Let's Get Ready (organization)

Let's Get Ready (LGR) is a non-profit organization that provides low-income high school students with free SAT preparation, admissions counseling and other support services needed to gain admission to and graduate from college. Trained college student volunteers deliver these services and offer encouragement, inspiration and confidence. Programs are based at colleges, staffed by college student volunteers. Let's Get Ready is the largest network of student-run college access programs in the U.S., serving approximately 2,500 U.S. high school students per year.^[1]

Mission and Vision Statements

Vision

Let's Get Ready envisions a future when students from all socioeconomic backgrounds have the support they need to attain a college education.

Mission

Let's Get Ready provides low-income high school students with free SAT preparation, admissions counseling and other support services needed to gain admission to and graduate from college. Trained college student volunteers deliver these services and offer encouragement, inspiration and confidence.

History

Started in 1998 by a group of college-age students in Westchester, NY the organization grew from a local program to Harvard University. In 2000, the College Board gave LGR money to replicate their program in NYC schools. In 2007, Goldman Sachs gave the New England LGR programs $400,000 to help expand programs. This money accounted for one-third of the budget for these programs.^[2] As of 2007, LGR ran 40 programs throughout the Northeast. The program has a partnership with Teach for America.

The Let's Get Ready Model

LGR runs afterschool programs that prepare students for college and tutor them for the SATs.^[3] The course is open to high school juniors and seniors (grade 11 - 12 in USA).

LGR program managers recruit highly skilled college students who are passionate about education and/or college access to serve as paid site directors. New site directors are chosen for each site each semester, although there is room for continuity. Site Directors recruit talented college coaches and eager high school students, typically working with a site partner, which may be a community center (for example, LGR works with the Goddard Riverside Center), a college program (for example, LGR works extensively with the CUNY Black Male Initiative), or a high school (for example, LGR runs a program that sends Columbia University students to Frederick Douglass Academy). LGR then provides training to the college coaches and support to site directors, and the program begins. Each high school student receives 39 hours of completely free SAT preparation lessons, including practice tests, and 15 hours of college guidance. Students and coaches often develop powerful bonds, and many coaches return year after year.

Students benefit greatly from LGR, posting an average 110 point increase in SAT scores. Many students have seen scores rise by 300-400 points.

Over 90% of LGR program graduates go directly to college after high school.

Programs^[4]

Fall and Spring

• Barnard College
• Bates College
• Boston College
• Bowdoin College
• Clark University
• Columbia University
• Dartmouth College
• Fairfield University
• Harvard University
• Mount Holyoke College
• New York University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Temple University
• Tufts University
• Vassar College
• Wellesley College
• Wesleyan University
• Macaulay Honors College

Spring

• Baruch College
• Colgate University
• Cornell University
• Hamilton College
• Princeton University
• Upper Darby High School

Summer

Boston, MA
Bridgeport, CT
Brockton, MA
Bronx, NY
Brooklyn, NY
Cambridge, MA
Dorchester, MA
Harlem, NY
Hartford, CT
Lawrence, MA
Manhattan, NY
Mount Vernon, NY
New Haven, CT
New Rochelle, NY
New York City
Norwalk, CT
Queens, NY
Stamford, CT
Summit, NJ
Upper Darby, PA
White Plains, NY
Worcester, MA
Providence, RI

Alumni

The organization has over 10,000 alumni who have studied at prestigious universities across the country. Alumni go on to become leaders in diverse fields with a passion for their communities. The organization prides itself on the number of program participants who have returned to LGR as coaches, Site Directors, and staff members, continuing the cycle of service.

See also

• College Board
• SAT
• College admissions in the United States

References