APTP's comprehensive college preparation and planning program is the culmination of our youth development programming for most teens. We launched our free college program in 2000 in order to help teens translate their artistic success and ambition beyond APTP.

Teens begin the formal program with an overview of the different types of colleges and of the application and financial aid process. Thereafter, the process is entirely personalized. Students have individual college meetings with an APTP staff member on a weekly basis from the summer after their junior year through December of their senior year. Through these meetings, each student defines what he or she wants from a college, learns how to read college promotional materials, assembles a list of prospective colleges, and researches each college and narrows the list. Once each student has finalized a list of schools, APTP staff contact admissions officers at every school to personally advocate for each student. In many cases, colleges will pay to bring APTP teen artists to visit their schools; when this is not possible and the family can not afford the visit, APTP provides financial assistance to make the visit possible. The college process becomes most intense in the winter of senior year, as APTP staff guide and support ensemble members as they prepare their applications, write personal statements, and apply for financial aid. Come spring of their senior year, APTP works with students as they decide among the offers of admission and financial aid that they receive. APTP also frequently helps teensfurnish and move into their new college homes, and select their first semester courses.

In college, APTP alums are choosing academic and co-curricular activities that demonstrate their continued commitment to social change work and civic leadership. They're studying poverty and prejudice, sociology and globalization, education and political science; they're doing community organizing and serving in student government; they're dedicating their time to helping other young people from immigrant and working-class communities become the first in their families to go to college. With their ongoing dedication to this work, they're demonstrating that APTP is a place where teens take their first steps on a lifelong journey of making a difference in the world.

The relationship between APTP and ensemble members often continues throughout their college years. APTP continues to provide support and guidance to students as desired–and alumni return frequently to mentor new generations of APTPians as they make their own way toward college. Two ensemble members, Micah Bezold and Maggie Popadiak, have even returned as APTP staff members after graduating from Carleton College and The College of Wooster.