Ramp-Up to Readiness

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The Ramp-Up Milestones are a sequence of steps that students progress through on the way to achieving the final outcomes of each of the five Ramp-Up Goals. Each Milestone is supported by lessons in the Ramp-Up Curriculum, which is a dynamic collection of user-generated ways to help students complete the Milestones on the road to college readiness. The first lesson plans were developed by the Ramp-Up design team and staff at the design schools, but all Ramp-Up to Readiness teachers and counselors are invited to contribute successful lesson plans.

In the Ramp-Up Milestone framework, students use the Milestones to mark their progress through six levels of readiness toward each of the five Ramp-Up Goals. Thus, the full program includes 30 Milestones (Milestones Chart [97 KB PDF]). The levels are designed to correspond to grades 7 through 12 (though individual schools may modify this as needed), and each level approaches a different readiness theme:

The Milestones in Levels 1-3 lay the foundation for readiness by helping students develop a mindset that is focused on setting and achieving powerful postsecondary goals. The Milestones in Levels 4-6 build upon this mental foundation by helping students take critical steps that are necessary to get into and succeed at a postsecondary institution (Ramp-Up Goals, Levels and themes [78 KB PDF]).

Goal-specific Milestone lists

• Academic Readiness
• Admissions Readiness
• Career Readiness
• Financial Readiness
• Personal and Social Readiness

Full Ramp-Up Milestones Chart [97 KB PDF]

Background on the Ramp-Up Milestones

Ramp-Up will not look the same at every school, nor for every student. Schools have the flexibility to determine how they are going to integrate the Milestones into their existing structure. Some schools have used advisories, while others used academic classes or other in-school structures.

In some cases, students will be able to demonstrate mastery of a Ramp-Up Milestone based on prior experience, while in other cases students will complete the Milestone for the first time through their participation in Ramp-Up. The Milestones are written with enough specificity to clearly describe the outcomes that the students must master, but broadly enough to give schools flexibility to determine how each student meets each Milestone.

Schools can also choose when students complete each Ramp-Up Milestone. For example, the Milestones could be assigned to specific grade levels. The Milestones could also be assigned to particular courses so that students complete the Milestone whenever they take the course regardless of grade. But while the order and the way in which students complete the Milestones are flexible, it is imperative that all students demonstrate mastery of all the Milestones on the road to readiness.

While the Ramp-Up Milestones can be viewed as a developmental and/or a grade-level progression, it is critical to note that in the Ramp-Up process students do not encounter a Milestone a single time and then move on, never to return. In contrast, students must continually revisit Milestones they have already completed and look ahead to ones they will complete in the future. The lessons of the Ramp-Up Curriculum are designed to help students and educators achieve this goal by making connections among the Milestones and building upon and extending prior knowledge.