Bottom Line

University of Illinois at Chicago, Class of 2022

As early as elementary school, Alicia’s classmates were pulled into dangerous lifestyles that offered little hope for positive futures. Alicia didn’t want that for herself, and she doesn’t want that for the generations coming after her. “That was the catalyst in me wanting to be involved in criminal justice.”

Alicia is currently a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is working toward a degree in criminology with a minor in public policy and psychology.

Ultimately, Alicia would like to be a change-maker in her community – supporting Chicago by helping to keep children out of the correctional system, and by offering guidance and opportunities to those who already are.

Her work in this area is impressive. She currently visits her previous elementary school and works with students through band practice and writing exercises. She believes in using the arts to help teach children motivation, as well as how to set and achieve goals. This mentorship is one of her own creation. Alicia reached out to her old band teacher to ask if there were any opportunities to work with the students – so the school invited to visit when she can, based on her own schedule. “I know what my peers were up against at their age, and I just want to help keep them on the right road.”

Alicia joined Bottom Line as a Success student at the recommendation of her friend, who had gone through the Access program.

While Alicia knows what problem she wants to solve with her career, she’s still exploring the best way to do that. Her advisor has played a significant role in that. She challenges Alicia to be creative and think of all the different avenues she could take to make a change, and what she’d have to do to excel in those different avenues.

“I’m looking at all the different ways I can attack this problem and see which way my skill set and interests can best fit in.”

So far, that line of thinking has helped Alicia into two very different, and eye-opening, internships. With help from her advisor, Alicia has interned with the City Clerk’s office and is currently interning with the Department of Corrections.

At the City Clerk’s office, Alicia was able to see how she could effect change from an institutional standpoint. And, now, she is learning how to make a change on the ground, with individuals already in the system.

Alicia interviews juveniles coming out of Cook County Department of Corrections to see which services they are eligible for upon release. Depending on their eligibility, she then works with them to help get that ball rolling, so they have a plan in place when they are released.

“It’s tough to prepare yourself when you’re going into one of the biggest DOCs in the state, but I’m more motivated than ever. Not only am I learning about prevention, but I’m learning about what happens when crime prevention isn’t there or doesn’t work and what that means for the individuals who are affected.”

This internship lasts for the entire academic year, and she is very excited to learn more and gain more perspective.

“I am looking forward to simply being able to work with people in that environment. It is difficult working in the jail because you see things that not everyone talks about, and I am interested in becoming more aware of what goes on inside the jail. While I am working for a research project, I want to make sure I see these gentlemen as more than just a number or statistic in our research.”

Bottom Line has helped Alicia gain access to these opportunities – by sharing the opportunities, supporting Alicia as she fills out applications, and helping her with the interviewing process.

“The most important thing my advisors have given me is their support. They’ve always been so enthusiastic about exploring opportunities. They’ve been cheerleaders for me.”

For Alicia, a college degree is giving her the freedom to explore her interests and honor her family. “This isn’t just for me, but to thank my family for all they’ve given up for me. Leaving your home and all you know to give your children a better chance is one of the most selfless things you can do. I owe my parents my success.”

One of the most significant barriers to college completion is cost. For students who come from low-income backgrounds, the cost of college can seem impossible.

College affordability is a more significant barrier for Black and Latino students than for other students. Recent research shows that 49% of Black students and 36% of Latino students defaulted on their college loans at least once throughout 12 years, compared to only 21% of White students and 11% of Asian students. Black and Latino students also had higher college loan balances over time than other students. Black students owed an average of 113% of the amount initially borrowed after 12 years, and Latino students owe an average of 83% while White students owed just 65%.

JPMorgan Chase and Bottom Line are working together to combat these barriers. JPMorgan Chase’s The Fellowship Initiative (TFI) is a program that supports the educational development of Black and Latino young men from low-income communities in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City. As a college access and persistence organization, Bottom Line is well-positioned to support these young men in persisting through college.

One of the young men that Bottom Line and TFI are working with is Carlos Garcia Jr.

I am currently a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Chicago pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing with a goal of becoming a certified nursing assistant. I plan to pursue a career as a triage nurse and ultimately become a nurse practitioner. As a junior in high school, I volunteered at a hospital, shadowing different staff members throughout their day. Being in healthcare is a big deal because of the time and dedication the doctors and nurses put in to help the people they’re caring for. Their commitment is what influenced me to choose a career in healthcare.

