Rachel Carr, our Chief Executive and Co-Founder, reflects on IntoUniversity's journey so far. From humble beginnings at North Kensington to having 44 centres across England and Scotland, we prepare to welcome our 250,000th IntoUniversity student in 2025!
In 2025 we will be welcoming our 250,000th IntoUniversity student into one of our centres! And as we reach this significant milestone, I’ve been remembering the very first young people I worked with when we were just starting out in North Kensington – many of them still in touch with me … some now with children of their own! In that first year we’d raised funding to support 75 students. The aim was to provide educational and pastoral programmes to support bright, smart and talented young people to reach their potential, so they could go on to enjoy the rewarding and fulfilling futures they so deserved. Had anyone suggested back then thatthose young people would be the first 75 of 250,000 and that today we’d be celebrating a quarter of a million young people coming through the doors of our centres I just would not have believed it!
Many of our 250,000 students are still school-age and currently receiving support at our centres – learning to read, mastering percentages, preparing to sit their History A Level, finding out about future engineering careers. Many have now ‘graduated’ from IntoUniversity and are relishing studying for a degree or enjoying building new skills on an apprenticeship. Yet more are already forging successful futures in any number of professions: teachers, lawyers, graphic designers, doctors, paramedics, financiers, artists, you name it!
Back when we started I knew all of those 75 students personally – the challenges they were facing, the hopes and dreams they were chasing, and the futures they aspired to reach. But now? 250,000 young people. That’s 9,400 primary school classes requiring 3,000 double decker buses to drive them to visit HMS Belfast on a WW2 FOCUS Week. We’d need 45 Royal Albert Halls to
celebrate them all graduating at the end of the week – and 4 Wembley Stadiums if we wanted to invite their families to join us. A quarter of a million. It’s such a big number! And of course I certainly no longer know all of our young people myself! Yet the personal touch in our educational support and pastoral care remains at the heart of IntoUniversity’s mission and its success. All of
those individual 250,000 young people have their own stories to tell, are known to us by name and are cherished by multiple different staff and volunteers across all of our different centres. From Govan to Great Yarmouth, Bradford to Bristol, each of those young people is provided with the support they need to set them on a path towards a future dream which is waiting to be grasped and enjoyed.
250,000 young lives, 250,000 Futures.
I hope you will agree that this is a milestone worth celebrating! And we most certainly could not have arrived at this milestone number without the dedication and kind and generous support of all of you who have joined us and our 250,000 students on this incredible journey. We are hugely grateful to you all. To our committed staff so passionate about changing young lives. To our volunteers and trustees who give so willingly of their time and expertise. To the many schools, universities, community organisations and corporate partners who work so closely with us to make dreams a reality. To all you wonderfully kind and loyal supporters who continue to give us the gift of time or money, advice or experience. And most of all we are grateful to our inspirational young
people who, despite the odds being stacked against them, bring their determination to succeed, their hard work and their talent and enthusiasm to our centres, week-in-week out, year-by-year: they deserve all the support we can give them to succeed at school and to realise their hopes, dreams and ambitions for the future.
So – for all those 250,000 bright, smart and capable young people – Thanks! For all the futures that are to come – Yes!
Wishing you all a peaceful and restful festive season …and to all those who celebrate a very Merry Christmas!
Dr Rachel Carr OBE,
Founder & Chief Executive
