Bridging the gap between college and high school might get easier for students at Licking Heights High School thanks to a group of undergraduates at Ohio State.
Some Fisher College of Business students created a group called Bridging the Gap of College. They plan to tutor and mentor students at a local high school to help them prepare for college.
The idea behind the organization was originally drafted for a competition. The Ernst & Young “Your World, Your Vision” campus competition awarded three $10,000 prizes to student proposals that could potentially impact their communities. The winners were announced in March but did not include the OSU team.
“We wanted to start the club, regardless of if we won or not,” said Konstantin Katsman, vice president of diversity for Bridging the Gap of College. “We decided to pursue the idea due to its importance, potential benefit to the community and relatively low start-up costs.”
The group will run a tutoring program that will focus on ACT and SAT preparation. Science and math tutoring will also be available because students struggle most with those areas on standardized tests, Katsman said.
The goal is to raise the average ACT score of the students at Licking Heights from 20 to 25.
The mentoring part of the program will focus on bringing students to campus to get acquainted with the college atmosphere.
“The mentorship program assigns a peer buddy to a high school student for at least a yearlong commitment,” said Katsman, a fourth-year in accounting and finance.
They will choose 13 mentors with majors in marketing, accounting, math, science and others, said Mohamed Kamara, president of Bridging the Gap of College.
The group also plans to host events about diversity and community service.
“We’re planning a half-day event that involves presentations and students learning about different cultures,” said Kamara, a fourth-year in accounting and economics. “Some international business professors from Fisher will be talking about businesses overseas.”
Lauren Sjoreen, vice president of the group, said she hopes the mentors will be role models for the high school students.
The leaders of Bridging the Gap of College communicated with other student organizations during Winter quarter to recruit members. The group now has 12 members excluding the executive board.
The group chose Licking Heights because Kamara went to high school there and has siblings that still attend.
“I didn’t get a lot of the guidance or the help. I had hoped to be told about the different scholarship opportunities,” Kamara said of his experience at Licking Heights.
Sjoreen said the students there lack motivation regarding college, possibly because 30 to 40 percent of their parents didn’t graduate from high school.
“We want to help them understand what the future could hold for them and to improve ACT scores since they are very important when getting accepted at colleges,” said Sjoreen, a third-year in finance.
The group is currently in the process of getting money for background checks, which are required by the high school.
The original plan was to start the program in April, but it will now be moved to September because of costs.
“We are a nonprofit organization, so at the moment, funding is low,” Sjoreen said.
So far, the group has cleaned the Schottenstein Center and held a fundraiser at Panini’s bar and grill. They also plan to register with The United Way as a nonprofit organization and hope to get funding that way, Kamara said.
He plans to be at the high school the first Friday of Fall quarter 2010.
“As soon as school begins (at OSU), students will get prepared and go through tutoring and mentoring training,” Kamara said.
The volunteers will carpool to and from Licking Heights, which is about a 30-minute drive.
“We hope that Licking Heights High School can serve as the pilot for the idea,” Katsman said, “and the idea can be duplicated on a larger scale.”