Growing up in the Back of the Yards on the South Side of Chicago, I didn’t see college as an option for me. I never thought I would be going to college. I figured I would work after high school because few people in my community pursued a postsecondary degree.

In Back of the Yards, about 30 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, according to a 2013 analysis. The neighborhood is part of the New City community, where about a third of the population over 25 is without a high school diploma and half of the residents between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed.

I was able to look at the real world at a young age and saw what was going on in my community. I saw the violence that was occurring and didn’t want to live that life. I wasn’t the smartest student in the class, but I wanted to be different. I had a dream to fulfill my potential.

I attended Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy. The school may have lacked material resources (if a class had books, they were only used in class and returned immediately after), but it certainly excelled in building a motivating, involved, and influential community.

Athletics helped shape me into who I am today. I was the captain for both the Soccer and Track and Field team all four years. I’m thankful to my coaches for helping me develop my leadership skills through athletics. No matter what the outcome of the games or meets were, they were committed to supporting the team both as a group and individually. During my senior year of high school, I received the “Athlete of the Year” award. My coaches and teammates pushed me to do better every day, and they saw the potential I had to lead others. Being a captain helped with my communication skills and created lifelong bonds. I found my voice; I went from being quiet to being able to motivate and inspire my peers.

The community of peers and mentors at school helped motivate me to pursue college. My Math, Science, and Spanish teachers believed in me and always drove me to do better. Because of them, I became dedicated to my academics. When I was struggling in class, I went to them after school for help.  I’m so grateful for the time that they dedicated to me. The people I met in high school brought out the best in me. I’m thankful for my guidance counselor for helping me find the path to where I am today. I owe a lot of my success to her because if she didn’t help me fill out my application for TFI, I wouldn’t have navigated my way to college. She helped me fill it out last minute and encouraged me to pursue higher education.

TFI changed my mindset; they helped make going to college a reality. Three Saturdays a month, I met with TFI. Being in a community of 40 Latino and Black young men who were all working toward the same goal made a huge impact. We spent the entire day focusing on strengthening our academic skills and learning about social justice issues, all connecting to how we could make a difference in our communities. When we started to get our acceptance letters, we cheered each other on because it was a huge accomplishment and it showed our hard work was paying off. Rudy Lozano, the current VP of The Fellowship Initiative, helped us speak up and find our voice. He changed each of us. With the support of TFI and the Chance Program, I was able to obtain a scholarship which is helping pay for school.

Since graduating from the TFI program, Carlos has gone back and works with the second cohort of TFI students. He now works with Rudy as a colleague. Rudy watched Carlos grow from a shy boy with a dream to a successful young man who is making it happen.

“TFI gave Carlos confidence. He’s always been determined but started off in a shy quiet way of doing that. Now, he’s much more willing and longing to get in front of others to inspire them. He has no limits in terms of his public speaking and getting in front of an audience to share his experiences and support students and their parents.”

Rudy worked closely with Carlos and his family during his time with TFI. While Carlos faced a lot of obstacles, “you wouldn’t know from him that he has just as many struggles and hardships as other students. He has a strength that allows him to persevere through any struggles that may be going on. He’s a leader in his home. He’s a leader in his family. He’s a leader in his community.”

Being a fellow with TFI has also given Carlos access to the Bottom Line program.

TFI connected me with Bottom Line which is helping me move forward with college. Jarred, my Bottom Line advisor is an older brother figure in my life. Jarred’s responsiveness lets me know he has my back. Instead of telling me what to do, Jarred gives me options and supports whatever decision I make. Jarred’s pep talks motivate me to keep trying, even when it seems impossible. With this type of communication, I am able to manage my life in college and plan accordingly.

I’ve seen many of my peers drop out of college. It’s hard because they don’t have someone to talk to the way I do. If something is going on, I can speak with Jarred.

“Carlos has been an inspiration to work with. Driven to succeed, he’s always aiming for the top. When things get challenging, I make sure we take the time to step back and look at the bigger picture. This gives us a chance to highlight his goals, anticipate the obstacles ahead, and plan accordingly. He’s taken an increasingly proactive role on campus and is beginning to distinguish himself as a leader among his peers. I see him continuing to grow into that role as he nears graduation,” said Jarred.

