Five Failure Points in College
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Failing to graduate in 4 years: The average student takes 5.2 years to graduate college. Even 16% of Ivy+ grads take more than 4 years. 38% of students who start college never graduate.
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Failing to build a network of friends: 60% of college students report loneliness despite being surrounded by peers. At least 39% of Ivy+ students face serious depression.
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Being uninspired by their major: 55% of students struggle to remain interested in their classes and doubt whether their major will be valuable at work. 35% switch majors, increasing cost and time to earn their degree.
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Failing to seize opportunities: 41% of college students participate in zero extracurricular activities, despite hundreds of powerful opportunities that could help them prepare for a future that they will love.
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Graduating without the skills to excel in their first job: 40% of US employers believe that college poorly prepares students for the workforce. Many students have no career plan until very late in their college years.
Location
Applying for and attending college is one of the biggest investments a family makes in your future. Your college acceptance letter is only the first step. A powerful start to college will allow you to increase your return on this investment in you.
Launching your college years with strong momentum does not need to be left to chance. Futures Forge has created the College Accelerator program to help you avoid the pitfalls and position yourself for a powerful career.
10 Weeks
Argentina
18+
Duration
Location
Ages
30th July
Deadline
Format
Full-Time
Starts
Jan 2026
What You Will Gain at the College Accelerator
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An understanding of what skills top employers recruit and test for beyond your degree.
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Clarity on which clubs, living group responsibilities, student government, work, research, and other opportunities most effectively develop career skills and demonstrate proof.
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Course plans to double-major, earn a master’s, study abroad, etc, without extra work.
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Insider tactics to navigate the registrar and bend rules as needed to reduce wasted time.
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Understanding of your personality and interests, and thus what work you might enjoy.
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Clarity on which of your interests overlap with satisfying careers that pay well.
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A tactical plan to explore different career paths or stress-test current assumptions.
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The ability to build a network that will enrich your personal and professional life.
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A pre-built seed network in your College Accelerator Cohort so you can enter college ahead of the game.
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Program Details
Eligibility:
Graduating seniors and rising seniors aged 17-20 are invited to apply.
Program Overview:
The College Accelerator is a year long program with four components:
1. Summer Intensive - 4 week residential in Boston.
Experience our challenge-based learning environment, applied specifically to capturing the opportunities available to you at college. You will develop the understanding needed to combine key strategies with your strengths to produce a plan that is comprehensive, realistic, and ready to execute
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Graduating seniors: will create concrete plans for the college they will attend. This allows them to arrive on campus ready to excel.
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Rising seniors: will create hypothetical plans for their target schools. This will allow them to better select their top college choices and communicate real interest.
2. Optional Update and Renewal - 1 week residential in Puerto Rico or Boston.
Puerto Rico - January. Focused on those currently in college. Reconnect in person, strengthen bonds, share best practices, explore failures, upgrade your plan, have fun! Leave ready to accelerate your performance.
Boston - June. Focused on those who have recently accepted a college place. Refine your plan now that you know where you are headed, and get started early!
3. Optional Futures Forge Coaching - Monthly throughout the year - remote.
Evaluate your progress and identify blind spots with facilitation and coaching from your Futures Forge Facilitator. This will happen in cohort, team and individual sessions.
4. Cohort Support
Regular peer-led time for updates and connections.
Fees:
Summer Intensive: $12,316
Update and Renewal + Ongoing Futures Forge Coaching: $7,425
Students may attend either the Summer Intensive or both parts of the course.
Rapid Growth with Futures Forge's Powerful Pedagogy: Catalytic Learning
The Career Accelerator is not designed to impart knowledge to you. You can get this knowledge from a book or on YouTube. You will instead leave the College Accelerator with the skills and methods to continually refine your direction and plans.
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There are no lectures, and we do not tell you what to think or do
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You learn how to acquire all needed data and information on your own
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You are solving immediately relevant problems
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Through our challenge-based system, you learn how to adapt as situations change, rather than get stuck if reality doesn’t follow a playbook
This is all about learning what’s possible, taking your first steps, and understanding many paths to success.
Some example challenges:
Challenges will reflect the real world. To become stronger at networking, your team will build a plan, stress-test it against competition, put it to work in the cohort, and get rich feedback to iterate quickly.
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Develop the winning strategy – based on research – to build your network in college
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How to double major or change majors without breaking a sweat
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What are employers looking for so you go into college with your eyes wide open
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Learning what you love to do – and battle-testing your assumptions
Our Founders Know How to Win
Our founders thrived in and graduated from the most prestigious universities in the world, and have built our careers recruiting from them.
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Nat Graduated Oxford undergrad and Cambridge grad school,
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Erik graduated MIT with a bachelors and masters in 4 years, using a method that he later put to paper and shared with others,
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Nat's global management consulting firm recruits from top universities, rigorously tests for non-academic high performance skills, and teaches those skills to grad hires,
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Erik's college network has gotten him every job he's ever had, and decades later they are still friends.
Program Dates
Summer Intensive: 21 June (Sun) - 15 July (Wed)
Update and Renewal:
For college freshmen: January 4 (Mon) - 8 (Fri) 2027
For high school seniors: June 20 (Sun) - June 24 (Thur)
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Admissions
Our admissions process has six stages.
We recommend completing the pre-application stage at least 5 days before the application deadline.
Pre-Application
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Pre-Application Registration
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Initial Cognitive Review
Official Application
3. Full Application Registration
4. Candidate Evaluation
a. Live Facilitator Interview
b. Learning Readiness Assessment
5. Offer Released
6. Secure Your Place
Cognitive Ability Requirements
To apply to Futures Forge, you must demonstrate strong cognitive ability. We have expanded our acceptable range as internal research has demonstrated strong benefits for a broader range of cognitive ability than our initial narrow focus allowed. We group students into teams using a number of factors, one of which is cognitive ability to ensure near peer status.
U.S. System
Minimum Requirements (score at or above the 70th percentile):
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PSAT (1050+ on PSAT NMSQT 11th grade, etc)
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ACT (23+)
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SAT (1150+)
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WISC
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or similar standardized cognitive ability exam, IQ test, etc
International System
Minimum Requirements:
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GCSE/IGCSE with a total score of 63+, or an average grade of 7+
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International Baccalaureate (IB) with a score of 35 or higher
Other qualifying options:
You may also apply by submitting your class rank, GPA, AP results or other nationally recognized exams. Share as many of these as you have available. If your results suggest you’re likely to be in the 70th percentile or higher, you can move forward to an official application. At that stage, you’ll need to take a cognitive test before proceeding with the full application. Prequalifying includes:
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Unweighted GPA of 3.7+ (submit a transcript)
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Class rank of top 20% or better
We administer a cognitive assessment for applications choosing this route for a fee of $75.
