College Bound Reviews

The issue that I have with College Bound is how they talk so about about it takes a village to raise a child but they do not believe this. Inside the walls of CB you will hear conversations that bash other college access organizations within the community, they will make you feel that you are at the greatest place on Earth and cause you to live with guilt if you A. try to leave or B. Claim you have a voice when in all actuality you do not. College Bound is your typical "white savior" organization. They boast about how they provide a diverse set of coaches (who are also overworked and made to do jobs that they definitely do not have the experience of training for) when in all actuality the majority of the staff is white. The population they serve is predominantly black and coming from impoverished areas. Also, College Bound claims they like having coaches come from various colleges to represent diversity in education, this is definitely not true. College Bound seeks coaches who come from private liberal arts school. You graduate from an Ivy my goodness they will kiss your feet. As much as they talk about freedom of choice for students they don't truly believe in that. They want to have control over students actions and their decisions. Students end up attending schools where they feel like a racial outcast, feel not connected to their college, feel like they were pushed to attend there approved schools, and the end up being depressed or unfortunately drop-out. Another issue is that many of the coaches College Bound hire suffer from white privilege or don't even realize that are are appropriating student cultures or insulting those around them. There is no need to relate to students by asking, "Can you teach me how to twerk or how many fights have you gotten into?" Coaches shouldn't ask other black coaches, " Where did you buy your hair?" It hurt to hear coaches talk about students hometowns or the high school they went to right in front of them. Many of the students know their school is under-performing but they still have a pride about it. It was frustrating hearing coaches brag about their students who got into "better" schools and then here them fake congratulate a student who got into a "basic" school. I wish I could believe in everything that they do but I cannot. Many times I felt that my students were being setup to fail. Setup to believe that College Bound is there everything and that without them they would be nothing in this world. When I finished my "service" I realized I was being brainwashed to think that College Bound is an expert in everything and I am their follower.

By far one of the most stressful places I’ve ever worked and management truly doesn’t know what they’re doing. College Bound desperately needs people in leadership who actually have experience working in education and success in managing people. The data culture is also very robotic and unreasonable and they feel if they just collect more and more information, it’ll improve programs but it’s actually harming the organization. Data is great but success of the program is tied to building relationships with students who actually want to be active. Another major con is how people are treated here. Be ready to be gaslit constantly and gossiped to and about by leadership. Unrealistic expectations will be placed on you and coaches and managers are often blamed for “bad coaching” when a student has a poor outcome that is out of our control. If a student drops out the program, school or fails to tell their coach of a personal struggle, get ready to have all of your documented interactions combed through to see where you went wrong. Even if that student hasn’t spoken to you in months. It’s your fault. Overall, No one is happy working there and everyone is desperate to leave. It’s not worth the low pay and stress.