Spotlight: James Madison Collegiate Academy

Dallas ISD is expanding opportunities for its students with the creation of Collegiate Academies inside most of the district's comprehensive high schools. Academy students may earn up to 60 hours of college credit and an associate's degree – tuition-free – while also earning their high school diplomas.

Students who will enter the ninth grade in the 2018-2019 school year are encouraged to apply to attend a Collegiate Academy next school year. Apply NOW through Jan. 31!

We talked to Crystal, a sophomore at the James Madison Collegiate Academy, to get her take on the school and what it offers its students.

“The James Madison Collegiate Academy lets me experience things I have never experienced before," Crystal said. "Having the opportunity to experience a college setting and take college classes in my own Madison community makes a big difference. Most people in my community don’t have the chance to start college while they are in high school—or even go to college at all—so the chance to graduate with my high school diploma and associate degree at the same time is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”