On Tuesday, Nov. 11, Elizabethtown College welcomed a group of McCaskey High School students to participate in the College Bound events on campus.

The program is sponsored by Etown’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) and Pennsylvania Migrant Education.

College Bound is a program in which McCaskey students are paired with mentors at Etown. According to CCCE Director Matthew Ascah, College Bound is intended to encourage students to “consider and think about post-secondary education in ways that they might not have thought about prior to being involved in the program.”

Ascah said that in previous years College Bound participants were only from the Nepal region, but 2014 is “the first time we have students from a variety of different countries.” The high school students participating in the program this year are from families that have immigrated to the Lancaster Area from countries such as Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand.

Junior Ellie Tracy is a student mentor for College Bound. “I help to provide these students with someone to talk to and help them to learn more about college in general,” she said. “It is the goal of the program that these students attend college despite being immigrants, and the student mentors are here to help them achieve this goal.”

On Tuesday, the McCaskey students were invited to campus and attended classes alongside their mentor.  Ascah said he expects College Bound to allow the high school students to “experience a day in the life of an Etown student.”

College Bound has been a successful program according to Ascah. “I know a number of the students who have participated in the program have gone onto post-secondary education,” he said.