How Mentorship Can Improve College Admissions Rate

Schools are not made equal across the United States, and with that comes differences in resources available to students. 

This is largely due to the unequal funding that public schools in the United States receive. Property taxes dictate how much money each school receives, which is attributed to a community's affluence. Given the variation in funding across schools, this can be directly translated to resources that a student may or may not receive. 

For example, in one school there may be 15 children in a classroom versus 30, they may have access to new text books or old. As you advance to high school, students may have access to certain AP classes, and others may not. On one side of the city there’s a successful college center and college counselors who are able to give adequate information, whereas on the other side of the city—there is no such thing. 

How This Affects Underserved Communities

For students who are first-generation and are from underserved communities, the issue of college admissions success and lack of resources can be a devastating blow to their future. A 2011 National survey of college counselors found that 43% of counselors in high poverty schools don’t think they have adequate resources to be successful at promoting their students’ college and career readiness by 12th grade. 

Another study conducted by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), found that counselors in high poverty schools with large concentrations of students of color, weren’t able to provide adequate guidance in their schools. The reason behind this was due to the constraints counselors felt in their non-counseling responsibilities, like scheduling courses and testing students. 

Although it would be preferable to have these issues resolved, there are mentorship programs available that have shown to improve a student’s chance of getting admitted into college. In fact, students with college-educated mentors, are twice as likely to attend college. 

What Is Mentoring And How Is It Done Anyway?

Mentorship can also come in the form of counseling, and even a teacher or tutor can be considered a mentor. To fully understand why mentoring works, it’s important to look at the research literature. There are a variety of mentoring models used in different organizational structures.

• Informal mentoring occurs when a youth has a relationship with an older individual that emerges organically from within a youth’s social network, such as a teacher or other school faculty.

• Formal mentoring is generally through a structured organization that has either paid or volunteer mentors for at-risk youth. Generally, these types of programs have ongoing training and monitoring.

What the Research Shows

There are several different theories that help explain how these mentoring relationships benefit students in a variety of different ways: 

• Attachment theory suggests that the bonds that a child forms in its early childhood will dictate the way in which they proceed with other relationships in their future.

• Social support is what results from the close bonds that youth develop in early childhood, which can be given by parents or teachers. Social support can be informational (giving advice on assignments) instrumental (help through financial assistance), emotional (care and nurture), and appraisal (feedback given that is helpful to a youth’s self-evaluation). 

• Resiliency Theory proposes that there are things such as protective factors (e.g., high self esteem, emotional self-regulation, etc.) that can help mitigate some negative circumstances that may occur in a young person’s life.

The Evidence

There are various programs that have been implemented and studied on mentoring and its outcome effectiveness. A study analyzed the effectiveness of 73 “independent evaluations of mentoring programs directed toward children and adolescents” from 1999-2010, and found that students who were mentored gained positive gains on outcome measures (“e.g., grades, emotional well-being, behavioral”) in comparison to non-mentored students.

An additional study from the Review of Educational Research analyzed 21 past studies to assess volunteer tutoring programs. The authors found that, “volunteer tutoring had a positive effect on student achievement, and were likely to earn high scores on assessments related to letters and words, oral fluency, and writing as compared to their peers who are not tutored.”

Impact on College Admissions

The 2019 report from the National Association For College Admission Counseling revealed that one of the most important considerations that colleges place in admissions decisions is in academic performance. Half of the colleges surveyed also placed a significant importance on ACT/SAT scores. In addition, other factors were also considered to be moderately important(e.g., information regarding the interests of students and essays). The more selective colleges placed more emphasis on grades in college prep courses (AP courses), essays, recommendations, extracurricular activities, and employment.

Other findings have shown that there are positive outcomes with mentoring in terms of students' grades, and improvements in students’ emotional well-being. Mentors can serve as an important social support for students’ lives, where the information that mentors lend to students can be extremely beneficial due to their own life experiences.

Mentors can help guide students through the college admissions process, and give support on assignments or exams. Of course, not all mentoring organizations or individual mentors can serve as an academic resource, but they can advise and guide students toward a successful path. Mentorship can be extremely helpful earlier on for elementary and middle school age students. By preparing students early on, we can improve their chances of success.

Although The System Is Filled With Inequities, There Are Ways You Can Help

Our education system isn’t equal for everyone, especially for those students in underserved communities. Their challenges are made more difficult by the lack of academic support that is available. The issue is further magnified for students who are from low socioeconomic backgrounds, with research suggesting that wealthier students are significantly more likely to attend college.

There are inequity issues within our education system today, where the wealthier students undoubtedly have more advantages in terms of test preparation and college counseling. 

However, there are cost-free options available for students with non-profit organizations that are available. It’s up to those of us with our own lived experiences in education to help guide and motivate students towards their full potential.

Step Up Tutoring does exactly this. Step Up Tutoring’s mission is to provide families free tutoring from volunteers, where they support students by providing mentorship, personalized learning, and emotional support. Currently, there are over 800 Los Angeles Unified School District students from Title I schools enrolled in the Step Up Tutoring program. 

Let’s combat educational inequity together. Become a volunteer today.