Black men earned only 2.1% of doctoral degrees awarded at American universities in 2008. In response, Penn GSE has made a serious commitment to preparing promising Black male scholars for admission to and success in Ph.D. programs in the field of education. The Center will soon begin accepting applications for its third cohort of Grad Prep Academy Scholars.

Participation in the Academy includes a four-day visit to the University of Pennsylvania. We will select 10 Black male juniors and cover all their travel expenses, lodging, and meals. During their visit to our campus in October 2012, the selected scholars will learn more about applying to and succeeding in graduate school; meet our faculty and hear about their excellent research; interact with our Black male graduate students and alumni; and tour Philadelphia. We will also pay for Academy participants to take a four-week Kaplan course valued at $1,200 to prepare for the Graduate Record Exam (the GRE is required for admission to most education graduate programs). Additionally, each Academy participant will be paired with a current Black male Ph.D. student in education at Penn GSE or elsewhere who will offer mentoring throughout the graduate school application process, feedback on essays and other application materials, and advice on where else to apply besides Penn GSE.

Because a master’s degree is not required for admission to Ph.D. programs at Penn GSE, our goal is to enroll as many of the Academy participants as possible in our doctoral programs in Fall 2014, the semester after completion of their undergraduate degrees. Each of our Ph.D. students is fully funded for 4 years and supported by paid research assistantships with faculty. Academy participation in no way guarantees eventual admission to the University of Pennsylvania. If not at Penn GSE, our larger aim is for all 10 scholars to enroll in highly selective graduate programs in education at top research universities in Fall 2014.

The project includes a research component in which researchers from the Center study each Academy Scholar’s educational trajectory beyond the baccalaureate, with a particular emphasis on examining how participation in our initiative influences his readiness for and success in graduate school. Participation in this research study and its associated activities is limited to Black male juniors only – those who will start their junior year of college in Fall 2012 and anticipate earning bachelor’s degrees at the end of Spring 2014.

Applications are invited from college juniors across all majors, not just education. However, only those who have intellectual interests that are somehow related to education (the study of teaching and learning, human development, educational psychology and counseling, history of education, K-12 or higher education leadership, sociology or philosophy of education, language and literacy, educational disparities that disadvantage certain populations, education finance, research methodologies applied to education, student affairs and college student development, or K-12 or higher education policy) should apply.

The Center will begin accepting applications for its third cohort of Grad Prep Academy Scholars on April 1, 2012. Please direct all questions to gradprep@gse.upenn.edu

This research project and its associated activities are funded by the University of Pennsylvania Provost Diversity Fund.

Click here to download the first research study based on data from the Grad Prep Academy [PDF]