About the Seal
 

Excelencia in Education’s mission is to accelerate Latino student success, while increasing all student success, to close postsecondary attainment gaps and advance our families, communities, and nation. We are committed to significantly increasing the number of students earning college degrees by 2030 in partnership with institutions. As part of this commitment, Excelencia established the Seal of Excelencia, a rigorous, student-centered data-informed certification framework that requires colleges and universities show momentum leading to continuous improvement in student completion and institutional outcomes.

Excelencia developed a framework that integrates essential components of transformation into a comprehensive institutional strategy for intentionally SERVING Latino students. This framework represents learning from over 20 years of working with higher education institutions and leaders committed to student success.

The Seal of Excelencia certification aligns with the three core areas of the Seal of Excelencia framework: data, practice, and leadership.

Excelencia is committed to working in partnership with institutions to share and learn strategies that align data, practice, and leadership as a community of learners to accelerate Latino student success. In 2019, Excelencia announced its first cohort of institutions receiving the Seal of Excelencia certification. In 2025, Excelencia recognized its seventh cohort. To learn more about our Seal of Excelencia certified institutions, click here.

For more information on the Seal of Excelencia certification, please visit our certification application page.

In 2022, Excelencia in Education created the Seal Serving Institutional Transformation Assessment (SSITA) tool to help prepare institutions for their journey to more intentionally serve Latino students and build campus support among faculty, staff, and administrative leaders. SSITA is a streamlined version of the Seal certification assessment tool that provides a starting point for colleges and universities to assess with a Latino lens who they are serving, not serving, and want to serve with data, practice, and leadership. More information on SSITA can be found here.

To support and reinforce institutional capacity to more intentionally serve, Excelencia has created capacity building opprtotunties to meet institutions where they are in their transformation journey. Please visit our capacity building page to learn more about the Excelencia support provided to institutions on their journey to more intentionally SERVE Latino students, while SERVING all.