Successful enrollment in college is contingent on students completing a variety of time-sensitive and multi-staged tasks. These tasks may prove especially challenging for families with limited resources. Avery will work with ACCESS, a nonprofit organization focused on postsecondary access, to conduct a randomized controlled trial of strategies that may help youth successfully navigate this process. His sample will include 2,700 youth who graduated from high school in 2012 and intend to enroll in college; these youth will be selected from three districts that offer ACCESS programs in Boston, Springfield, and Lawrence, MA. Students will be randomly assigned either to a control condition in which no additional support is offered or to one of two treatment conditions: outreach using text messages aligned with key summer deadlines or personal outreach from peer mentors. A third offering, personal outreach from professional counselors, is also being evaluated with support from another funder. Investigators will evaluate the extent to which information is successfully delivered, the percent of students who respond, and the effectiveness of particular outreach strategies in helping students enroll in college.
What strategies help youth successfully navigate time sensitive and multi staged tasks in college?
