Let’s Get Ready Helps Students Navigate the Complex Path to a College Degree

Let’s Get Ready supports students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in accessing college, transitioning to college, and persisting through graduation by leveraging near-peer mentoring and partnerships with community-based organizations.

18,000 +

Students Supported

45

States Served

2 x

Graduation Rate

Helping Students Navigate to and Through College

Every student has ambitions for their future and the potential to achieve them. For many, earning a college degree helps transform those dreams into reality. When students have guidance navigating the path to college and support as they figure out their way through college, they are more likely to finish their degree.

Let’s Get Ready (LGR) was founded to help ensure students from all socioeconomic backgrounds can access critical guidance and support via a personalized mentoring program. Through a virtual model with flexible support tiers to meet students’ individual needs, LGR is expanding its programming to reach even more high school and college students from historically underrepresented groups, further closing the gap in college persistence.

As a first-generation student, I understand what it's like to navigate college life, which is why I was attracted to joining as a coach. It was a way for me to give back.

Brittany Let's Get Ready Core+ Coach

Individualized Support Through Challenging Stages

Students encounter a number of obstacles along the path to a college degree that can put them at risk of delaying enrollment or stopping out (i.e., temporarily withdrawing from college). In high school, students must navigate college entrance exams, applications, and complicated financial aid processes. New surroundings and responsibilities can make for a rocky transition between high school and college, and even after students have settled into college life, countless hurdles threaten to derail their academic success.

Individualized attention is vital to helping students persist through these challenges, but access to support is not equitable — particularly for students attending under-resourced schools or those from backgrounds historically underrepresented in college and university settings.

To bridge this gap, LGR is partnering with community-based organizations, public high schools, and higher education institutions with limited or no persistence support and connecting students with highly engaged college-age coaches who can guide them on the journey to their degree.

These paid near-peer mentors, often upper-level college students or recent graduates, are trained in culturally responsive relationship building. This training helps ensure they can help students prepare for the SATs, apply for college and financial aid, enroll in college, choose courses, find a sense of belonging in a new environment, and work through other barriers to persistence with empathy and sensitivity.

Meet Nasira

“I have somebody to talk to who can relate to what I’m going through,” explains Nasira, a third-year LGR student. “She is also going through school and can tell me, ‘It’s okay, you’ve got this! I’ve been through it, I know the route, and I can help you.” 

The Core+ program provides LGR participants access to virtual near-peer coaches with personalized guidance through the college transition. “I think that’s what makes having a college coach such a great thing, and I feel like everybody should have access to that.”

Providing Pathways to Meet a Spectrum of Needs

Not all students follow the same path through college, which is why it’s so essential students have access to flexible support. Over the past few years, LGR has evolved its program to meet students’ unique needs in three key ways:

Virtual Infrastructure

Because LGR’s programming is delivered virtually, it’s accessible from anywhere and easy to scale. Using a two-way texting platform, the organization sends college students targeted information about relevant resources on their campus and connects them directly with a coach or staff member if they respond with questions or concerns.

Responsive Support

Coaching models are responsive to students’ individual needs, risk factors, and level of engagement, as well as the needs of the partner institution. Coaches understand that the best path for one student may not be the right choice for another. For example, one student at risk of stopping out may benefit from support transferring to another school, while another may need guidance on finding community on campus.

Two-Level Success Program

The LGR Success Program features two levels of support for postsecondary students: Core and Core+. Partners can automatically enroll cohorts of college students into Success Core, which offers texting support. Students can choose to opt into a higher tier of support, Core+, which matches them with a dedicated coach.

The Future of Let’s Get Ready

Since launching the virtual two-level coaching program, LGR has partnered with various institutions and community-based organizations.

The nonprofit is also expanding its resources and training to better support students on nontraditional pathways, including students who have delayed initial enrollment, stopped out, or are transferring institutions. This effort aims to ensure these students persist at a rate similar to their peers.

Thanks to its virtual programming and differentiated support, Let’s Get Ready is on track to provide near-peer mentoring for 25,000 students annually by 2025-26.