Increasing the College Preparedness of At-Risk Students

GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) emerged in the late 1990s as a comprehensive outreach program seeking to enhance awareness of and readiness for college among low-income middle school students. After controlling for students' preprogram test scores and school characteristics, findings indicate that students participating in GEAR UP and in a comparison group gained in their reading and mathematics test scores. Analyses, however, found no statistically significant 2-year effects of program participation on students' reading scores, although a slight, nonsignificant trend across the study period suggested some closing of the statistically significant gap between the 2 groups in the baseline year.