To drive equity and economic mobility through the development of diverse leaders, placing Black and brown students on a pathway to prestigious colleges and impactful careers.
To help close the opportunity and achievement gaps for Black and brown youth.
Veritas envisions a cutting-edge institution that cultivates exceptionally skilled and empathetic leaders trained to solve the most pressing issues in society. This vision involves crafting a curriculum and environment that mirrors the spectrum of diverse people, cultures, and ideas that exist in our world.
Veritas (Veritas School of Social Sciences, Inc.) is a pre-collegiate Saturday school that prepares Black and brown youth in Atlanta for prestigious colleges & universities. Veritas offers higher-level academic and career readiness training to make students more competitive in college admissions while developing the next generation of diverse leaders and innovators.
Students accepted into Veritas first complete a full year of academic training in Atlanta through the nationally-acclaimed Veritas Debate Institute (VDI) where they learn a variety of college-level survey courses such as philosophy, political science, sociology, and more. The school year culminates with an international summer residential debate program at Harvard University, where Veritas scholars study for two weeks alongside hundreds of gifted youth from around the world. The summer residency concludes with an academic debate competition on campus. Veritas has won the international academic debate competition for six consecutive years (every year since the program's inception in 2017).
Following the one-year VDI academic program, Veritas scholars become alumni who receive access to programming (throughout high school & college) that is designed to first make them competitive in the college admissions process and then the workforce. Veritas provides monthly training and experiences that equip our alumni with exceptional professional skills and robust resumes. The monthly programming is hybrid, taking place both in person and virtually. The programs include: Veritas Career Readiness Veritas Corporate Immersion Veritas Global Travel
Veritas offers (5) equitable programs that provide rigorous academic and professional skills training to strategically build robust, competitive resumes that position students for admission into the most prestigious colleges and universities in the world.
8th - 11th-grade students accepted into Veritas begin with our flagship program, Veritas Debate Institute, which includes 11 months of weekly Saturday school where students are taught philosophy, political science, sociology, humanities, rhetoric, debate, and literary criticism among other college-level disciplines. Courses are taught by Veritas alumni alongside nationally acclaimed educator Brandon P. Fleming who is a former Harvard debate coach, award-winning author, renowned speaker, and founder & CEO of Veritas.
Veritas Debate Institute concludes with the Harvard Debate Council’s international summer residential debate program at Harvard University. Alongside hundreds of gifted youth worldwide, Veritas scholars reside and study on campus for two weeks. Students are taught by award-winning faculty from elite institutions like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, etc. The Harvard residential program culminates in a debate competition that Veritas scholars have won for six consecutive years.
Upon successful completion of Veritas Debate Institute, the focus shifts from academic to professional skills training. Scholars are given access to monthly alumni programming that is designed to advance their professional skills, build robust resumes, and prepare them for prestigious colleges and careers.
During the weekly Saturday school sessions, Veritas teaches a variety of social science-based survey courses including:
Social Sciences are about the IDEAS that shape the world in government, law, science, technology, economics, and every facet of society. Therefore, social sciences are the academic disciplines that give students the most well-rounded, comprehensive understanding of the ways social and commercial institutions are built, sustained, and improved. Veritas teaches the social sciences as a means to develop the next generation of innovative thinkers and leaders who will create ideas that will make the world a better place for everyone.
Debate is about problem-solving. Effective leaders across every profession and industry must be able to 1.) identify problems, 2.) gather and analyze data, 3.) develop solutions, and 4.) communicate them persuasively. These are the precise academic, professional, and interpersonal skills that students learn to master through academic debate.
To explore the social sciences, we employ the Debate Learning Method (DLM), the unique award-winning teaching model designed at Veritas that has been proven to develop students into superior critical thinkers, problem solvers, and communicators. DLM is a problem-solving framework fit for every academic discipline. Veritas has trained over 100,000 educators nationwide on how to implement DLM in all core content areas to optimize student engagement and accelerate student performance.
To learn more about DLM, visit Veritas Teachers Institute.