At one point I wasn’t going to be able to pay my tuition but Jarred worked with me to find a way to make it work. Education is expensive, and if it weren’t for Bottom Line’s help, I would probably be working more hours and possibly getting lower grades because the classes are just getting harder and I need more time studying.

I’ve been able to focus more on academics now that the stress of securing financial aid has been alleviated, and as a result, I’ve seen my GPA go from a 2.7 to a 3.2.

My community is my motivation for me to give it my all in college. I don’t want to let anyone down because everyone invested a lot in me. As a fellow, I’m grateful for the support that JPMorgan and Bottom Line offer me. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’m thankful for all the resources that both programs provided because it indeed can change the life of a young man.

The support of my parents also pushed me to succeed. Both of my parents are immigrants, and I’m the first one to go to college and the first one to be in this position. I want to make them proud.

Carlos is the oldest of three, and he hopes that his success will inspire his younger siblings to seek out similar opportunities to grow, learn, and succeed. His younger brother is now a member of TFI and is following in Carlos’ footsteps.

by Michelle Barton

With a poverty rate of over 12 percent in the United States, it is often difficult to find a way to achieve economic mobility. One way of doing so is earning a college degree.

According to a 2016 study by Georgetown University, the majority of the jobs still go to bachelor’s degree graduates. Reporting on the study, CNN Money noted that “of the 11.6 million jobs created after the Great Recession, 8.4 million went to those with at least a bachelor’s degree.” While getting a college degree is a solution to landing a higher-paying job, it is not easy to do.

This challenge disproportionally impacts Black and Latino males compared to their peers. Only 37 percent of Black males and 47 percent of Latino males who started at a four-year public institution in 2010 completed a four-year degree within six years, compared to 60 percent of all students. Exacerbating these challenges, young men of color often face prejudice and a wide range of systemic barriers that limit their choices including school discipline and policing policies that target this population.

One of the greatest barriers to college completion is cost. For students who come from low-income backgrounds, the cost of college can seem impossible. With the amount of misinformation regarding college affordability – misunderstandings about which colleges are affordable, the belief that giant student loans are unavoidable, continually changing processes and deadlines – many students don’t know where to start.

While students are busy applying to college, they are also faced with the task of applying for aid – a bureaucratic process riddled with punitive deadlines and confusing paperwork. Financial aid is integral to the success of the students we serve. We have found that many students leave college because they cannot afford it – and it is our mission for our students to not only get into college but to graduate with a degree. Beyond that, we want them to achieve economic mobility after college, something made very difficult if a student is left with significant debt.

Our Access program is primarily focused on affordability because the aid process is challenging to navigate alone, and choosing an affordable school is a marker for college success.

College affordability is a more significant barrier for Black and Latino students than for other students. Recent research shows that 49 percent of Black students and 36 percent of Latino students defaulted on their college loans at least once over the course of 12 years, compared to only 21 percent of White students and 11 percent of Asian students. Black and Latino students also had higher college loan balances over time than other students. Black students owed an average of 113 percent of the amount initially borrowed after 12 years, and Latino students owed an average of 83 percent while White students owed just 65 percent.

This context provides the impetus for Bottom Line’s collaboration with JPMorgan Chase’s The Fellowship Initiative (TFI), a program that supports the educational development of Black and Latino young men from low-income communities in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City. As a college access and persistence organization, Bottom Line is well-positioned to support these young men in persisting through college. The results of a randomized control trial of our model demonstrate that our program has significant impacts on college and persistence rates for Black and Latino students. Across our three service areas in Boston, New York, and Chicago, we currently serve over 1,600 Black and Latino male college students.

So, how do advisors and students work together to make affordable college choices?

The first service we provide our students is to review the list of colleges they are interested in and make suggestions for additional schools to research based on the student’s academic profile, interests, and preferences. Part of this process also involves reviewing the family’s financial information.

We suggest schools that are likely to be affordable for the student based on last year’s award letters for students with similar financial profiles. The FAFSA uses family size, income, assets, and benefits to calculate an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) for each family. The majority of our students have a 0 EFC, which means that they qualify for the maximum amount of need-based financial aid.

