BEFORE YOU APPLY
Final Deadline March 31
IS F&C RIGHT FOR YOU?
We accept New York City students entering their senior year of high school. We give strong preference to students from low-income households and/or who will be the first generation in their families to attend college. Learn more.
FAQs
Applicants must be in 11th grade in a New York City high school. We serve students who are low-income (as determined by federal income guidelines) and/or of the first generation in his or her family to attend college in the United States. Read more about eligibility here.
No. Our program is one year long, from July through May. Students must commit to BOTH the four-week summer program and the civic leadership program, which meets twice a month throughout the academic year and requires students to work independently between meetings.
If you're willing to work hard we're willing to guarantee your success. The program is intentionally difficult—you're going to be immersed in the same texts Columbia sophomores are required to read to prove to yourselves and your future university that you can handle anything. But we wouldn't assign this syllabus if we didn't think our students couldn't rise to meet the challenge. Our teaching assistants offer round-the-clock support to make sure you succeed.
Most of our texts come from the "Contemporary Civilization" course on political philosophy that all students at Columbia take in their sophomore year. Columbia started Contemporary Civilization in the wake of the Great War to teach the future leaders of America how to lead the country away from war and toward peace. The course, texts, and student populations have changed drastically since 1919 but the goals remain. The texts we read directly contributed to establishing the political values our country is built upon: life, liberty, freedom, citizenship, and the pursuit of happiness. We believe that by understanding where those ideas originated and taking ownership of them, our students will be better prepared to lead their fellow citizens toward progress.
The civic leadership project is an activism lab for Freedom and Citizenship students. Beginning in the summer, students consider the issues that matter most to them. In September they research their topics—its history, current state, possibilities for the future. In the spring, they work with their peers to take action. Some past projects have included videos, visual art, and personal narratives. Students regularly take the training they gain in the program to their colleges as campus activists.
In the summer, students are expected to attend the full program including orientation, daily seminars, and study sessions. You can expect to spend 7 hours each day engaged in academic work with us, split between seminar, reading, and writing sessions. During the other hours of the day you will participate in planned social activities, have meals, some free time and build friendships.
To see this summer's daily schedule, click here.
The civic leadership program meets about every two weeks during the academic year. Meetings typically last 2 hours and are schedule around the students' schedules. The meetings allow students to workshop and prepare their civic leadership projects.
In addition, all F&C students receive college mentoring from an undergraduate TA. They will meet with their mentors for about 1 hour a month, either in person or via Zoom, to be decided between them and their mentor.
We designed our application to ensure that we accept students who are prepared for our program's level of reading and writing. Choosing your strongest writing sample and proofreading your essay will help you put together a strong application. However, our most successful applicants are not necessarily the best writers, but those who can demonstrate excitement for the summer's intensive college experience and a willingness to commit fully to the academic year program. We are particularly interested in students who have some ideas about the civic leadership project. We recommend students look at past years' projects to get an idea of what they would like to contribute.
Check out our dorm page for frequently asked questions about living in the dormitories.
Contact our Executive Director, Dr. Jessica Lee at [email protected]
You can also read more FAQs in our page about dormitories
Videos
Brochure
Upload Attachments
Teachers and counselors may submit transcripts and letters of recommendation using the form below, and students may upload essays. All materials must be received by the deadline for a student's application to be considered.