Find your school center
We help students
explore and make
a plan for life
after graduation.
Achieve Twin Cities partners with Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS) to offer a wide range of career and postsecondary guidance and resources to help students discover, explore and plan for life after high school.
Our coordinators deliver student-focused services based in centers embedded in our 27 partner schools. In collaboration with school counseling teams, we connect students with two and four-year college, apprenticeships, training programs, the workforce and other options to discover, explore and plan for life-sustaining careers.
As the sole universal career and college readiness provider in MPS and SPPS school districts, Achieve services are accessible to over 17,000 students each year, with direct advising for over 6,000 students.
Our services in Minneapolis and Saint Paul schools
Our School-based Team
Our professional career and college readiness (CCR) staff includes licensed school counselors, social workers, admissions experts, educators and youth workers. Each team member brings extensive experience in helping students develop and pursue the best postsecondary plans for their individual education, career and life goals. Many of our staff are graduates of the schools we serve or were the first in their families to attend college.
Services We Provide
One-on-One Student Advising
Achieve provides individualized, student-centered advising to foster student self-discovery and agency in their postsecondary transition. We work one-on-one with students, tracking their individual postsecondary plans and using data to provide targeted support. We also guide students through the three postsecondary transition stages, including:
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Self-knowledge: decision-making, problem-solving, self-advocacy skills and identifying interests and strengths
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Career pathway knowledge: connecting interests and strengths to potential careers, career research and exploration
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Postsecondary plan development and completion: postsecondary plan research, applications, financial aid and scholarships, financial planning and literacy
Career and Postsecondary Experiences and Resources
We collaborate with school counselors, partner organizations and district leadership to provide engaging opportunities for students to build their knowledge of career and postsecondary pathways.
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We deliver workshops and lessons on career exploration and postsecondary planning
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We coordinate school visits from postsecondary schools, scholarship organizations, the military and other organizations
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We host college fairs, college tours, family career and college events, and career exposure opportunities
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We connect students with internships, summer programs and employment
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We link students with college access programs and other partner organizations for additional resources
Strong Partnerships and Integrated Systems of Support
Partnerships and collaboration is key to our programming at both the school and district levels.
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Achieve coordinators partner deeply with school counselors, serving as key members of these teams to deliver high-quality programming and manage the central tracking of student postsecondary planning progress.
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We provide additional capacity and focus to build holistic career and college readiness instruction and services that follow students from ninth grade through graduation.
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Collaborating across school districts, higher education and training institutions, and with employers and trade unions, we work to build a continuous system of support to ensure that all students have full access to career and college opportunities.
See our work in action
How we know our approach works
Our distinct role in the Twin Cities career and college readiness landscape
Achieve Twin Cities is one of many organizations that support high school students in planning for the future, including College Possible, Project Success, Genesys Works, Junior Achievement, TRIO, Gear Up and several others. Here’s how our work is distinctive:
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Achieve career and college readiness coordinators are fully embedded in our MPS and SPPS partner schools and work closely with district career and college readiness leaders. This unparalleled level of partnership and integration allows us to provide comprehensive, aligned services for all students.
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Our data-sharing agreements with MPS and SPPS provide comprehensive access to student data that allows us to target students who need extra support, track trends such as FAFSA and college application completion rates, and identify other useful data to inform and strengthen our programs.
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As a universal service provider, Achieve has a unique advising model that allows our coordinators to provide individualized postsecondary planning guidance for students of all ages, all interests, and all backgrounds, while focusing on the students who face the most barriers.
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We support students with all postsecondary plans, including both college and non-college pathways.
- We connect students with other great opportunities provided by our peer career and college readiness organizations by identifying student participants, coordinating logistics and providing follow-up advising and connections.
Learn more about our program model, strategies and impact
Achieve Twin Cities School-Based CCR Program Guide
Career and college readiness requires a thoughtful, student-centered approach and is highly collaborative. This guide provides a philosophical overview of our Achieve school-based CCR program, and outlines our strategies, activities and outcomes.
Achieve Twin Cities Youth Programs Impact Report
Find out more about the scope and impact of our school-based career and college readiness services and Step Up high school internships for the 2023-24 school year.
“If I didn’t go to the Career & College Center or if I didn’t talk with the coordinators, I would have never found the opportunity that I’m in right now. So I guess in a way, knowing them and just being there at the right time at the right place just kind of really changed my life.” - High school senior