We prioritize schools that will ask the student to invest less than $8,500 over their EFC from FAFSA (including loans). We have found through analyzing data that students who tried to pay more than $8,500 over their EFC were significantly less likely to finish their degree. This often means recommending full-need colleges and/or low-cost commuter schools for the students who may not qualify for full need-based financial aid. We give every student an estimate of how much each college on their list will ask them to invest for their first year and encourage them to apply to a variety of colleges we feel confident they will be accepted to and be able to afford.

The next step in our process is to collect the financial aid deadlines and requirements for each of our most popular colleges for the upcoming academic year. This can be a time-consuming process, as it can be challenging to decipher how up-to-date the information might be on the individual college’s websites. Many of our team members work together to divide up schools and call financial aid offices to ensure we have the correct deadlines for each piece of the financial aid process. This step has become even more critical now that FAFSA is available beginning in October, rather than January, of each year. More and more colleges are moving their financial aid deadlines to December, or even November. Making sure we have all of this information compiled by the end of October means that we can help students make a plan for submitting financial aid applications before their earliest deadline, and helps our advisors see which of their students need to receive financial aid services first.

We know that affordability services do not stop with FAFSA completion. We hold ourselves accountable to verifying that each FAFSA is fully processed after submission and that students and their families receive support in completing all other steps of the financial aid application process. We do our best to make sure that students understand what is expected of them and their families, and collect income documents as early in the year as possible to minimize delays in submission. Additionally, all financial aid applications that are completed in our office go through multiple layers of quality control where a specially-trained employee reviews each application, in addition to the student’s advisor.

Once our students begin to receive financial aid letters, we often find ourselves acting as advocates for them. We double-check that they have received all of the need-based aid they are eligible for and help students follow up with financial aid offices they are waiting to hear back from. It is essential to highlight that this is not the first time we have talked to our students about affordability.

While we have occasionally seen students have luck appealing for more aid or applying for scholarships in the Spring, the reality is that these options are unlikely to turn a $25,0000 balance into a $2,500 balance, which is why we insist that they apply to multiple schools that are likely to ask for a reasonable investment.

At this point in the process, our role is to make sure each student understands the total “free money” (grants and scholarships), loans, and out-of-pocket payments each college is expecting for the year. We provide our students with tools to have conversations with their families about how much they can sustainably afford and explain their options for payment outside of a lump-sum, like a payment plan.

Our data suggest that Bottom Line advising does lead Black and Latino male students to make more affordable choices: Black and Latino males in Bottom Line’s Access program tend to apply to affordable colleges more often than to unaffordable colleges. Specifically, Black and Latino males served by Bottom Line’s Access program class of 2017 applied to an average of 6.3 more affordable colleges, compared to an average of only 1.7 less affordable colleges, and 2.7 least affordable colleges. The majority of Bottom Line students also get accepted to and choose to attend more affordable colleges. Of the 2017 Bottom Line Success Program class, 80 percent of Black and Latino males enrolled in schools that Bottom Line deems more affordable. Another 14 percent attended less affordable schools, and only 6 percent enrolled in schools that were deemed least affordable

Bottom Line believes that affordability begins with a solid college list and early conversations with our students about maximizing the number of affordable options. We work tirelessly to help our students fulfill every one of their colleges’ requirements ahead of the deadlines, and advocate for them to ensure they receive every penny of financial aid they are eligible for. Our individualized approach to decision-making means that each student can commit to a college confident that they will be able to afford the school not just for one year, but for their entire college career.

by Steve Colón

As the leader of an organization that works alongside students as they get into and graduate from college, having the top news stories focus on the college admission process is exciting. The story circulating, unfortunately, exposes the unspoken and illegal practices that help a few very privileged students gain acceptance to college, especially the most selective and competitive ones.

While the media is right to focus on this scandal, a more significant and pervasive issue requires equal if not more attention. Right now, hundreds of thousands of students from low-income backgrounds are navigating their own postsecondary journeys, facing hardships perpetuated by an antiquated education system which is not designed to give ALL of them the tools they need to overcome the barriers they’ll face. They strive for the same opportunities as their wealthier peers, to develop their interests and talents into a career, but their path to success is disproportionally cluttered.

