“The A Bridge for Kids Campus Tour made the stressful selection process much easier and helped me find my home for the next four years.” – Sam Martin, The Preuss School- Pitzer College Class of 2019
Choosing a college is paramount to choosing one’s home, city, community, social environment, and education for the next 4 years. What factors most align to the student’s lifestyle? Should the college be a large or small campus, be located within a city or a rural area, emphasize college spirit oriented around sports, offer religious affiliation, provide a variety of social clubs, and offer the right courses supporting their career path? An important and potential life changing experience that we are proud to provide ABFK students, free of charge, is the opportunity to tour college campuses.
Over Spring Break A Bridge for Kids selected 21 students to visit 7 schools over 5 days throughout our home state of California. For some of our students this was the first time venturing out of San Diego County, for many the flight home from Oakland was the first time on an airplane and for all of them it was a life changing experience that would not have been available to them without the help of A Bridge for Kids.
The trip started early on Monday morning with a visit to UC Irvine. Most of the group were impressed with both the campus and the school and many students commented that they liked both more than they had expected. Tuesday we visited perennial favorites UCLA and USC and had ABFK alumna Brianna Diaz (Castle Park HS Class of 2015, UCLA Class of 2019) and Paige Zimmerman (Escondido Charter HS Class of 2020, UCLA Class of 2024) as our guides as they showed us around their respective schools. The next two days were spent touring Pepperdine and UC Santa Barbara, two of the more picturesque campuses in California, if not the entire United States, before the 4 hour drive north to see both Stanford and UC Berkeley. Heading home from Oakland late Friday evening the group was as tired as they were excited but each was grateful to have had this “once in a lifetime” experience.
A Bridge For Kids appreciates the generous donations and grants we have received to underwrite the costs of our college campus tours. This opportunity to visit a variety of California and East Coast Ivy League schools has opened many students’ eyes to the possibility of an opportunity to attend the college of their dreams. For more information about our College Campus Tours and how you can support this initiative please contact Grace Jo at Gjo@abridgeforkids.org.