11th grade: July
[1] Talk about GPA - how is your student doing in school?
Most students don’t understand how important their GPA is.
don’t understand what impact it will have on a highly selective college
don’t understand that a highly selective college will meet 100% of need and no one else will
don’t understand that they really SHOULD be considering more than CUNY and SUNY and how much of a difference it will make if they do
Students still have time to change it because it’s JUNIOR YEAR!!!
Figure out what the GPA is and how much you can get it up.
Make a pie-in-the-sky goal and a realistic goal for how you think you can improve the student’s GPA.
Recognize that:
you might not be able to make the GPA goal that is listed online, BUT
if you show significant progress - tell a story of growth -
and are from an underserved school,
you may still be able to be accepted.
The role of GPA
Colleges look at GPA as a cumulative measure (freshman->junior year), and often students don’t really understand that GPA matters/school matters until they hit the second semester of their junior year
Somewhere between 75-90% of what a college looks at during the application process is GPA, in combination with course rigor/strength of schedule
If your student has the ability to switch into ANY harder classes, they SHOULD - a lower grade in a harder class looks better than a higher grade in an easier class.
Colleges get a list of what courses a given HS offers and how many of the hard ones a student has taken - so they know everything. No secrets.
Consistency:
Students in this slice sometimes get a 2.6 one quarter and then get a reminder to improve grades, and then get to a 3.5. But the next quarter they don’t push themselves as hard and get a 3.1, and then the last quarter they are tired and get a 2.9.
This lack of consistency doesn't look great to colleges
It doesn’t always click with students that it’s necessary to keep pushing and that the 3.6 is the minimum GPA to get into a highly selective college.
They’re not always making the connection between RIGHT NOW MY GPA and the finances of going to college for free.
[2] Make a link between student’s actions now and college in a year.
Make a discrete link between what the positive outcomes of college are and what you need to do in high school in order to get there.
Students don't know that they can go to college for free.
Students don’t understand why it might be worth it to push for a highly selective college - networks, job consideration, places that recruit, improved education they’ll get and critical thinking skills they’ll acquire.
Not everyone has to go to Harvard - but by increasing your college selectivity (by raising your GPA), you can make up to 2x more after college.
It's worth it to try harder, even if you aren’t going to Harvard - and they don't necessarily understand that. So I think one of the things that we are trying to do as an organization is increase college selectivity. And I can show you why it's important to increase college selectivity.
Take this amazing opportunity to show how college selectivity makes a difference and how you still can affect the impact of that on your life. The grades that you're going to get in junior year probably are not already set.
Some students might think that an 80 is enough or an 86 is enough, but it's not.
An 80 or an 86 is not going to get you into a highly selective college that's going to meet 100% of your need.
Often students don't understand that you can actually go to college for free if your GPA is good enough.
What does it mean to go to college for free?
Going to college for free can mean not having to pay back loans, which means you don't go into debt, your parents don't go into debt - nobody goes into debt.
You as a mentor can explain why being in debt is hard and can stink bigtime.
The magic number for debt is $30,000. So that means that when you graduate, you shouldn't be in debt more than $30,000 total for the four years of college, which is $7500/year. So you shouldn't be taking on more than $7,500 a year worth of debt because after that, it becomes hard to crawl out from underneath.
[3] Action items
Your job as a mentor to an 11th grader is to link all of these things and help the student understand them in their mind and make them feel significant enough that it's worth it to take action.
It may not seem like this is very hard, and it may not be, but your student is likely to say yes and, a lot and not actually do anything.
So I would make it as explicit as you can with examples from your own life and actual amounts of money.
“This is how much money you can make if you go to x college and major in y. Look - at this school that major makes $55,000/year and at this other school, the same major makes $83,000. That's a $30,000 difference.”
Use collegescorecard.ed.gov to look at different schools and compare career outcomes
We find often that students don't really understand the value of money. Talking to a college access/career readiness person at a CBO, they said, “Our kids think $20,000 and $100,000 are the same - they're both big numbers.”
Make sure they understand the difference between those two - even the kind of car 20K can buy vs 100K.
Talk with your student about each of their classes and where they think they’re doing well and where they have the ability to do better.
[4] Don’t forget to connect!
Don’t forget how important it is to forge a relationship!
You are going to be together for 2 years - make sure you make the space to trust each other!
And that’s great because it means that you're going to be able to really have an impact, and maybe you'll be able to plant a seed in their brain this year and act on it next year.
And who knows? Maybe they will get into that crazy reach college.
Resources from mentor training:
Connecting with your mentee: https://yleana.org/college-access/connecting-with-your-mentee
July video walkthrough for supporting your 11th grader mentee:
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Next month:
We’ll talk about specific techniques students can use to improve their grades. Sneak peek:
Basics of retention - studying for tests and quizzes
Spaced practice
Interleaved practice - needs to be woven in to increase retention
Mindsets & goal-setting
Includes fixed vs. growth mindset
Stress reduction and focus
Lengthening focus and managing anxiety
Study tips like memory palaces