[MUSIC] Welcome to the course. I'm Eric Furda, the Dean of Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, from beautiful Locust Walk on the University of Pennsylvania's campus, where it's always sunny in Philadelphia. We're pleased to collaborate with Dr. Shawn Vereen and Stepping Stone Scholars through this course as we think about college access and opportunity in this country. Education is great mover of social mobility and by working together we're going to focus on the college process and think about our students in the city of Philadelphia and broadly across the nation. Who are hoping to achieve higher education as one of their goals. >> Thank you Eric, so we have been working together for eight years. Eric and I used to work in the Missions office, I'm also a Penn GSC alum. I love this institution and through Stepping Stone we are partnered around college access. Our job at Stepping Stone is really focused on trying to fix the college pipeline here in Philadelphia. And also contribute to the broader movement to make students from diverse backgrounds, to give them the opportunity to get to and through college. We're partnered with Penn because this is a place not only that has an amazing student body, and amazing folks like Eric, right? But it is also a place where they're trying to cure cancer. We also think this is place that can address the inequalities that are going on in this country around education, and this course is a part of that. >> Whether you're a student, a counselor, a teacher, a parent, we feel that you can come into this course at any time and have an impact on your college search. If you stay with us throughout the whole program and start earlier, then we're going to be able to help you develop your ideas about what college fit is for you. We'll bring you to the pieces of the application, we'll talk about affordability and access, and also have full advantages of the opportunities. Once you're on a college campus, we want to make sure for any of our viewers that we're bringing you into this process and we're helping you achieve your goals in higher education. And I know by working with Stepping Stone we're really going to have a great opportunity to bring you along in the college process. >> You'll hear from our students, our scholars, who are going through this process and have been through it. You'll also hear from experts, both from in the school district and here on campus, and from our family of partners, so that you can learn more about this college going process. We know it is stressful, we know it is complex, and this course is here to help you. So utilize the resources that we are pulling together, it's really an amazing opportunity and we're really excited to have you involved in the course. >> So this collaboration is not only with Penn and Stepping Stone, this is a collaboration with you. We're excited that you're going to be a part of this course so we can work together as we reach the highest levels of higher education in this country. Thank you. [MUSIC]