October 26th was National Portfolio Day at the Jacob Javits Center. After two weeks of preparation, the Junior and Senior scholars gathered their portfolios and from as early as 10 AM, scholars waited in line to enter and line up for their schools of choice. The seniors this year prioritized their target schools and a majority of the scholars were able to visit their top three schools. Scholars were also encouraged to go check out schools with no lines to get more feedback on their work, even if they hadn’t previously considered the school as an option. While many of the Juniors felt nervous and doubtful, the mentors, youth advocates, and full time College Access Coordinator Juliet Gomez swept in and offered their encouraging support to the students. After visiting around four to five schools each, scholars took note of all the received advice and feedback in order to prepare for their college applications, whether applying this year or the next.
MENTOR FELLOWSHIP UPDATE
In the Mentor Fellowship for this week, mentors continued to develop their ideas around the creation of a presentation for the NCORE conference. They decided to first really analyze what skills, knowledge, experiences and identities that they bring with them. Each mentor created a list detailing this information, cross-analyzed and discussed this with fellow mentors. Out of this activity, the mentors began to list a series of conference topics that they would like to explore that intersect with their list.
In groups, the mentors discussed their topics briefly and how they would fit into the NCORE conference, along with making sure that the topics fits within the rubric for each presentation. The rubric consisted of assessing the relevance of the topic(s) to the conference, the expertise required for facilitating, the audience along with the impact of the presentation in the conference. Mentors from each group then settled on a topic that encompassed everyone’s interests and list, along with fitting the rubric well. The conversation will continue next week and each topic chosen will be expanded upon.
