As Delaware’s top decision makers work to balance a state budget that has an almost $400 million deficit, one thing is clear – funding reductions are happening and government agencies, nonprofits and businesses alike are going to share in the sacrifice. 

In a setting as idyllic as it is prestigious, a small group of Delaware students is submerging itself in a new world this summer, living three weeks at the private boarding school St. Andrew's while preparing to apply for and go to college.  

Gov. Jack Markell on Saturday honored the first 35 high school students to complete the Delaware College Scholars program, an initiative preparing teens for college success.

The Delaware College Scholars program helped Middletown senior Brandon Dawson, who will be a first-generation college student when he attends Duke this fall, with the college application process.

St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware looks like something out of a postcard--from its stone archways to its Gothic cloisters to the carpets of green grass that checker the more-than 2000 acre campus.

Delaware College Scholars was featured on a segment on the PBS (WHYY) TV Show "First." The piece introduced the wider Delaware community to the great work that the scholars do during the summer and the big picture vision of the program.

High-achieving students who would be the first in their families to attend college are spending part of their summer gaining the academic and social skills necessary for college success thanks to a free residential program launched in Delaware last year.  

Across Delaware, kids are spending summer camps hiking, painting, swimming or playing games.

But for 40 rising high school students, summer camp means living and breathing college applications for two and a half weeks.