Family Values are the foundation.

At Great Ambitions, I believe that family values are the foundation of student success. As the child of small business owners, I was expected to work from a very early age. It was a non-negotiable in my family. 

What's important to your family? Will time committed to your faith community, an expectation of caring for younger siblings, or help with animal chores be non-negotiables? It's important that all efforts to pursue post-secondary success come with a fundamental respect for family time and obligations. 

Next, post-secondary success is most correlated with success in high school. Academic success and student behaviors (i.e. attendance and course selection) are strongly correlated with success in college, but the biggest predictor of college success is high school GPA. 

The third level of preparation for college success is community service. After academics, service and leadership are the two most common factors for merit scholarships, but community service also serves to build empathy and job skills. It's also proven to build self-confidence and fight depression. Students will be encouraged to first develop a breadth of service-related activities and later to strive for depth, possibly culminating in a self-directed service project. 

The fourth level of preparation is leadership. Colleges and scholarship providers value leadership because they seek to admit and support students who can create a purposeful, positive, and prolonged impact. Just as high school GPA predicts future college academic success, high school involvement and leadership predict future involvement through college and beyond to students' future personal and professional communities. Leadership skills can be cultivated from other aspects of the college preparation pyramid - from family obligations to performance. 

The final level of preparation for college success is related to performance. This may come in the form of athletic performance, but it may instead be related to music, theater, dance, debate, robotics, Science Olympiad, art, or elsewhere. It is often the thing that drives and inspires a student, and it can provide an important steering effect in the college research process. My philosophy is that performance may be a very visible part of a student's college research, but it should be built upon the bedrock of the other factors to ensure long-term success.