MORE ABOUT COLLEGE MATCH

The Need College Match Addresses

According to a recent Century Foundation report, the most underrepresented group of Americans at the nation’s top colleges and universities are students from low-income families (defined as the bottom quarter of Americans ranked by income.) Only 3% of students at the 146 most selective colleges come from families in this quartile. In stark contrast, 75% of all students at these institutions are from families in the top income quartile.

College Match was established to address this enormous disparity. One of the biggest obstacles is that most of our low-income students attend very large high schools where the college counselors are overwhelmed by ratios of approximately 600 students to one counselor or even higher. Sadly, California ranks last in the nation in the ratio between students and counselors. Another major problem is that their parents cannot afford to pay for personal college counselors, SAT preparatory courses, essay consultants, extensive college site visits, and other forms of help that more affluent college applicants enjoy.

>Our Services
>What Makes College Match Unique
>Our Leadership
>Advisory Board

Our Services

We identify low-income high school sophomores with strong academic records and provide each of them (on an individualized basis) an intensive array of services comparable to what affluent students receive at elite private schools. These students and their families are receiving the counseling and support to make them competitive in the college application process. Relationships are being established with a select number of institutions that value diversity and simply don’t have the networks to reach out and find these qualified students.

More specifically, College Match attains these goals by:

• Working with Los Angeles area public school officials, principals, teachers, counselors and parents to identify successful students at the end of their sophomore year. During the 2008-09 school year, College Match will comprehensive college access services to 140 low-income students in nine Los Angeles inner-city public schools. Our youngsters are students at Jordan High School, The Gertz-Ressler and Bill Ouchi College Ready Academies and Animo Inglewood High School in South Los Angeles, at Bell High School and Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, and at Franklin High School and the LA Leadership Academy in Northeast Los Angeles, and at the Environmental High School in South Bay. Approximately 76% of our students are Latino, 10% are African-American; 14% are Vietnamese, Filipino or other Asian-Americans. 67% of our students are female.
  
• Providing intensive SAT preparatory classes for these students. We will provide over 70 SAT Prep classes in 2008. Over the past three years, our students have raised their average SAT capability by 300 points.
  
• Providing assistance in filling out college application forms, with a heavy emphasis on the essays.
  
• Assisting with financial aid forms, so that low-income students can qualify for appropriate financial aid packages.
  
• Raising funds so that low-income students can join their more affluent peers in visiting colleges throughout the country. We have already visited 47 of the finest schools in Southern California, Northern California and on the East Coast.

  We recently took 61 highly qualified low-income youngsters to see 30 colleges (in two groups--one visiting colleges from Maine to New York and the second seeing schools from Washington, D.C. to New York. Since so many low-income youngsters wanted to visit East Coast colleges, we decided  to have a Middle Atlantic trip in addition to our traditional New England visit.

  In total, we visited 7 Ivy league schools, 4 great women's colleges, 5 “Top Ten” small colleges, 5 great schools that don't require SAT's, three outstanding Jesuit/Catholic institutions and a couple of other fine institutions. Our students loved the trip and realized that there are wonderful opportunities available for them. They also now have a better understanding of what these colleges expect, and a number of them have already mentioned that they now plan to work much harder.

  We also went to the Lincoln, Jefferson, & FDR Monuments, Constitution Hall, the Liberty Bell and an Amish Farm in Pennsylvania and had our students explore both the JFK and FDR Presidential Libraries.
  

• Providing assistance to our students who have special needs that are not covered by their financial aid  packages. These include resources for air transportation, computers, software, health care, warm clothes for those in cold weather locations, new bedding, comforters, etc and other appropriate special needs that low-income students require during their collegiate days.
  
• Contacting college admissions offices as advocates for these students in the same way counselors at elite private schools do.
  
• Negotiating on behalf of the students for increased grants within their overall financial aid package, once the students have been admitted to more than one outstanding institution.
• Focusing considerable attention on retention when our graduates enroll in college.
  

What Makes College Match Unique

Although there are other programs with similar objectives, College Match’s strategy and approach are unique in two respects:

        (1) Whereas certain programs provide college counseling to students at all academic levels, we are focusing our efforts exclusively on students with especially strong academic records who, we believe, can be admitted to the finest colleges in the country. If we are successful, these students are likely to be future leaders in their community and in our nation.

        (2) College Match provides much more intensive one-on-one services to these youngsters than most other programs. Individualized strategies are developed for each student based on the student’s strengths, weaknesses, and personal preferences. Our model is the level of support that students in elite schools receive from their counselors and from their affluent parents. The College Match students receive the same level of support and assistance that affluent students receive so that they can participate effectively in the highly competitive college admissions process.

Our Leadership

Harley M. Frankel, Executive Director of College Match, brings extensive experience and connections in the fields of education and youth services. As Executive Assistant to the U.S. Commissioner of Education, he led a major reform of the Federal higher education financial aid system that targeted grant resources to our nation’s lowest income students. This administrative reform was a forerunner to the Pell Grant program.

Mr. Frankel directed the National Head Start program during the period when Head Start earned a reputation as one of the country’s finest human service programs. While serving as a Senior White House Aide, Mr. Frankel selected the first U.S. Secretary of Education. Mr. Frankel served also as a Senior Executive with the Children’s Defense Fund. He has spent most of his career working to improve the educational services provided to low-income students.

The Head Counselor for College Match is Ms. Julie Neilson. Ms. Neilson recently retired after 30 years of service in LAUSD. She enjoys a reputation as one of the finest College Counselors in Los Angeles. While serving at Garfield High School for over a decade, Ms. Neilson helped a large number of low-income and minority students get into outstanding colleges throughout the country. She is totally devoted to the success of her students and is highly-respected by college admissions officials from coast to coast. In addition, College Match has recently added the outstanding college counseling services of Ms. Erica Rosales, a Wellesley College graduate who has experience in the Occidental Admissions Office and at Garfield High School.

Moreover, College Match is very fortunate to be able to work with four outstanding College Counselors at our high schools. They include:

Mr. Tony Reveles---Bell High School

Ms. Anne Lamont---Jordan High School

Ms. Janneth Johnson---Animo Inglewoood High School

Ms. Maria Soldevilla ---Franklin High School

Ms. Veronica Gonzalez - Gertz-Ressler High School

Ms. Deborah Head -- Garfield High School

Mr. Phillip Schwenk - Environmental High School

Advisory Board

In addition to the contacts and expertise Mr. Frankel, Ms. Neilson and these experienced counselors bring, the program benefits from a high-level Advisory Board. The following leaders have agreed to serve as College Match advisors:

Rev. Jeff Carr, Deputy Mayor, Los Angeles

Mr. Stan Sanders, Attorney (Mr. Sanders grew up in Watts, attended a small college and became a Rhodes Scholar)

Ms. Maria Casillas, President, Families in Schools

Mr. Virgil Roberts, Education Leader

Mr. Bruce Newberg, Businessman & Investor

Mr. Harry Salamandra, Head of the Upper School, Harvard-Westlake School

Mr. Stephen Singer, Head Counselor, Horace Mann School

Dr. Sherry Banks, Director of College Counseling and Scholarships, The Fulfillment Fund

Mr. David Velasquez, Director of Admissions and College Counseling, Brentwood School

Ms. Martha W. Hammer, Former President, Independent Colleges of Southern California

 

Contact Information

College Match
c/o Community Partners
     1000 N. Alameda Street, Suite 240,
Los Angeles, CA 90012

email HFDOTORG@aol.com.

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