Education is an engine of upward mobility. A college degree is the single most effective intervention to poverty. Students from low-income backgrounds who obtain a college degree are five times more likely than their peers to find financial health. People with a college degree will earn $1M more over the course of their lifetime than those without. We see these results with students we serve – the average starting salary for Bottom Line’s most recent graduates is two times the amount of the average family income of our student population.

The sad truth of the current news story is that, while the alleged actions of these families were blatantly illegal, their children already benefit from many advantages. Students from high-income backgrounds are:

• more likely to have access to rigorous college preparatory coursework and robust early college programs (AP, IB, Dual Credit)
• more likely to have access to additional academic support, extracurricular activities, and SAT /ACT prep
• more likely to have dedicated college counselors to help with the process of getting into a postsecondary institution
• less likely to need to work during high school and college
• more likely to have personal networks that support them in finding quality first destination jobs regardless of college, academic major, or GPA

Just by helping students navigate the current system, the Bottom Line model gets excellent results. We expect over 96 percent of our high school seniors will commit to a college by the end of May, and 77 percent of those students will earn their degree within six years through their dedication and hard work coupled with Bottom Line’s step-by-step and personalized guidance.

While it is easy to shake our heads at the cheating scandal, I ask that we also extend our hands to students whose talent can easily get lost in a flawed process. Let’s make sure that all students – regardless of socio-economics, skin color, or other marginalized identities – get a fair shot at achieving their dreams and create a ripple effect that will uplift our communities.

by Justin Strasburger and Steve Colón

The Boston Globe’s special report, The Valedictorians Project, brings light to an important issue across the nation. As a community, we’re failing to support students in high school on the path to pursue a college degree and a fulfilling career. We have a personal connection to The Valedictorians Project through the 26 Bottom Line students among the 113 valedictorians profiled. Of those 26 students, 24 have earned a Bachelor’s degree. One works for us today.

The education system in the U.S. has remained largely unchanged for nearly a century. Working hard STILL doesn’t predict success for all students. Students are left behind based on their race, their experience with poverty, and/or their family’s educational history. The broken pathway between high school, college, and career is the challenge Bottom Line has been addressing for years through one-to-one coaching. We believe deeply in the potential of these students and the life-changing impact of a bachelor’s degree.

While focusing on top students underscores the issue in our community, we must view these stories as a window into the experience of a larger group of students with equal potential and realize the opportunity for our community when we invest in talent. We must commit to our students that we will arm them with the skills, support, and access to networks that are proven to drive success in both college and career, but have been inaccessible for too many students simply because of their backgrounds.

A degree is an essential credential to fuel social and economic mobility, but students also need to be able to use their degree to launch their careers. Over two-thirds of college graduates struggle to start their careers and for those who find jobs, the overwhelming majority (85 percent) land jobs through connections. Research indicates that the first job (or first destination) is critical – those who start in a job for which they are overqualified are five times more likely to remain underemployed after five years.

Though we’re embarking on new work, we’ve seen the impact of what happens when we set our expectations high. Over the last two decades, the Lewis Family Foundation in Massachusetts helped us grow to serve more students in the most under-served areas of Boston. They’ve challenged us and other grantees – as well as the corporate community – to be accountable to our student outcomes in the job market, with success. Their most recent report shows they exceeded their 2018 jobs goal, demonstrating the importance of issuing an ambitious vision for students. There is no reason we can’t replicate this in New York, Chicago, and other cities across the country.

Lasting change requires the collective effort of a community united by a common purpose. At the end of the day, no one finds success without support. It is up to all of us as a community to provide support and guide students to it for our communities and industries to thrive. This year as students across our cities walk across the stage to receive their diplomas, let’s work together to ensure that each and every one of them has access to resources that help them achieve success as they navigate their future.

“Money,” a line from one of my favorite musicals begins, “makes the world go ‘round.” It’s a phrase that many of the students I work with are keenly aware of. If I were to be asked what one of the top answers students gives when I ask them why they choose to go to college, I can safely place my bet on money –or to get a career and be successful, which inevitably leads us back to money.  And I get it. I was a first generation, low-income student and the first in my family to attend college. A lot of the focus on me going to college wasn’t necessarily the experience, but the end result: getting the bachelor’s degree and being “successful,” largely meaning a white collar job and making money. But when I graduated college, I realized there was some loopholes in this frame of thinking. I got a lot more from my college then simply skills for a career.