Veritas is for rising 8th – 11th-grade students in Metro Atlanta seeking access to higher-level academic training that will challenge them beyond the rigors of a traditional school setting. The ideal candidate is motivated to achieve the highest levels of academic excellence in pursuit of prestigious colleges and universities.
Applications for the next Veritas cohort open each year on March 1st.
If you know a student who might be a great candidate, nominate them at www.veritasgeorgia.com/nominate
If you are a student who would like to become a Veritas scholar, apply at www.veritasgeorgia.com/apply
Veritas Debate Institute is our introductory training program. VDI is a weekly Saturday school for students in grades 8-11. Veritas scholars receive college-level training in Atlanta for 11 months, which concludes with a summer residential program at Harvard College where they study alongside and compete against hundreds of elite debaters worldwide in Harvard Debate Council’s international competition. For five consecutive years, Veritas scholars have won this competition.
VCIP is a two-week program where students are immersed in the lives of senior level executives and the problems they solve. Each day, we visit a different company where our scholars learn from senior leaders about the complexities that exist within their industry. Throughout the day, our scholars use critical thinking and communication tools learned in the Veritas classroom to
develop and pitch solutions to the most pressing issues in corporate America.
This is continued learning for students who have matriculated through VDI. The world becomes our classroom as we journey to different countries learning empathetic leadership skills through cultural immersion experiences. Each year, we facilitate journeys to places like Israel, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Africa, the UK and many more in order to develop global-minded leaders.
This is continued learning for students who have matriculated through VDI. We use career readiness programming to equip our college students with professional skills that will help build their resumes and teach them how to navigate the corporate world and access the resources they need to create impact and lead high quality lives.
Schools throughout the nation seek to learn from our educational equity model. Each month, we partner with school districts to provide professional development programming for K-12 educators who visit our campus to see and learn from our innovative strategies.. We equip them with tools to take our methods back to their schools and implement our strategies that have proven to increase student engagement and performance.
We teach equity
We do not learn for the sake of knowing. We learn for the sake of doing. We learn how to use our gifts to repair the world.
Too often, Black and brown youth are not given access to high-quality educational opportunities that will make them competitive for college admissions and the workforce. This opportunity gap creates an achievement gap that swells into the racial wealth gap that we see in America. We are closing that gap and creating generational wealth by positioning Black and brown youth to become high earners and contributors.
Class of 2018
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Over 150 Atlanta Students + Ivy League & Elite Education =
Collective Earning Potential of 10,000,000/yr. in 25 years…
Veritas was founded in 2017 by Brandon P. Fleming, an award-winning author, educator, and former Harvard debate coach, as a campus program called Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project. During his tenure at Harvard as assistant debate coach, Fleming identified the need for more representation of Black and brown students in Harvard’s summer residential debate program, understanding how such prestigious academic opportunities impact students’ chances to earn acceptance into elite colleges and universities. With Harvard’s support, Fleming founded the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project to create access for Black youth from Atlanta to study and compete in Harvard’s annual summer residential debate program.
The Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project (now Veritas Debate Institute) was designed as a weekly Saturday school to equip Atlanta youth with higher-level academic training to prepare them to compete on an international stage at Harvard’s summer residential debate program. Since 2017, all six cohorts of the Veritas Debate Institute’s students have won the Harvard Debate Council’s international academic debate competition for six consecutive years – outperforming hundreds of gifted youth from over 25 countries around the world. As a result, Veritas alumni have been accepted into top colleges and universities around the world.
Through his work, Veritas has shown the world what underserved youth are capable of achieving when the playing field is leveled and they are given access to the quality of education they deserve. The program’s proven success led to a rapid increase in demand, creating a need for growth and scale. Fleming scaled the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project into the Veritas School of Social Sciences to expand the organization’s services to include more programming and allow more youth and educators to access the life-changing educational model.
Veritas is currently in Phase One of a 10-year plan to scale into an international boarding school for people of color. Phase One is the current weekly Saturday school model, and Veritas will soon launch a day school to serve 400 Atlanta area youth as Phase Two.
In the spirit of the holiday season, we are looking for your support in giving 100 deserving Atlanta youth the opportunity of a lifetime to receive a summer education at Harvard University.
