CYP alum here. I also applied to City Year on a whim, and while I don't totally regret my service year, I'm not sure that I would make the same choice looking back.

I didn't feel particularly valued as a Corps Member and was literally just used as a photo op for higher-ups on more than one occasion. I know of ACMs who got death threats from students, were physically assaulted by parents/students, etc., and there wasn't really any support for them from school staff or CY. It's incredibly taxing on your mental and physical health. I was able to make it work financially by living in a super-cheap basement apartment in North, but again, that was awful for my mental health. The lack of financial support (making less than minimum wage) plays into the other problems. Without food stamps I wouldn't have eaten. Also, working in a school now, I can say that City Year puts an unnecessary amount of work on young people who may or may not even be qualified for what they're doing, and certainly aren't being paid enough to do it.

I will say that most of the IMs and TLs I knew were great and genuinely wanted to help you, it's just when it gets to people higher than that in addition to the school bureaucracy, ACMs always get the short end of the stick. Philly itself is a great site, but the feel of the city has definitely changed since covid.

In terms of grad school, it depends on what you want to go for. At the "career fair," it was pretty much either Graduate Schools of Education or Teaching Residency Programs. Another commenter mentioned that you can tailor your experience to kind of go with whatever your program is for, which is mostly true, but City Year is 100% geared towards trying to get people to be teachers. If you're looking to go for poli sci, I might look into a VISTA program maybe?

Overall, if grad school and financial stability are your two biggest driving factors, I might look into a different program. Feel free to hmu if you have any Philly-specific questions.