As a SCI AmeriCorps Outreach Coordinator, when I joined Bottom Line and started presenting to high school students, I wanted to change the dialogue surrounding college and bachelor’s degrees. A bachelor’s degree does not guarantee success or lots of money. When I’m presented with “money” as a reason to go to college, I immediately challenge students to think of people who haven’t attended college and have, in its varying definitions, become “successful,” whether it’s someone they know, historical figures or their favorite celebrities and I’ve gotten a considerable amount of responses that shows it is possible. Although many might find it odd for an Outreach Coordinator for a College Success program to talk about success without going to college, this method helps open up other ideas about college that they may not have known about and creates a space for self-reflection. It’s a time of transitional independence with other peers, finding your passion, getting involved with the community, exposure to people different from yourself, looking critically at your ideas and experiences and discovering new ones along the way, confront fears, create a network, or even maybe discover that college isn’t for you (and that is okay). When the focus is on money for students, there’s a false expectation of immediately graduating college, getting the dream job, and falling into this narrative of being a “success.” As many can attest, this is not always the case and the path to “success” often resembles a journey – one that Bottom Line is here to help students with.

-Written by Bottom Line, SCI AmeriCorps Member, Amanda Miner

Over the past 10 years it’s become clear that the work to increase the public high school graduation rates and lower drop-out rates has had an impact, as 80% of students from the high school class of 2012 earned their diploma as the US Dept. of Education reported in their April 2014 report. However, these improvements have not translated to college success for students from low-income households. For almost 40 years the college graduation rate for low-income students has remained flat at about 20%.

Bottom Line has been squarely focused on the issues of college access and success for low-income students for almost twenty years. We know that the solution to improving the college success rate for low-income students won’t come easily. We are pleased to see more attention being paid to the disparity between the “Rich and the Poor”, as in this week’s Wall Street Journal article, Big Gap in College Graduation Rates for Rich and Poor, and the recent study, Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States published by the University of Pennsylvania and the Pell Institute for Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.

As with the improvement of the national public high school graduation rates, the factors that relate to college success are complex. There is no quick fix or low-cost intervention that will solve the problem. However, we have identified one key differentiator that we believe leads to long-term college success and that is the importance of having an experienced family member, mentor or counselor to whom students can turn to when faced with a challenge.

Through nearly two decades of work supporting students through college, we have learned that virtually all of the challenges faced by low-income college students fall in to four categories:  Academics, Career Development, Affordability, and Social/Emotional.  Our DEAL Model for college success is built around this framework. When students are faced with challenges from one or more of these categories, they need a trusted resource to provide guidance, and a strategy as they work to overcome the challenges they face. Bottom Line can be that resource for some or many of those students, but we need a national investment of time, talent and resources to help.

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with us here!  

As the fall semester comes to a close, Bottom Line-New York counselors are finishing up their final round of on-campus meetings to help students prepare for their finals. Read below for an account of the process and what it means to our staff and our students from one of our Success counselors, Courtney Ng:

“How are you?” I ask Kelly. Those three words, as common as they may be in daily life, mean something to our students. They know that when we ask them, we ask earnestly, seeking to help.

“Overwhelmed,” she answers, “there’s just so much to do.”

Her response is why I’m there. For the past three weeks, Bottom Line-New York counselors have been traveling to campuses all across the State to help students develop a solid plan to prepare for their upcoming final exams, papers, and projects. For our students, finals are the last opportunity to give their grades a boost. But finals prep, like all of the services we provide students, is important for a larger purpose – it’s an opportunity to help students strengthen the skills and traits they can carry with them long into the future.

A color-coded finals prep calendar

In a finals prep meeting, we guide students through creating a calendar to map out their plans to prepare for finals. On a basic level, the act of calendaring when finals will take place helps students think about managing their time. Realizing they have three finals in two days triggers them to think about when they will have time to study and to consider starting to study sooner, if not right away. The meeting also challenges them to think about how they will study, taking into consideration the practices that have or have not been useful throughout the semester. For example, we often talk to students about how reading over notes is a passive form of studying, whereas making a study guide that synthesizes key ideas and facts is an active way to internalize information.

