Georgia Coastal Youth, Inc. will host its fourth annual, free youth summit Saturday to help middle-schoolers and high-schoolers prepare for college and its required entrance exams.
The summit, called “Career: Plan Your Future,” will be from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Riceboro Youth Center and will include a free lunch for participants and giveaways. Liberty County Board of Education Chairwoman Lily Baker will be the guest speaker at the event.
Chris Stacy, program director for Georgia Coastal Youth, said the summit emphasizes selecting the right core curriculum in high school and understanding the SAT reasoning test and the  ACT. The nonprofit encourages all students in Liberty County to attend but is particularly focused on student athletes.
“In talking with the athletes, we’ve learned that many don’t understand the qualifications for college,” Stacy said.

While some student athletes may attend junior college immediately after high school, the organization hopes to help even more start out at a university level. Doing this requires students of all talents to know what they’ll need in high school in order to prepare for a university setting.
During the summit, students will be broken up into groups by grade to participate in workshop sessions. In these sessions, participants will discuss high school coursework and learn how college entrance exams are set up, he said.
Stacy said though high school counselors play a significant role in helping students select the appropriate coursework, parents must also shoulder the responsibility of knowing what their children need to be accepted into college.
“We’re really hoping to make the parents understand that if you don’t put them into a college prep [curriculum] by ninth grade” there’s a significant amount of catching up to be done, Stacy said.
For more information or to sign up in advance for the summit, call Stacy at 695-0481.