Call for Proposals - Prepárate™ 2027

College Board's Prepárate conference assembles education professionals from across the nation to discuss new approaches to help Latino students succeed. Share your experiences, creative solutions, and insights by submitting a session proposal that showcases a program, strategy, or partnership that has a positive impact on students.

We welcome proposals from all professions in education. Because of the broad range of ideas and audiences at Prepárate, please be clear about your topic and your target audience.

Prepárate will be held April 5–7, 2027, at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE.
All concurrent sessions will run for 60 minutes.
The committee will review proposals and make notifications in January 2027.
If accepted, an email from preparate@events.collegeboard.org will be sent with an invitation to the Speaker Resource Portal. Be sure to add this email address to your safe senders list. Please confirm your acceptance on the portal and complete tasks. Once you have accepted, your session information will be published online in the conference program.

Proposal form sections must be accurate and complete.
Session title is limited to 75 characters and must correctly describe the session.
Description must be submitted in a publishable format using proper grammar and spelling. It’s limited to 1,000 characters, including spaces. It should be detailed to assist the planning committee in its review.
Open-ended questions should be fully answered and address session significance and session process.
The session topic you select should be the one your session best aligns with. See topic descriptions below.
A primary audience must be selected.
Proposed content must be engaging, relevant, and interactive.

The following are topics that will be considered for the program. Examples are not intended to be exhaustive.

Administration, Advocacy, and Policy: Review of policies, practices, and resource allocation for federal, state, and district level; policy recommendations, planning, evaluation, and implementation. Staff and community engagement, strategic planning, instructional leadership, adaptive leadership.

Admissions: Admissions policy, college selection, college transfer, issues experienced by first-generation students, diversity and international recruitment, student applications, increasing retention, and demonstrated interest.

Assessment and Instruction: STEM, AP^®, SAT^®, college readiness, instruction techniques, teacher and faulty perspectives, student perspectives, remediation, curriculum and instruction, and summer bridge programs.

Counseling: Increasing graduation rates, college transition, student advising, recommendation letters, and building college culture. Best practices, innovation, and trends in college counseling, advisement, academic support and transition, implementation and use of data for the Advanced Placement^® Program, the SAT Suite of Assessments, and Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy^®. Counseling and advising special populations, including students with disabilities, underrepresented students, students in rural communities, and LGBTQ+ students.

Financial Aid: College pricing and affordability, student loan eligibility, debt repayment, FAFSA®, student aid, financial literacy, award letters, financial aid distribution, and topics supporting the student financial aid application process.

Rural Education: Address the unique opportunities and challenges of rural education. Sessions should focus on practical strategies to help students prepare for college and careers , access to advanced coursework, resources, educator recruitment and retention, and community-based solutions that support student success. Showcase collaborative efforts between schools, higher education institutions, families, and local organizations, as well as innovative models that reflect the geographic diversity of rural communities

Concurrent Sessions: Consist of a single speaker or a panel of education experts and practitioners on topics significant to the conference audience. The sessions suggest best practices in education and foster discussion.

Pláticas de Educación (Committee and Staff Members only): These sessions highlight issues of interest across education professions and provide an opportunity for discussion. Pláticas de Educación give attendees a chance to learn about policies, data, programs, and initiatives that impact their work and support students.

Spotlight Sessions (College Board Staff only): These 15-minute presentations will highlight programs and initiatives that promote access and equitable opportunity for students. Hear directly from College Board staff on a program of interest.

Confirm and then submit a proposal only if you (the submitter) and speakers have agreed to and secured funding from your institution to register at the discounted speaker rate and can attend the conference.
You can include up to 4 presenters (5, if there’s a moderator). A moderator isn’t required. Their role is limited to chairing or introducing the session.
You may be asked for additional materials if your proposal is accepted, including a presentation outline, a résumé or CV, and a headshot for each speaker.
Submit no more than 2 proposals. Get consent before listing other co-speakers. As lead speaker, you’re responsible for sharing College Board conference policies and logistics with your co-speakers. If your institution or contact information changes, contact us to be sure you get all speaker information.
All session titles and descriptions, along with presenter names, job titles, institutions, and states, are part of the official conference program and will be edited for consistency and accuracy.
The title and description may be edited to conform to College Board editorial style guidelines.
Native Student Data Statement: When reporting disaggregated data and outcomes by race and ethnicity, it’s strongly recommended that Indigenous student data are included. College Board recognizes that American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students’ data regarding access, persistence, and graduation rates may not be disaggregated in large data sets. Indigenous students “are often excluded from institutional data and reporting, omitted from the curriculum, absent from the research and literature, and virtually written out of the higher education story.”* When Indigenous students are omitted from data reports, their experiences, challenges, and resource needs aren’t acknowledged. The phenomenon of the Indigenous “research asterisk” contributes to invisibility and misrepresentation of Indigenous students in higher education. Following the scholarship of Shotton, Lowe, and Waterman, we challenge our colleagues to look beyond the “research asterisk” rhetoric, ask questions, and start a dialogue to better serve Indigenous students.

* All quotes extracted from Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education, edited by Heather J. Shotton, Shelly C. Lowe, and Stephanie J. Waterman.

Note: Session proposals promoting the purchase of books, materials, or services won't be considered for the conference program. Because of space and time limitations, not all qualified proposals can be accepted. If your proposal isn't accepted, please consider submitting it next year.

Proposals are evaluated by the Prepárate 2027 National Advisory Committee, a cross-professional group of educators from across the nation. Strong preference is given to proposals that:

Draw on the perspectives of multiple institutions, rather than a single institution or program.
Include a speaker or panel composed of practitioners (e.g., teachers, counselors, financial aid and enrollment professionals, or administrators).
Present programs, practices, or models that have been effective with, developed by, and/or created for Latino students.
Specify how the work presented has a positive impact on Latino students.
Use research or practices relevant to Latino education.
Present work that can be replicated in other settings.
Highlight access and opportunity topics.

The committee will evaluate your proposed session using these criteria:

Application and Relevance: Is the session applicable to a broad spectrum of K–12 or higher education communities? Is the subject of the session significant and aligned with conference topic areas? Is there evidence that the methods for implementing ideas or strategies will be presented? Is there evidence that the information to be presented will help with student success?
Innovation and Interactivity: Will the session present creative new solutions, insights, or approaches? Does the proposed session encourage interaction with attendees (e.g., discussions, activities, simulations, gaming, or other ways to engage the audience)?
Perspective: Does the proposed session represent multiple perspectives on the topic? Does it address both student and professional experience?
Effectiveness: Will the session present ideas or strategies that are supported by data and that have proven successful in the classroom?
Participant learning outcomes: Does the proposal present clear, measurable, and meaningful learning outcomes for session participants in the allotted 60 minutes?