As the semester winds down, students across campus find themselves in the same boat: scrambling to finish a paper, studying for exams and perhaps fitting in a few enjoyable meals in the dining hall. Yet what many seem to forget is that the path to life on the Hill was not as easy for everyone.
Bottom Line, a local nonprofit that assists low-income and first-generation students in getting admitted to and graduating from college, is one organization that has not forgotten this.
The recipient this month of a $1 million award from USA Funds, a nonprofit that helps American families work toward postsecondary education, Bottom Line is now better equipped to continue its mission to help high school and college students in the Boston area and Worcester.
"Students will come to us at the end of their junior year in high school, and we'll pair students one-on-one with a mentor who will do research on a list of schools that are good for them," Director of Development for Bottom Line Mike Wasserman told the Daily.
Mentors help students draft their college admissions essays and get their transcript and letters of recommendation ready. They also help the students search for scholarships and apply for financial aid, Wasserman said. But getting that thick envelope in the mail is just the beginning toward making the dream of college a reality.
"At the end of the day, when they get their acceptance letters, we look at what will be a good fit, help students and their parents take out loans if necessary and figure out all the details that they need to work on in order to start attending school in the fall," Wasserman said.
Tufts is one of the 20 colleges in Massachusetts that Bottom Line's College Success program focuses on, and the university currently has just over 20 Bottom Line students enrolled. University President Lawrence Bacow was last month honored for his longtime support of the program at a gala dinner in Boston.
"[Tufts has] had a relationship with Bottom Line over the last handful of years where we've enrolled a number of Bottom Line students," Associate Director of Enrollment Walker Coppedge said. "We work with [the organization] over the course of the fall as they're working with various Boston-area students as they gear them towards college."
Tufts has been identified as one of 20 "target colleges," according to Coppedge, meaning that it is one of the schools that Bottom Line works with in order to provide additional levels of support to the students who choose to matriculate there.
The results, Coppedge said, have been pleasing for the admissions officers.
"We get a really good group of applicants from them each year," he said.
While applying and being accepted to universities is a major component of what Bottom Line helps students to do, making sure that they flourish once they have arrived on campus is another key facet of the organization's mission.
The Success Program's DEAL model — representing degree, employment, financial aid and life — outlines the areas where the organization strives to help its students.
"For the degree, we're just trying to be an extra level of academic advisor, in the way that a parent might help out," Wasserman said. "We help them to decide what major they want to choose and how that's going to go toward what they want to do with the degree. If the student is struggling in a class, we help them with that, too."
Bottom Line also helps its young customers work on their résumés, apply for internships and get part-time jobs, attempting to make sure that its students' success spans as much outside of the classroom as inside.
It's crucial to keep in contact with Bottom Line students, even after they've moved on to college, Wasserman said. Such connections are an integral part of the "life issues" aspect of the organization's working philosophy.
"We have full-time counselors to work with them like a mentor on time management skills, issues with depression or if they have a child," he said. "We're an open-ended source of support to help to ensure that they'll be able to earn their degree and get all the benefits that come with that," he said.
According to Bottom Line's website, their students are 43 percent more likely to earn a degree within six years. As of 2009, only 42 percent of Americans age 25 to 34 have a college degree, and that number drops dramatically for certain geographic, racial and socioeconomic demographics.
"Our students are graduating at a rate of about seventy-five percent, at about the same rate as students from higher-income families whose parents both went to college," Wasserman said.
The program models itself on the belief, Wasserman said, that support leading up to and during college should be holistic, rather than focusing solely on academic success.
"We're just a knowledgeable guide for students who aren't getting that elsewhere," he said. "The program even does as small but heartfelt things such as sending their students at college care packages every month or two."
The $1 million grant from USA Funds will allow the organization to effectively double its impact, both numerically and geographically. The organization hopes to reproduce its efforts in New York City as early as this summer.
"[The grant] is allowing us to grow very quickly over the next few years," Wasserman said. "Currently we have about 1,600 students in both college and high school, and we're planning on expanding to 3,200 in three years, so we're going to double in size and also expand to work with a lot of students in New York as well."
Senior Mirjola Adhami has been involved with Bottom Line since her junior year of high school. While both of her parents went to university in Albania, she is the first person in her family to attend college in the United States.
"I grew up in Albania, so I had no idea how the college application process worked here," Adhami said. "When I was applying, [Bottom Line] helped with the whole financial aid application and then the Tufts financial aid system. That was probably the most helpful part for me; the grades and essays I was kind of on top of myself."
The organization, she said, gives its students the extra motivation they need to make higher education within their grasp.
"I think the majority of students they work with need a little push," she said. "They want to go to college, but they don't even have a list; they don't know where they want to go. You can use Bottom Line for whatever you need."
Adhami's story reflects the long-term support the organization prides itself on. It was with its help that she got an internship at Sun Life Financial, one of Bottom Line's lead sponsors. She will be working there full time after she graduates.
