Admissions Report
REACH at Fordham Prep
By Daniel Gustafson , SJ
For three weeks in July , Fordham Prep ’ s hallways welcomed a younger and smaller group of students than usual . Fifty-three rising sixth graders spent three weeks living in a Fordham University dormitory , taking classes at Fordham Prep , spending afternoons playing in the Prep gymnasium and on the back field , and going on field trips around the city on the weekends .
For the first time , the candidate class of the REACH Program ( Recruiting Excellence in Academics for Catholic High Schools ) spent the residential portion of their summer at Fordham Prep . Their counterparts in the second and third year of REACH spent the same three weeks at the University of Scranton . All three years reunite for three weeks of class at Regis High School , followed by Saturday classes throughout the school year .
REACH is a program dedicated to recruiting and supporting high-achieving middle school students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds . The goal of REACH is to help its graduates get into a college preparatory school . Last year REACH sent its graduates \ to Fordham Prep , Regis , Xavier , the Loyola School and Malloy .
After the predictable homesickness of the first several days subsided , the REACH students quickly came to feel at home at the Prep and in the dorm . Topics of conversation shifted from counting down the time until the next phone call home to reliving highlights of that afternoon ’ s soccer game and comparing thoughts on The Giver , the book the students read in their REACH English class . The true
academic drive of the REACH students was apparent one evening in the dorm when a small crowd of ten- and eleven-year olds were wholly engrossed by solving Rubik ’ s cubes .
A unique opportunity afforded by staying in New York for these three weeks was having REACH alumni speak to the students just joining the REACH family . The original REACH class is now a couple of years out of college and beginning careers or continuing their studies in graduate school . Seeing their predecessors , complete with college degrees , facial hair and gratitude for their own REACH experiences , gave the current students a broader perspective on what this program is about and the opportunities it can provide .
In their time with the students , teachers and staff spent a great deal of time emphasizing the importance of being “ open to growth ,” one of the five guiding principles of the REACH program . By the end of the three weeks of REACH at Fordham , we all found that we had learned far more about being open to growth than we had expected . Fifty-three rising sixth graders left their friends and families and sacrificed a large part of their summer vacation for the sake of challenging themselves academically and socially . Fifteen high school and college students , including seven Fordham Prep students and alumni , gave up their own summers for to serve as counselors for the sixth graders . If so many of the young people around us were so generous with their own time and talent to build up the REACH program , how could we not strive to do the same ?
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