About Posse

What is Posse?

The Posse Foundation, founded in 1989, is a non-profit organization that identifies high school students with academic excellence and leadership potential and connects them to some of the country’s prestigious colleges and universities. While these students known as “Posse Scholars” are matched to partnered schools and trained by the Foundation, institutions award Scholars four- year, full- tuition leadership scholarships. Scholars are then sent in groups of 10 on campuses where they become catalysts for individual and community development. The Foundation’s goals include: expanding the pool of students from diverse backgrounds that top institutions can recruit from, helping those institutions foster more inclusive campuses, and ensuring that Scholars excel academically and graduate in four years to go on to take on leadership positions in the workforce. Essentially, Posse’s primary purpose is to train the leaders of tomorrow.

Quick Facts

  • The Posse Foundation was founded in 1989 and since then has selected 6,983 Scholars to attend top- tier colleges and universities throughout the country.
  • The Foundation has 53 partner colleges and universities in Atlanta, the Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City and Washington, D.C.
  • Vanderbilt University was Posse’s first partnered institution who accepted a Posse of five students from New York City.
  • Posse works with 2,200 Scholars as part of the Campus Program. As of May 2015, there are more than 3,100 Posse Alumni.
  • In 2014, Posse received more than 16,000 nominations for 700 scholarship slots.
  • Posse Scholars graduate at a rate of 90 percent- significantly above the national average.
  • Lafayette introduced its first Posse from New York in 2001 and its first Posse from Washington, DC in 2006.
  • There are 80 Posse Scholars on Lafayette’s campus.
  • Our Lafayette Scholars embody the Posse principle by excelling beyond the classrooms and taking on leadership positions such as Resident Advisers (RA), Orientation Leaders (OL), Writing Associates (WA), PARDners, and many other leadership positions amongst campus.