Bottom Line

My name is Kristie Simonó and I am one of the many college students in Bottom Line’s Success Program. I am currently a sophomore at the College of the Holy Cross, where I study Psychology and Spanish and (if I keep my fingers crossed) I will also be completing the Latin American and Latino Studies concentration. From now on I will be blogging about my college experiences and my journey through life on “The Hill” (that’s Holy Cross’s nickname) with the help of Bottom Line.

Kristie at Bottom Line's send-off celebration for new college freshmen.

You may recognize me since I worked at Bottom Line’s front desk (my 2-year anniversary is coming up in March!) and recently I started working as a Bottom Line Counselor Intern, helping the high school Class of 2011 complete their Financial Aid paperwork. I am excited to say that I will be returning this summer to help the Class of 2012 get in to college! If you have not been able to tell, I am obsessed with Bottom Line and I am practically a walking advertisement.

This semester I am enrolled in four rigorous courses that are very time consuming. I am currently in Physiological Psychology, Language and Diversity in Latin America, Research Methods, and Liberation Theology. One of my favorite things about Holy Cross is that it is a Liberal Arts school, so I am taking courses outside my major. This will help me get a well-rounded education and give me insight into the world outside of Psychology and Spanish.

Although I love Holy Cross’s rigorous academics, I have to admit that it can be very stressful at times. Next week, I have my Spanish exam on Monday, Physiological exam on Tuesday, Liberation Theology exam on Wednesday, and my Research Methods exam on Thursday. Did I mention that I have a Spanish paper due on Friday too? If I manage my time well, I am hopeful that I can survive that dreadful week. I just always need to remind myself that the tears shed and the sleepless nights will all be worth it in the end!

While juggling all of the work that I have to do for my classes, I have to remember to complete my Financial Aid paperwork before the deadline passes. Luckily, my Bottom Line meeting with my counselor Marilyn is coming up this week, so I will be able to submit everything on time.

I promise to keep you updated on all of my college experiences through this blog.

Until then,
Kristie

Admin Assistant Ty Streeter holding Bottom Line's award

College Board announced the winners of their annual Innovation Awards for the New England region during the College Board New England Regional Forum on February 3, 2011. Bottom Line was given an award under the category of “Getting Through” for our College Success Program. Program Coordinator Justin Strasburger accepted this award on behalf of Bottom Line at the event.

This is the second award Bottom Line has received in the last six months for our efforts to boost the college completion rates of low-income and first-generation students in Massachusetts. The program that College Board has recognized provides one-on-one guidance to students in academic, employment, financial, and personal areas during college. The personalized support that Bottom Line offers has helped 73% of the college students in this program graduate in 6 years or less, a rate nearly three times what is typical among underrepresented students.

Criteria for the Innovation Award included the impact of services and the potential for the program model to be replicated and adapted by other organizations, institutions, educators, and policymakers. Bottom Line is pleased to have been selected based on these characteristics.

Boston Executive Director Greg Johnson says, “We are proud to be the recipient of this award and represent the values that the CollegeKeys Compact upholds.” The Compact is a coalition of schools, colleges, state agencies, and non-profit organizations that aims to identify, share, and intensify ways to address the needs and challenges of increasing access and success for low-income students. “Bottom Line is an important solution to the college completion problem and we hope this award from College Board is another vehicle for us to share our methods,” says Mr. Johnson.

It’s financial aid season! That means time for college students to fill out FAFSAs and CSS profiles. Applying for financial aid can be daunting and confusing, particularly if you’re from a family that is unfamiliar with the process. Since applying for financial aid is somewhat complex, there’s many misconceptions about how paying for college actually works. Below are the five common myths that Bottom Line counselors often debunk for students.

1) My family doesn’t have any money, so I can’t afford to go to college.

All college students are eligible for financial aid, which will help you pay for college! To determine how much you and your family pay for your education, colleges and the federal government have you calculate your Expected Family Contribution (EFC). This lets them know about how much you are eligible to receive in financial aid, based on you and your family’s income, savings, and other indicators. So the less money your family has, the more aid you should expect to receive for college.

2) My dream college costs nearly $40,000 a year—I can’t afford that!

Just because a college has a high price tag doesn’t mean that you can’t afford it. For some colleges, you will only have to pay the amount calculated for your EFC. For other colleges, there will be a gap between your EFC and the college’s price tag. If there’s a gap, you can always advocate with the college’s financial aid office and apply for outside scholarships.

