College Preparation

CI offers in-house and on-campus college preparation programs.

The in-house program begins with a college readiness assessment followed by placement into a tiered structure of comprehensive reading, writing, basic math and algebra modules. Each module runs for six weeks, two nights a week and classes take place at CI.

There are three tiers of reading and writing and three tiers of math. These tiers are designed to engage students wherever they are academically, develop them as scholars and prepare them for college placement tests and college-level work. The program takes the best practices of successful GED-to-college transition programs and supplements them with a contextualized approach tailored to CI's population. 

In Summer 2010, CI partnered with Hostos Community College to pilot an intensive college preparation program on the Hostos campus in the Bronx. CI worked with the Hostos Academic Learning Center to provide 90 hours of academic instruction and 30 hours of non-academic preparation, including peer mentoring from trained senior CI students, over 10 weeks. The pilot was a great success and CI is planning on rolling the model out across the CUNY community college system over the next three years. A report on the pilot is is available for download.