The Prep Program aims to encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds − often the first members of their family to attend college − to apply to law school and pursue the study and practice of law. Participants gain an edge in courses taught by Law School faculty; through internships with judges and lawyers; in a customized LSAT prep course; and with advising on all aspects of the admission
s process. In recent years, Prep Program participants have increased their LSAT scores by an average of 10 points. More importantly, earning scholarships in the aggregate of $6 million dollars, over 80 percent of program graduates have been accepted to at least one law school, including:
American University
Boston College
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Fordham University
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
New York University
St. John’s University
University of California Berkeley
University of California Davis
University of California Los Angeles
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
Wake Forest University
Yale University
In 2011, the American Bar Association Council for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline named the Ronald H. Brown Prep Program for College Students the recipient of its Alexander Award for Excellence in Pipeline Diversity. The Alexander Award recognizes an individual or organization for success in working along the educational pipeline in a collaborative approach involving more than one segment of the continuum from elementary to high school to college to law school to the practice. The Award is named for Raymond Pace and Sade Tanner Mossell Alexander. Raymond Alexander was Wharton’s first African American graduate, a multi-term president of the National Bar Association, and the first black judge on the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia. In the early 1930s, he took two Chester County school districts to court in a racial segregation case. His victory ended de jure segregation in Pennsylvania schools. Sadie Alexander, Raymond’s wife, was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in the United States, the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
