Three Seniors Win Posse Scholarships

Three MCSM seniors -- Andy Sanchez, Christine Valentin, and Rukshana Tuli -- have earned Posse Scholarships to three prestigious private colleges. Mr. Sanchez will be attending Brandeis University in Boston, Ms. Valentin will matriculate at the idyllic campus of Vermont's Middlebury College, and Ms. Tuli will study at New York's own Hamilton College. Posse Scholarships are sponsored and funded by the Posse Foundation, a national college scholarship organization headquartered here in New York City.

For those who never heard of Posse Scholarships, the following description is excerpted from their website (www.possefoundation.org):

The Posse Foundation identifies, recruits and trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams called “Posses.” These teams are then prepared, through an intensive Pre-Collegiate Training Program, for enrollment at top-tier universities nationwide to pursue their academics and to help promote cross-cultural communication on campus. The Posse Program has exhibited great success over the past 18 years placing 1,850 students into colleges and universities. These students have won over $175 million in scholarships from Posse partner universities and are persisting and graduating at 90 percent—a rate higher than the national averages at institutions of higher education. Posse currently has sites in six major cities across the United States: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C. and its newest site in Atlanta.

The concept of a Posse works for both students and college campuses, and is rooted in the belief that a small, diverse group of talented students—a Posse—carefully selected and trained, can serve as a catalyst for increased individual and community development. As the United States becomes an increasingly multicultural society, Posse believes that the leaders of this new century should reflect the country’s rich demographic mix, and that the key to a promising future for our nation rests on the ability of strong leaders from diverse backgrounds to develop consensus solutions to complex social problems. One of the primary aims of the Posse Program is to train these leaders of tomorrow.

Students and parents interested in learning more should see Mr. Winston in the College Office (Room 126) or click on the following text: Posse Scholarship.