For some students, finals prep is a prime opportunity to talk about using their resources   and seeking out help when they need it. We guide them to this realization by asking specific questions about their finals: what topics will be on exams, how comfortable they feel with the material, and whether they understand why they might not have performed well previously in the semester. If they are unsure of the answers, we nudge them. Ask your professors. Sign up for tutoring. Make an appointment at the writing center. Where can you get the help you need? When will you get it? In asking these questions, we challenge students to take responsibility for their own success and remind them that if they struggle, they don’t have to do so alone. We wish for students to walk away with more than a colorful roadmap for finals prep, but with the skills and confidence to guide them through the numerous obstacles to come later in life.

At the end of that 45-minute planning session, I often ask students how they feel now that they have a plan. Relieved, some say, that they now know what they need to do. Scared, say others, that things won’t go according to plan. You’re right, I tell them, they probably won’t.

In that moment, finals prep opens a conversation about a skill we value deeply at Bottom Line-New York: flexibility. We know that students won’t walk away and follow their plans to a tee. We know that distractions will arise and students will fall off track. This reality, I reassure them, is an opportunity to embrace a valuable life lesson, that even the best laid plans have to be reworked at some point. And when they do, when you need help, we are at the other end of the phone, ready to ask those same three words.

Nearly 100% of Bottom Line high school seniors from Boston and Worcester have been accepted to college and more than two-thirds of these students will be attending one of our Success colleges.

In the interview below, Tommy Suen, a current senior at the John D. O’Bryant High School in Boston, explains how his Bottom Line counselor, Laura, helped him get into college and why he’s looking forward to having Bottom Line’s support once he starts college in the fall.

Tommy and his Bottom Line Counselor, Laura

Name: Tommy Suen
High School: John D. O’Bryant
College Attending: Boston University

Why did you apply to Bottom Line last spring?

My older brother was a Bottom Line student, so from the time I was a freshman in high school he kept telling me that I had to sign up for Bottom Line. He would say, “if it weren’t for Bottom Line, I never would have gotten into college,” so I always knew how important it would be to have Bottom Line’s help applying to college. I also knew I wouldn’t have a lot of help navigating the application process at home. My mom really wanted me to go to college, but she had never been through the process before.

Can you describe how your Bottom Line counselor, Laura, supported you this year?

Laura was a huge help! It made a huge difference to be able to have individualized support throughout the application process. For a long time, I thought that I was Laura’s only student. I was shocked to learn that she was actually working with fifty other students like me; she was just always available to help me.

When I first started the college application process I struggled a lot with organization. There are so many things to remember and I was having a particularly hard time writing my college essay. Laura really helped me organize my thoughts and after several drafts I emerged with a college essay I was really proud of. She also helped me analyze my financial aid award letters and helped me choose a school that was both affordable and a good fit. Laura always went above and beyond, she even helped me get the part-time job I have working at Bottom Line’s front desk. I have worked at Bottom Line for a year, and I have noticed that all of the counselors really go above and beyond to help support students.

May 1^st was College Decision Day. Where will you be attending college next year? How did you feel when you found out you got into college?

I applied to nine colleges and I was so nervous that I wouldn’t get in anywhere. I was so excited and relieved when I found out that I had been accepted to my first choice, Boston University and it would be affordable for me to go there. It was so rewarding to have all of my hard work from high school pay off in that moment.

That must be a relief! How are you and your family feeling about college now?

I am the youngest in my family and my mom worried a lot about whether or not I would get into college. She was so proud of me when she found out I had been accepted to Boston University that she dropped everything she was doing and took me out to eat in order to celebrate. Both of my brothers went to Boston University, so they are very excited to have the legacy carried on.

Are you excited about staying connected to Bottom Line? What are you looking forward to the most next year?

Yes! I am looking forward to staying connected to Bottom Line and having a counselor visit me on campus. Living away from home for the first time and having to manage my own schedule is going to be a huge transition. I am pretty nervous about balancing everything next year, but it makes me feel better knowing that Bottom Line will continue to be there for me. I am really looking forward to meeting new people on campus and taking classes in business, accounting and finance.

What would you tell a high school student who is just starting the college application process with Bottom Line?

Don’t take your Bottom Line counselor for granted. Listen to your counselor’s advice and be prepared to edit your college essay several times. Oh, also, your Bottom Line counselor works with 49 other students, but you would never know it.