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 calendar year 2010, College Match will provide comprehensive college access services to 210 low-income students--63 graduating seniors, 73 new seniors and 75 juniors---in ten Los Angeles inner-city public schools. Our youngsters are students at Jordan H.S., The Gertz-Ressler and Bill Ouchi College Ready Academies and Animo Inglewood H.S. in South Los Angeles, at Bell H.S., Franklin H.S. and Garfield H.S. in East Los Angeles, at the Downtown Magnet H.S. and Camino Nuevo in Downtown Los Angeles and at the Environmental High School in South Bay. Approximately 78% of our current students are Latino; 11% are African-American; and 11% are Vietnamese, Filipino or other Asian Americans. Two-thirds of our students are female.
  
• Providing intensive SAT preparatory classes for these students. We will conduct over 75 SAT Prep classes in 2010. Our 2010 seniors raised their average SAT scores by approximately 360 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 52 of the finest schools in Southern California, Northern California and on the East Coast.

  We took 63 of these youngsters to visit 28 colleges on the East Coast in two groups from March 23-April 1. One group saw schools between Duke and Vassar, and the second group visited colleges throughout New England. In addition to visiting colleges, we had a White House Tour and students saw the Jefferson and FDR Memorials. In New York, we went to Times Square, Ground Zero, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We also spent time at the JFK Presidential Library.
  

• 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. For the past three years, College Match has had the outstanding college counseling services of Ms. Erica Rosales, a Wellesley College graduate who has experience in both the Occidental Admissions Office and at Animo Leadership Charter 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, Chief of Staff to The Mayor of 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

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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