About

Our Vision

Our vision is that one day all students in America will have access to their best-fit colleges, regardless of their socio-economic status or background, which will give them a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of their own lives and the lives of their families.

Our Values

These values were developed by the ’23 Head Advising Fellow (HAF) and Advising Fellow Leadership Team (AFLT).

Inclusparency: 

• Creating a safe space filled with diverse opinions and viewpoints. Form an open and safe community where everyone feels as though they have a voice and as though they can share their unique experiences and world view. AFs should feel comfortable giving feedback and providing suggestions to those around them. 

Integribility:

• Ensuring that the Fellowship as a whole and individual AFs are dedicated to Matriculate’s mission and values, while at the same time allowing AFs to stay true to themselves and their own personal needs. 

Respectommunity:

• Making sure each AF feels a part of, engages with, and contributes to the broader fellowship. A well-functioning community is built around mutual respect, with AF’s respecting the specific needs and wants of HSFs as well as feedback from fellow peers to promote growth at both the individual and community-level.

Our Goals

These goals were developed by the ’23 Head Advising Fellow (HAF) and Advising Fellow Leadership Team (AFLT).

• We strive for excellence. We fully commit ourselves to our work and expect this of others. We speak up when we feel that excellence is not attained.
• We harness the diversity of backgrounds, lived experiences, and identities of our Advising Fellows in an empathetic manner, with the goal of improving the efficacy of not only our advising relationships, but relationships within the fellowship. We actively look for and foster diversity within our cohort in every possible way.
• We foster community in the fellowship. We regularly check in on the state of our community. We are flexible in our assessment of the advising community.
• We create an innate sense of excitement and enthusiasm in all that we do, including recruitment, training, and the fellowship as a whole.
• We support each other. We reach out and offer assistance when we feel it is necessary. We provide encouragement and positive feedback to each other. We are self-aware, step back, and ask for help when warranted.

• Over 50% of high-achieving, lower-income students don’t apply to a single college or university that is an academic match.
• Only 8% of these low-income high-achievers apply to college in a strategic manner similar to their high-income peers.
• High-achieving, low-income students who fail to apply to top colleges live disproportionately in rural areas, towns, and small cities, not large metropolitan centers.
• Research shows that with the right approach and communication, we can begin to address this problem and provide students with the guidance and information they need.

• Williams College Advising Fellows (AFs) leverage the power of peer-to-peer interaction and social networks to fill the holes in how these students approach applying to college. Advising Fellows serve both as guides in the application process as well as models of matriculation, having successfully enrolled in top colleges themselves.
• Each Advising Fellow commits to working remotely with up to four high-achieving, low-income high school students through the college application and selection process. Williams College students apply for and, if selected, then earn the opportunity to serve as Advising Fellows. Advising Fellows are trained and assessed on their ability to play this role effectively.
• Advising Fellows work with high school juniors and seniors from across the country – from Hawaii to West Virginia. Matriculate works with high school students who have an annual household family income under $80,000, a GPA of 3.5 or higher, and have scored in the 90th percentile on the PSAT, SAT, or ACT.
• Advising Fellows are led by the Head Advising Fellow and Advising Fellow Leadership Team, a group of Williams College students selected by Matriculate to lead the cohort.
• Personal interactions between high school students and college students serve as the catalyst to shatter low-income high-achievers’ college perception gap.