MILWAUKEE — The days of Gabrielle Acevedo walking into class at Rufus King High school are ticking away one-by-one. 

What You Need To Know

  • UW-Madison’s PEOPLE program helps high school students prepare for college 
  • Eighth graders are now eligible to apply for the program, which has been around for more than 20 years
  • It helps with SAT/ACT prep, interview skills, and financial aid
  • It has helped more than 1,300 students across Wisconsin

As a senior, there are roughly 100 days until she graduates. But, she knows what she wants to do after the gets her diploma. 

“Personally, I’ve always known what I wanted to do,” Acevedo said. “I’ve had the same dream since I was a little girl.”

That dream is to go to the University of Wisconsin and eventually become a physician assistant or a doctor.  

She credits her readiness for college to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Precollege Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence, known as PEOPLE. 

“They have a lot of ACT prep your junior year, interview prep, learning how to get ready for all of the tasks that come with college,” Acevedo said. 

She has a counselor at UW-Madison who she checks in with a few times a week. It’s something she’s been doing since her freshman year. 

Acevedo even lived on campus for a few weeks her sophomore year, before the COVID-19 pandemic, to get used to the experience. 

Since COVID-19, things have gone virtual. 

“Even then, the communication was great, it was well organized,” Acevedo said. “It was a great program.”

London Bates, a current UW-Madison sophomore, went through the PEOPLE program when she was a student at Golda Meir in the Milwaukee Public School district. 

She learned about the program and applied because of her mom. 

“I hadn’t really thought about what colleges I wanted to attend quite yet. It was my first year of high school,” Bates said. “I figured it wasn’t very significant, but my mother wanted to make sure I was somewhat prepared, or had a little bit of an idea.” 

She’s not alone. Most students in the early years of high school aren’t even thinking about college yet. 

The program helped her with a scholarship to UW-Madison, and the opportunities to apply for more. 

Now, with the program expanding to eighth graders to apply instead of waiting until Freshman year, Bates wants them to know it’s so much more than just financial help. 

“People is so much more than financial aid,” Bates said. “If they can’t provide you with certain resources you need, they’ll make sure they can get you someone who can.”

Everything the program does, these students said, is done with the goal of making that transition from high school to college easier, and that gives students the best opportunities to succeed.

The PEOPLE program has been around for more than 20 years, and has helped over 1,300 students, many of which are from Milwaukee.