Meet Andrea. She represents the full continuum of the Let’s Get Ready (LGR) experience. Starting as a LGR Student, then advancing as a Coach and a Site Director, to then coming back to the LGR community and giving back as a young professional who co-founded the Associates Council (our Junior Board), and now working to make an impact for others like her in her professional career, Andrea is a prime example of how our near-peer mentorship model has significant and lasting results for the lives of students.
Andrea is currently a Research Associate at Columbia University. She conducts and publishes research related to first-generation college students and students of color. She focuses on student support services, such as advising and student belonging. As a first-generation college student, she understands personally the challenges young people face when aspiring to attain a higher education degree. She researches topics that are true to her lived experiences, so that she can empower the next generation of college students who may be facing difficulty in their college experience.
For 25 years, LGR has developed its culturally responsive near-peer coaching program model that has supported more than 50,000 students, like Andrea, nationwide to date! While the model has evolved tremendously, including using a virtual approach for the last decade, what hasn’t changed is that we are committed to harnessing the power of young people and measuring success through our significantly higher college enrollment and degree attainment rates:
88% of LGR students enroll in college, well above the rates of their peers nationally, and graduate at DOUBLE THE RATE of their peers from similar backgrounds.