3) Public colleges are always more affordable than private colleges.

On the contrary, some private colleges award “full need” financial aid packages. That means they provide students with enough grants and low-interest loans to make up the difference between their family’s EFC and the school’s cost of attendance.

4) The only way I can get money for college is by having perfect grades.

Colleges and the federal government award scholarships, grants, and low-interest loans based solely on financial need—that’s what financial aid is! Merit-based scholarships and grants are awarded separately from financial aid packages.

5) I was awarded $5,000 in work-study, so the rest of my tuition expenses are covered.

Not so fast—work-study is money that you have to earn throughout the semester… by checking students into the dining hall, logging packages in the mail room, or answering phones at an administrative office. You can’t subtract this money from the bill that’s due at the beginning of the semester, since it will take you all semester to earn the money. In addition, you only get paid for the number of hours that you work. While you’ve been awarded $5,000 in work-study, you may only have time in your schedule to earn $4,000 of this award.

Mock Interviews at Bottom Line's 2009 Go Far Forum

In two weeks, Bottom Line will host the annual Go Far Forum, a student event that features a career fair, mock interviews, presentations from industry leaders, and (new this year) a networking reception. All the planning for this event has got us thinking, Why is it important to help college students with their professional development and careers? Below are four things Bottom Line focuses on helping students in our College Success Program with to promote their success after graduation.

1. Interviewing
With few exceptions, most undergraduates will never be assigned homework that requires them to undergo a professional interview—the kind where you have to answer abstract questions that indicate your work ethic and team-working abilities, wear a modest pencil skirt or tie, and generally present yourself as a polished and qualified individual. This just isn’t part of the curriculum for an engineering program or a humanities degree.

While some colleges require students to take a speech class where they learn how to speak confidently and make eye contact, promoting oneself to a potential employer can be remarkably different than giving a presentation in class. You need to be prepared to answer difficult questions, such as why a company should hire you over someone else, why you left your last job, and how your studies have prepared you for the industry. Unless they seek the advice of a mentor or their school’s career center, a college student will probably not be asked one of those questions until they land in a job interview. Furthermore, many jobs that students interview for prior to completing their degree don’t require the same preparation and skill set that an interview for a post-graduate job does.

2. Networking
College is a great place for learning how to mingle in social settings, but not necessarily professional ones. It’s possible to spend an entire college career traveling between class, a lax on-campus job, your dorm or home, and the occasional gathering with friends without experiencing a business social setting. This is another place—other than the job interview—where college students could develop the skills of tactful self-promotion and professional confidence. When a student leaves college, being able to network would greatly benefit their job search and general success in the business world.

3. Dressing Professionally
When you’re a teenager, you can get away with wearing an ill-considered outfit, even if you’re filing or answering phones in an office. But when you’re an adult with a college degree who is applying for jobs that require you to represent someone’s business, an employer will be looking for you to look the part. Most college students spend their days in jeans (if not their pajamas) and don’t necessarily have a reason to own an iron or lint remover. In fact, these details probably escape you when what you’re wearing is irrelevant to completing a 12-page paper or passing an exam. For this reason, exposure to a business setting can be important for college students to learn how to carry themselves professionally.

4. Exploring (Realistic) Post-Graduation Options
While professors may impart how your schoolwork will help you in the working world, it’s not always clear how spending twenty-something hours a week in a classroom translates to you being qualified to work in the field. For English or History majors, it may not even be clear what kinds of jobs you should pursue.

Exposing college students to their field through meaningful internships or introducing them to successful professionals can show them their options, give them a feel for what they may like to pursue, and allow them to make informed decisions when they graduate rather than searching blindly for a career path. Many college graduates would probably say it would have been nice to know which industries could use their talents, what the salary offerings are like, and how much more schooling they would need to land their dream job, prior to entering the working world. Information about what employers are looking for allows graduating seniors to set appropriate goals, whether that means attending graduate school to become a psychologist or climbing the career ladder from an editorial assistant to an editor in the publishing world.

While Bottom Line doesn’t expect to impart all of this wisdom to our college students in a 3-hour event, we hope that the 2011 Go Far Forum offers a great jumpstart for them to prepare for their careers. In the coming months, we will help our students write resumes and cover letters, apply for summer jobs and internships, and get one step closer to becoming confident professionals and pursuing fulfilling careers.

