum guide to lead students through the high school-to-life transition and online tools to help students and educators effectively and efficiently manage the transition process.

For more information about College Summit, visit www.collegesummit.org or call College Summit West Virginia at (304) 346-1981.

For more information on GEAR UP, call (304) 367-0436.