I will plug the idea of checking with a local urban or rural school district-it can be nice to help close to home!
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Thanks @hebegebe. Do they have a particular focus area?
Each chapter selects a set of partner high schools that they work with, and take students from those schools. Students have to commit to three years of working with the program.
Volunteer mentors can commit from anywhere from one to three years, and get paired with students as appropriate. Mentors who commit for only one year often get paired up with seniors, whereas those who commit for three get paired with sophomores and work with them through senior year.
This may vary by chapter, but the chapter I worked with required in-person mentoring, which was a few hours each weekend.
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Green Halo scholars, based in Chicagoland, is looking for volunteer mentors (can be remote or in person):
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Iām pretty sure there are a number of folks who have familiarity with the education landscape in Chicago!
While nearly all activities can be conducted virtually, knowledge of the education landscape in the western suburbs of Chicago is ideal.
@Mwfan1921 , do you know how critical it is for volunteers to have knowledge of the local educational landscape?
Thatās a good question and Iām not sure of the answer.
The western suburbs of Chicago run the gamut from limited income to affluent. Some suburbs/high schools will have students of many races, incomes, living situations, etc, while others may be less diverse in any of those ways.
Green Haloās students lean relatively low income, first gen, URMā¦which IMO donāt have different needs than other relatively disadvantaged students in other geographies. I am not sure the geography of all of their students, but as a volunteer would use the studentās High school Profile as a start, and then look at the studentās neighborhood census info (link provided by tamagotchi on another thread) here: https://censusreporter.org/
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I just finished the scholar match training, Iām in Oregon so Iām hoping they assign me a student for next fall.
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Same here! Looking forward to it.
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I hope so too! Great job!
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Questionā¦ I know the terms of service mean I can only solicit advice here for myself or my child. Am I able to ask for help with a student I am assisting through this program if I clearly state the situation? Would love to use this group for help as they progress to application stage next fall.
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Thatās a good question! I hope the answer is yes, but if not, we can get a group together on PM!
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Afaik, all requests have to go through the school counseling center. But I really dont know.
I interpreted @OregonMom2024ās question as: can help be sought here on CC? Will that constitute āasking for someone elseā and violate CC policy?
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IMO, it would violate the current rules as they stand.
You could encourage the students you work with to start their own account here to ask their questions.
I just wanted to send a followup to this thread. Iāve volunteered with ScholarMatch this season. I was paired with two students: one largely went off on his own after a few conversations, but the other one and I have been working together regularly since April.
Without loss of generality, this student - with a very good but not elite academic profile (i.e. fairly far from Questbridge), extremely limited means and access to support from his school, virtually no time for ECs as he took care of his family, and nobody else to help with any part of this - was accepted to his ED school this week, with a financial package that is close enough to his NPC that itās going to work out.
Truly without ego, this wouldnāt have happened without my help - I helped him parse through options and select the school, worked on his application with him (which he wrote on his phone because he didnāt have a working computer he could use for this), edited his essay over and over again and encouraged multiple restarts, encouraged him to continue the plan to ED when he was getting questionable advice from his school, etc. Iām ordering a shirt from the school for myself and will send one his way. This didnāt take a ton of time, and Iāve learned so much from the process with my children and with my time on CC. I feel fortunate and humbled to have been able to be helpful in this way. Itās not the most important thing that happened in my familyās life this year, but itās the most important thing I did.
If you have the time to give - and if youāre responding regularly on CC, you do - Iād encourage anyone to join the ScholarMatch community as a mentor. The training and resources itself are fine (I didnāt ask for staff help, and have been disconnected from the mothership, but think there is a wealth of nuanced understanding there), thereās a semi-active listserv where I both sought and provided information and advice, but most importantly, there are students who genuinely need help and are willing to do the work.
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Thanks for sharing your success story, @movingtothebeach
I have been doing this for two years with a local community based organization and itās incredibly rewarding. They take kids with median family incomes of about $40k, and prepare them to apply to, be admitted to, and thrive in college.
Last year the student I coached was a bright STEM kid, and was accepted into Tufts, Northeastern, and BU with full financial aid. He just finished his first semester at Northeastern and is studying electrical engineering.
This year, I am coaching two students with the same organization. Just got back ED results for one of them, and sheās going to Cornell, again with full financial aid.
These kids have extraordinary promise, and they need just a bit of guidance along the way, that we have the knowledge to provide.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences @movingtothebeach and @hebegebe!
Those students are so fortunate to have benefitted from your capable guidance, and itās not hyperbole to say that the trajectory of their lives has likely been changed forever. May they all see continued success in college 
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I was looking at the website and see that they also offer career coaching to college students. Has anyone done that? Iām also interested in the college coaching for first gen students but am curious to learn more about the career coaching.
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