Jen Bees
Success Coordinator

It’s official: Bottom Line has an Executive Director for our New York City site, which will launch in July 2011. Ruth Genn, currently the Director of the College and Career Pathways unit at New Visions, brings Bottom Line:

• a familiarity with NYC’s education environment
• a knowledge base of the challenges NYC students face
• the leadership, experience, and drive to combat the staggering college retention problem
• a dedication to evaluation and data analysis for measuring the success of programs and policies
• an understanding of today’s urban education issues from a teacher’s, policymaker’s, and program director’s perspective

As head of Bottom Line’s new site, Ruth will reach out to local schools and youth-serving organizations that serve students who would benefit from Bottom Line’s programs. She will lead a college counseling staff of three through the training and implementation of Bottom Line’s support services. She will research and connect with local colleges that will most likely enroll our students. And she will spread the message that helping students simply “get in” is not enough.

With Ruth’s leadership, Bottom Line will replicate our college retention model in NYC and show that the success of any student is possible when he or she is given the guidance and support needed to earn a degree.

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About Ruth Genn
Ruth Genn is joining Bottom Line as the Executive Director of the newly opening NYC office. Previously, Ruth worked at New Visions for Public Schools, where she launched and directed the College and Career Pathways unit. As the department’s director, Ruth oversaw the development of New Visions’ college readiness platform, a set of research-based benchmarks that articulate what students should know and accomplish during each year of high school to be prepared for post-secondary success. She also managed the cultivation of partnerships that brought resources and supports to New Visions schools. Prior to this role, Ruth created New Visions’ first data unit, where she developed an early warning system and a set of tools that help school leaders, teachers, students, and families track students’ progress toward graduation.

Before joining New Visions in 2005, Ruth worked in City Hall on the integration of after-school services across several NYC agencies. She has experience in K-12 education policy at the local and state level, and began her career as a NYC public school teacher. Ruth holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University. She grew up in Tenafly, NJ, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her family.

Hey everyone,

Since my last blog, I have been doing very well. Senior year is a bit stressful, but soon it will all cool down. Working at Bottom Line has been going great. I have been lucky enough to receive help from many of the counselors here since I have built a relationship with them through work.

I will soon be sending out all of my applications (this Saturday to be exact). I am super excited about this! Although this does not mean I am done for good, it will ease most of my stress.

The rest of my stress will hopefully disappear after December 8^th. Why? Because it’s my Posse Denison University interview date! I was lucky enough to make it this far, so let’s hope I don’t blow it (fingers crossed). Posse is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and their networking is amazing, hence the reason for my excitement. I will keep blogging to inform you of my progress.

Talk soon,

Yaritza Pena

The Social Innovation Fund has become the focus of a lot of attention recently. This $50 Million initiative, approved as part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, has created an opportunity for organizations to access significant government funding and publicity if they have innovative and effective programs. It just so happens that Bottom Line does have innovative and effective programs, and so for the first time, we find ourselves pursuing public funding.

In the past, we have been happy to entirely fund our programs from private sources. We stayed away from public funding because the opportunities were almost always either too focused or too broad, and they came with strings attached that would have forced us to change our programs. But now, this fund isn’t looking to restrict what programs are doing. Instead, they are looking to take good ideas and allow them to grow. It’s a whole new ballgame for public funding, and for the first time we feel like we have a chance. We have strong evidence supporting the fact that our programs make a significant difference in the lives of our students. We are focused on an issue that is gaining attention, but has far too few solutions being discussed. This is the right time for Bottom Line to gain a voice in the discussion about how to help students succeed at the national level.

The Social Innovation Fund would provide this opportunity. The funds are being distributed by intermediary organizations who are matching the government funding. We are in the process of applying to two of these organizations, New Profit and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. If we are chosen to receive either award, it would mean millions of dollars and invaluable publicity for our organization and our program model. This will be an incredibly rigorous and competitive process, and it feels like a long-shot because there are so many applicants and so few will be chosen. But, we are confident in our programs, their proven effectiveness, their ability to solve a national crisis, and so Bottom Line really does fit with the spirit and the mission of this fund. Hopefully we’re not the only ones who think so.

Mike Wasserman

Director of Development