YES Prep Public Schools

About the School:
YES Prep Public Schools is a free, open-enrollment public school system that serves 4,200 students in the sixth through 12th grades across eight schools in the Houston, Texas, area. For more than a decade, the school has been proving that all students can succeed.

• "YES" stands for Youth Engaged in Service, and students dedicate one Saturday each month to community service projects.

• Teachers have school-sponsored cell phones so students can contact them in the evenings and on weekends.

• YES Prep requires its students to participate in longer school days, a longer school year, college research trips, summer school and summer opportunities.

The Students:

• 90 percent of YES Prep students are first-generation college bound

• 80 percent of YES Prep students are economically disadvantaged

• 95 percent of YES Prep students are Hispanic or African-American

• Most students enter YES Prep at least one grade level behind in math and English

Academic Results:
For the 10th consecutive year, 100 percent of YES Prep's graduating seniors have been accepted into four-year colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Rice, Stanford, Texas A&M and the University of Texas-Austin.

YES Prep has been consistently ranked as one of Houston's best public high schools by the Houston Chronicle and as one of the top 100 public high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit YESPrep.org.