Parents & Mentees

At Mentors 4 College, we view our job as extending the reach of our school counselors and helping high school students and their parents find and get accepted to their ideal college or post-high school program. Here are the kinds of questions we help you answer:

Students often have these concerns:

• How do I find the right college for me?
• Do I even want to go to college? Maybe I need a gap year, or maybe college isn't for me.
• Would an apprenticeship program or some other training program be right for me? If so, which programs are best?
• Do I have the grades/test scores for the college or program I want?
• Can I afford the college I want? Can I afford college at all?
• What happens if I get rejected?
• How do I fill out the application?
• How do I write that essay?
• How do I even start?

Parents often have different concerns:

• Can we afford it? Does higher price mean better education for our child?
• We don’t want our child to go too far away.
• How can we be sure our child is making the right choice? Does every student need to go to college, or are there more appropriate post-high school programs for our child?
• Does it really matter where they go to school?
• We don’t know enough about this to help our child.
• This sure is different than when I applied to college!

To help mentees and their parents complete their journey to post-high school education successfully, we use the approach below. First, here's a simple view of the process:

Our mentors work with each mentee and his/her parents to move through the process.

First, there's a Discovery phase where the student and parents agree on interests and needs for post-high school education and then develop a plan for accomplishing them.

Second, during the Prepare phase, our mentors help students and parents actually take the actions required to find their ideal college(s) and prepare for the application. During this phase:

• If the student plans to go on to college, we suggest the mentee narrow down her/his college search to 6-8 schools:
• 2 "reach" schools (will be difficult, but not impossible for the student to get accepted)
• 2 "reasonable" schools (student has a high probability of acceptance)
• 1-2 "financially attractive" schools (schools that are one or two academic notches below the "reasonable" schools, and might therefore be generous with scholarship aid)
• 1-2 "safety" schools (student has close to 100% chance of admission)

If the student decides to pursue a path other than college, we help the student and parents narrow down the possible options:

• Are there certification programs available that would help the student learn required skills and make contacts?
• Are there apprenticeship programs available?
• Are there on-the-job training programs available?
• Is a gap year or bridge program appropriate?
• Does the student have to carve his/her own path? If so, we help the student find contacts that they can use to develop their own path.

Third, in the Apply phase, the student, with mentor support, applies to the desired colleges and programs, as well as applies for scholarships and financial aid. It's your application, so we don't help you write it. But, we do provide ideas and suggestions when you get stuck!