What is Upward Bound?

The MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound Program is a jointly funded, year round, educational support, and outreach program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and  Wellesley College serving 60 low-income and/or first generation participants, in grades 9-12, who reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts and/or attend school in Cambridge, preferably at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS) or the Community Charter School of Cambridge (CCSC).

The goal of the Program is to generate in its participants, who often time are not traditionally considered college-bound, the academic skills and motivation necessary to complete a program of secondary education and enter and succeed in a program of postsecondary education.

The program consist of summer and academic year sessions.

The summer session consists of 6 weeks of rigorous academic study, in residence, at Wellesley College.  Participants must enroll in three courses and their requisite study halls.  The courses stress proficiency in: English and foreign language art skills: reading, writing & speaking; quantitative skills: mathematics, and laboratory sciences; critical thinking skills: social studies; and use of computers.  In addition, individual tutorials are available on an as-needed basis.  The academic rigor is balanced by regular recreational and cultural activities, and field trips.

During the academic year, participants attend supervised study sessions and tutorials, for a minimum of four (4) hours per week, at MIT.  Participants must meet with Program staff regularly to review their academic progress and participation performance.  Additionally, the Program provides college admissions, financial aid, and career advising and workshops to participants and their parents.  Laslty, we again seek to balance the Program's activities by offering a number of diverse cultural and recreational events and field trips.

Office of Educational Opportunity Programs

The Office of Educational Opportunity Programs was created in January 1992 to organizationally locate the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound Program, the MIT Educational Talent Search Program (which operated from 1991 to 1998), and all future programming serving low-income Cambridge youth. The federal Upward Bound Program was created under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and is one of the US Department of Education’s TRIO Programs. The MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound Program has operated at MIT since 1966 and at Wellesley College since 1968. In 2012, the Program received partial funding from the City of Cambridge to help it stay in operation, and from 2013 -2017 and currently, the program was sponsored solely by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wellesley College.