“ Building a first-generation college student means you have to get the entire family involved . It ' s a huge transition that the whole family has to make .”
– CHRIS YANOV ’ 99 prep course , at eight high schools for the next three years . “ When I talk about solutions that work , I hold up Reality Changers as the gold standard ,” says Marten . “ If you want to know how to do it , you watch Chris Yanov .”
Arne Duncan , the U . S . Secretary of Education under President Obama , has called Reality Changers “ absolutely a model , not for the city , not for the state , but for the country .”
When a program produces this much success , it gets a lot of pressure to scale . Yet the greatest pressure for Yanov is the waiting list : 361 students are currently waiting for the chance to change their lives , with an average wait time of two years . Those numbers haunt Yanov , who has held firm that Reality Changers will expand only as fast as it can maintain the high-impact , high-expectations model that makes it a success .
Scaling the program and keeping its best features is an uphill climb , but Reality Changers has faced nothing but uphill climbs ever since Yanov first put on the game show persona and the wannabes were throwing rocks at the windows . But if the climb wasn ’ t steep and the challenges weren ’ t tough , chances are Yanov wouldn ’ t get excited about them .
And for Yanov , excitement is what changes the game , whether it ’ s sending someone to college or solving a puzzle . “ Game shows can be silly sometimes , but there ’ s this undeniable excitement that comes along when people believe that their futures could become wildly different . And that ’ s what we try to do at Reality Changers . We help low-income youth believe that , with a lot of hard work , their dreams of becoming first- generation college students really can come true .” No more spinning a wheel required .
We ' re looking for more Tritons who impact their community — reach out at tritonmag @ ucsd . edu
Reality Changers students have earned a total of more than $ 100 million in scholarships
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