What is BetterGrads?

Kevin F. Adler and Andrea Duwel at Granada High

BetterGrads transforms latent alumni networks into active support networks for under-served schools. We equip students and administrators with the tools they need to tap into the knowledge, connections, and financial capital of past graduates and other professional networks in order to help students succeed in college, career, and personally. Since our founding in 2009, BetterGrads has served over 2000 high school students through college mentoring, college Q&A panels, and the College 101 Blog. BetterGrads is an education startup currently based in San Francisco. Mission & Vision Program Overview College 101 Blog

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Are we at your HS?

Livermore High School (CA)

Whether you are a current student, career counselor, or alumnus, you can initiate the process of bringing the BetterGrads Program to your high school (or a high school near you) by completing a short online form. Right now, our pilot program is at Granada High School, however we have connections with other San Francisco Bay Area high schools listed on our Pilot Programs page. Look for your school! But with over 25,000 public high schools in the US, we definitely need your help to track them all down and start new programs! Fill out the form: BetterGrads Program - Are we at your High School?

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Get Involved

Andrea Olson

Here are a few ways you can get involved: Job Opportunities If you are looking for full-time or part-time work, check to see if we have any Job Opportunities. Bring BetterGrads to your School We can’t reach out to every school individually! If we aren’t active at your high school, you can help us start a program there. For details, check out Are we at your High School? Be a Mentor The success of our program depends on the participation of alumni giving back to their alma maters. If we are already active at your school, you can Be a Mentor. Submit a Blog Post The College 101 Blog is currently accepting new content submissions. Find out how to Contribute to the Blog. Sponsorship Throughout the program year, our mentors and mentees work through a curriculum on topics related to college, career, and personal development. We offer local employers, companies, [...]

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Latest on College 101

Kevin Adler Cambodia class

How every teacher can transform their under-performing classroom tomorrow

by

The headline of this month’s Harvard Education Letter is seductively simple: “Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions.” The advice is undeniably practical. But will asking questions alone suffice to create engaging classroom dialogues? The article highlights the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), a technique for encouraging students to direct inquiry in the classroom, engage with each other and develop critical thinking skills. A teacher whose students are under-engaged in the classroom would do well by her students to study the QFT technique and begin testing elements of it. If nothing else, QFT shows that “Any questions?” following a lecture will not provoke many questions. To engage students, questions must be engaging, too. Though effective, QFT is only half... 

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BetterGrads News

  • Vote for my idea for SXSW 2012

    BetterGrads applies to speak at SXSW

    Kevin and I, BetterGrads’ co-founders, have submitted a proposal to speak at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas in March 2012! The presentation is titled +1 Matters: Social Networks and Education. We want to talk about what we have been trying to do with BetterGrads so far and what every educational initiative should know about social networks. Every year, high schools lose their most valuable resources when alumni leave for college. With online social networking, this doesn’t have to happen. Our presentation is about the importance of social capital for education. Most people know social capital from the book Bowling Alone: it’s the stuff that drives civic life. But it can drive many other things, like a student’s success in college or career. As you know, at BetterGrads we connect recent graduates back to their public high schools as mentors, regardless of distance, because unlike their private [...]

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  • ghs logo

    Introducing the College Prep Club

    Last Fall, student participants in the BetterGrads pilot eMentoring Program at Granada High (Livermore, CA) formed a new club on campus unlike any other. The College Prep Club was designed to encourage students - 2400 in all - to see college as an attainable goal. Since its inception, the College Prep Club 2012 (with “2012″ signifying the year members will graduate from high school and begin college) has significantly improved the college-going culture on campus. The College Prep Club has been involved in several college-themed activities, including SAT study sessions and College Planning “Expo” nights. Recently, students initiated the Pennant Project, for which club members collect pennants from Granada teachers’ alma maters and ask them about their experience there. The pennants will be displayed in the Granada High library and career center with the intent of further promoting college-going culture by connecting specific schools with students’ teachers. As part of [...]

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  • Click to visit Pedrozzi's site.

    Announcing the BetterGrads-Pedrozzi Scholarship

    BetterGrads is delighted to announce the BetterGrads-Pedrozzi Scholarship, which will award two $1,500 college scholarships to students who participate in our pilot eMentoring program at Granada High School in Livermore, Calif. The BetterGrads-Pedrozzi Scholarship is funded by a partnership with the Pedrozzi Scholarship Foundation, a Livermore-based private family foundation. Since 2008, the Foundation has awarded more than 200 scholarships to deserving graduates of Livermore high schools in pursuit of higher education, totaling nearly $1 million. The scholarship will recognize two student mentees at Granada High who have embodied the ideals of the BetterGrads eMentoring Program through leadership and community service. Students will fill out an online application, which includes two short essay questions and an optional letter of recommendation. Two equivalent scholarships will be offered at Livermore High School during the 2011-12 school year, when we expand our programs there. The deadline to apply for the BetterGrads-Pedrozzi Scholarship is 11:59 [...]

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  • The BetterGrads Seal

    BetterGrads Website, Version 2.0

    Today marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for BetterGrads. We are delighted to announce the launch of our re-designed website. The streamlined, informative, resource-rich interface supports our raison d’être: to empower students for success and create sustainable college-going cultures at their high schools by connecting them to recent alumni.

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  • Our Second Visit to Granada High

    Last week, BetterGrads returned to Granada High School (Livermore, CA) for College Planning Night and the Freshmen-In-Transition (F.I.T.) program. The presentation team included three of our fabulous mentors - Andrea Olson, Andrea Duwel, and Greg Felter - and me. We spoke about college to bucket-loads of students and parents: nearly 800 over two days. Unlike last year, when we used a more scripted approach to our presentation curriculum, this year we asked attendees to direct the show by slinging questions at us on any aspect of college. Let the fun begin.

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  • Letter to Your High School Self

    Write a letter to your high school self. Share the things you questioned about college that eventually were answered. Share your wisdom and advice. Give some guidance to the next generation of college potentials.

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  • Mother’s Day, or: A Celebration of How Your Future Is Decided?

    The apple often doesn’t fall far from the tree. We all know that adage. For better or for worse, our moms (and dads) make a big difference in our college and career success. What to do if your parents were not well-educated or high up on the professional ladder.

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  • College 101 Panels in the SF Bay Area in January 2010

    BetterGrads will be offering four College 101 panels in January 2010 at San Francisco Bay Area High Schools, including Richmond High School and Oakland Technical High School.

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  • What 519 high school students say.

    As an exclusive for our blog readers, we’d like to share some of the early findings from the post-presentation surveys from our 7 presentations to over 600 students and parents at Granada High School in Livermore, CA. Four-hundred and ninety-four freshmen responded (of the 570 or so we addressed through the Freshmen In Transition (F.I.T.) program). The remainder of the survey responses came from students who attended our two panel discussions at College Night, which involved 11th graders and their parents.

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  • Save the Date. Meet Cool People. Mixer. 1/12/2010

    BetterGrads kick-off mixer on Tuesday, January 12, 2010.

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