What is Posse?

Posse is a national organization that offers a full-tuition scholarship and provides support to students in high school through college. Students selected receive a full-tuition scholarship to attend one of Posse’s partner colleges or univerities and attend the university with a team of nine other students who would be your cohort. If selected, students go through a Pre-Collegiate Training which helps students develop as leaders before they enter college. Once in college, students go through the College Program to ensure their retention through college.

Requirements

To be eligible, a high school senior must:

• Be nominated by their high school or a community-based organization

  • The exception here is that Strive students can nominate themselves by emailing info@possefoundation.org and indicating that they're a part of Strive for College. In the email students should indicate which city they live in.

• Be in the first term of their senior year in high school

• Demonstrate leadership within their high school, community or family

• Demonstrate academic potential

• Apply on time; depending on the Posse city, nominations are accepted in the spring and summer before senior year begins (contact your local Posse office for specific deadlines)

The Posse Scholarship is neither a minority nor a need-based scholarship. It is open to students of all backgrounds.

Posse seeks students who are:

• Leaders in their high schools and communities

• Committed to their education and those who demonstrate academic potential

• Interested in teamwork and diversity

• Positive, motivated, talented, ambitious young people

How Can I Apply?

Posse works with a network of public high schools and community-based organizations in 10 cities:

1. New York

2. Atlanta

3. Bay Area

4. Boston

5. Chicago

6. Washington D.C.

7. Houston

8. Los Angeles

9. Miami

10. New Orleans

These schools nominate talented and diverse students. From September to December of each year, nominees experience Posse’s unique recruitment strategy, The Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP), is a unique evaluation method designed to identify young leaders who might be missed by traditional admissions criteria but who can excel at selective colleges and universities.

Using nontraditional forums to evaluate potential, DAP offers students an opportunity to demonstrate their intrinsic leadership abilities, their skill at working in a team setting, and their motivation and desire to succeed.

DAP has proven to be an extremely effective tool for identifying outstanding young leaders. Through a three-part assessment process that includes large-group and individual interviews, Posse staff and partner college and university administrators ultimately select a diverse group of 10 students — a Posse — for each institution.

If your high school or an organization within one of the 10 cities is registered with Posse, they can nominate high school students as early as their second semester junior year.

For more information, visit https://www.possefoundation.org/

Video: About the Posse Foundation