2008-2009 COACH volunteers (l to r) Tasmim Anwar, Catherine Coleman, Paul Hsiao, and Faraz Khalik
Long before you attend your first class, just getting into college these days is hard work: selecting where to apply, taking the SAT, writing essays, searching for financial aid, and finally deciding on the school that’s right for you. This fall, GHCC is giving twelfth-graders at three north central Baltimore public high schools some extra help along the way.
The College Opportunity and Career Help (COACH) program is working at Western High School, Baltimore City College, and Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School. COACH matches seniors at Baltimore City public high schools with volunteer mentors who are undergraduates at Johns Hopkins University. Mentors meet with their students each week throughout the school year to help them through the college application and career planning process.
With the first semester of COACH in Baltimore complete, evaluations from our students and volunteers are showing that the program is making a difference:
The COACH program was created in 1999 by two Harvard professors as a way to encourage college access for public high school students in Boston. This is the first year that COACH has been licensed by the Education Resources Institute to operate outside of Massachusetts, and it’s being led in Baltimore by GHCC staffer Frankie Gamber, who was a COACH volunteer during her senior year of college in 2002-2003.