At the 2025 Moving Up Ceremony this May, High Jump held space for a celebration two years in the making. Moving Up is the culmination of two years of hard work for students ready to embark on their high school journey. Held at the Diane and David B. Heller Auditorium at Francis W. Parker School…
High Jump’s annual Moving Up Ceremony is the culminating event to honor students’ two years of hard work. Each graduating High Jump student gets to walk across the stage and receive their certificate—a physical reminder of all the work they’ve put in over the past two years and of all that they’ll carry with them…
Recently, Zak, a 7th-grader from High Jump’s 36th Cohort, sat down with Eleanor Nicholson, Co-Founder of High Jump to talk about High Jump. High Jump is a two-year tuition-free academic enrichment program for kids who are curious and want to learn. The program helps prepare students academically, gives them a sense of community, and gets…
After 35 years of growing High Jump’s Scholars Program from our first cohort of 16 students to our most recent cohort of 225 students, we are so proud and excited to announce the next step of our continued growth: the formal adoption of our Community Scholars pilot as High Jump’s second ever official program! Community…
High Jump’s annual Moving Up Ceremony is the culminating event to honor students’ two years of hard work. Each graduating High Jump student gets to walk across the stage and receive their certificate—a physical reminder of all the work they’ve put in over the past two years and of all that they’ll carry with them…
Every year in May, High Jump holds space for a celebration two years in the making: our student’s annual Moving Up Ceremony. Held at the University of Chicago Lab Schools’ Gordon Parks Arts Hall, the ceremony serves as the culminating event to honor the hard work of each and every graduating High Jump student. Throughout…
While CeCe may not have known exactly what future growth awaited her when she got to High Jump, her mother Ciana already had seen first hand what the program could do for students from when she was a teaching assistant back in the early 2000s. CeCe came to High Jump as a “quiet person” who…
Over the past three decades High Jump has provided over 3,000 academically ambitious middle schoolers of limited economic means with the right resources at the right time, empowering them to thrive in high school, college, and beyond. As the first step of carving out that path to the future, High Jump helps 8th grade scholars…
As we prepare to welcome High Jump’s 35th cohort in just under a week, we wanted to share with you why we believe that the High Jump model works so well. The experiences of our current students and the lives our alumni are now leading speak for themselves in terms of the success of the…
Over the past 35 years, High Jump has impacted the lives of over 2,900 alums. Beyond middle school, beyond high school, and even beyond college, High Jump sets our scholars up to thrive for the rest of their lives. Because of that, the impact of High Jump doesn’t just end with our alumni themselves; as…
When a scholar begins their High Jump journeys in the summer after 6th grade, the idea of being in high school can feel worlds away. For many students, the most pressing things are the here and now of middle school and the daunting high school application process. And over the course of two years, High…
When we work to quantify the impact High Jump has on our students and on Chicago’s educational landscape as a whole, it’s easy for us to give big, high-level stats that show the depth and breadth of our programs: We’re proud of these stats, and even prouder to know the unique stories of every single…
After hearing from two students and a teaching assistant currently in High Jump, we want to share with you once again the real and powerful impact of the program as told from the perspective of students who went through it. But this time, we wanted you to hear from two of our alumni who graduated…
For over 30 years, High Jump has changed the lives of more than 2,500 middle school students in Chicago. While our first cohort in 1989 had just 16 students enrolled, High Jump has grown over the years and now serves more than 285 new students each year through our programs. After three decades of honing…
When we talk about the critical work that High Jump does and the impact that we have on the educational landscape in Chicago, there is of course the cold hard data that backs up the power and success of our work including: 87% of High Jump Scholars graduate from college (compared to 41% of all…
More than 3,400 high-achieving, low-income students in Chicago enter sixth grade each year. These students have limited means to invest in their education, with long-term implications; middle school performance is highly predictive of a student’s future high school achievement. And research from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute shows that the middle school years are critical…
Moving Up is the culmination of two years of hard work for students ready to embark on their high school journey. Cohort 31 began the program in 2019, the summer following their 6th-grade year. After putting in the 700 hours of challenging but rewarding work, 157 students graduated from the program this year. Held at…
Daniel is the youngest of five siblings and the only one attending remote CPS classes this year. After learning about High Jump from his school principal and English teacher, Daniel enrolled at the Lab School campus last year, where he developed a passion for science lab. “I love dissecting animals and seeing what makes them…
If you could let it all out in a speech, what would you say, and to whom? This is just one of the thought-provoking exercises that High Jump High Freshman Seminar students work on this summer. Through this self-expression exercise, students reveal a need to “get noticed” and share that they are “relieved to get…
Adapting our highly interactive in-person program for virtual lessons does not go without some obstacles. But with the help of our Tech TAs, students at High Jump’s summer session are supported with technical assistance at any time during their class day. Following Morning Assembly, where Campus Directors encourage students and help get them ready for…