For most Dartmouth students, the hours spent memorizing vocabulary words, analogies and simple math equations in preparation for the SAT is a thing of the past. This spring, however, students will have the opportunity to put this forgotten knowledge to use by participating in Let's Get Ready, a program that helps local high school students prepare for the SATs and the college application process by pairing them with undergraduates at nearby colleges.
Let's Get Ready is a non-profit organization that operates out of New York City. Lindsay Greenberg '08 and Haley Morris '08 are starting a branch of Let's Get Ready at Dartmouth in the hopes of expanding the program's scope into more rural areas.
"Right now, Dartmouth is the only Ivy that doesn't have a branch of the Let's Get Ready program," Greenberg said. "The need is just as big in rural New Hampshire and Vermont as it is in Boston."
According to Jess Filante, assistant director of programs for the New England region of Let's Get Ready, there is a major need for this kind of program in the Upper Valley. At Mascoma Valley High School, where Dartmouth students will launch its pilot program, many of the students come from low-income households. There are only two guidance counselors assigned to all of the juniors and seniors in the school.
There are currently 29 establishments of Let's Get Ready throughout the northeast, pairing over 3,500 underprivileged high school students with roughly 1,400 volunteer tutors. The nine-week program is free and includes 39 hours of SAT preparation and 15 hours of "College Choice" activities, which include helping high school students fill out the Common Application, learn more about the financial aid process and develop a list of potential schools.
The program boasts increases in SAT scores by an average of 103 points. Ninety-two percent of Let's Get Ready students go to college when they graduate from high school.
The organization began in 1998 when two students from Harvard realized that they could use the skills they had obtained when they applied to college to help less privileged high schoolers that were not receiving the resources needed to apply successfully. In 2000, the College Board gave Let's Get Ready the money it needed to create a central New York office and replicate the Harvard branch in multiple areas throughout the northeast.
Recently, the New England branch received a grant of $400,000 from investment firm Goldman Sachs. The grant helped the organization to expand the region's branches to include Wesleyan University, Wellesley College and now Dartmouth.
"Dartmouth is part of the New England expansion that we are doing," Filante said. "I would say that this is our real pilot rural program, as well as our launching program in New Hampshire."
The branches at each of the New England colleges are funded by both the non-profit organization and Goldman Sachs.
"Goldman Sachs funds a third of the program," Morris said. "That includes everything from all the resources that you need for SAT prep-binders full of stuff to the things you need to help the kids prepare for the college application process."
During Spring term, the Dartmouth branch volunteers will have the opportunity to decide whether they would like to tutor students in math or verbal subjects. Others will help students develop college lists and fill out college applications.
The first session will run this spring from March 27 to May 31 in preparation for the June SATs. Greenberg and Morris hope to continue the program throughout the 2007-2008 school year.
"This spring, we will be working with juniors because it's too late for seniors," Greenberg said. "But in the fall we will target mixed classes."
Morris noted that the program will involve 16 tutors, a few substitutes and a few other students for fundraising purposes.
"Only two-thirds of the class is covered by Let's Get Ready and Goldman Sachs," Morris said. "We need to raise $6,500, a third of the cost, ourselves, so we need people for fundraising."
Morris also stressed that interested Dartmouth students need not have had perfect SAT scores to be eligible to tutor.
"We're not looking for all kids who got 1600s -- we want kids who had to figure out how to do well on the SATs," she said. "It's easier to tutor if you had to study yourself."
