Brown Bound…

Jocelyne, a senior in the IB Program at St. Petersburg High School (FL), attended our summer College Planning Boot Camp as a rising 6th grader. She went on to join our college planning cohort program as an 8th grader, served on our youth leadership board throughout high school, founded a College Cohort Club at her high school, contributed to both our “Who I Am” book series and the ACT Study Skills and Learning Strategies project. The many years of leadership and community service Jocelyne contributed to our foundation supported her application to Brown.

A Fortuitous Meeting

I met Jocelyne during the summer of 2019, when, as a rising 6th grader, she attended our 5-day College Planning Boot Camp through our partnership with Pinellas County Schools (FL). Intellectually curious, deeply pensive, and with an infectious laugh, she was destined to become a mainstay in our program. She attended our boot camp again as a rising 7th grader where she volunteered to serve as a discussion group leader. As an 8th grader, she formally joined our College Planning Cohort Program for high school students. As a 9th grader, she became a Co-President of our Youth Leadership Board. As a sophomore, she founded a College Cohort Club at her high school to assist expand the college knowledge of other first-generation students.

Jocelyne has become one of the most accomplished students in the history of our program. If not the most successful in processing and applying the information in every aspect of her approach to schooling. She embraced our 3 pillars of scholarship, leadership, and service in ways that have had an indelible and lasting impact on our foundation, in the lives of students at her school, in our national program, and in the lives of her family.

Plan Your Recommendation

As a middle school and first-generation student, Jocelyne was completely unaware of the potential impact a recommendation could have 7 years later during Brown’s review of her college application—but we did. During her 7-year middle through high school progression, Jocelyne followed our guidance and developed a long list of achievements in our program—all of which I was able to recount in the recommendation letter that I wrote to support her application to Brown.

Jocelyne wrote the bylaws and started the first chapter of our College Cohort Clubs at her St. Petersburg High School. Promoted the club via TikTok, resulting in over 50 students at each eat and learn lunchtime meeting. Her outreach efforts have resulted in amazing outcomes for many first generation students at her high school, one of whom was recently offered admission to Caltech. Jocelyne’s coaching guided her older sister as the first in their family to attend college into Johns Hopkins University.

Jocelyne has served as a literary and artistic contributor to our “Who I Am” series of books developed to provide guidance for students in grades 6 – 12 across such topics as personality types, multiple intelligences, temperament, mindset, grit, and learning styles. She has also served as a discussion group leader in our monthly virtual meetings of students from throughout the country and as an instructor for both middle school and high school students at our summer college planning and study skills boot camps. In all of these roles, Jocelyne has demonstrated patience, has prepared lesson plans, and has created surveys to assess her effectiveness in working with students. All of these actions have been done with a genuine desire to help others and to make a difference in their lives.

As a small CBO, our foundation is unable to devote significant time to training or monitoring our student volunteers. We seek students with whom we can share an idea and plant a seed. We then trust students to nurture the seed and achieve results using their own skills, creativity, and critical thinking. In Jocelyne’s situation, despite balancing our program with the academic demands of the IB Program at her high school, her incredible work ethic has consistently produced results, no matter what the task. She brought together 2 other first generation students from her community to create a podcast, “The Undebatable Relatables” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJei2XUTXEA) to provide college planning guidance; collaborated with students from Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina to create a Black History Month and Lunar New Year Tribute video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd4NPSmBjRI); and she led the collaborative effort to write the script and develop a promotional video for our foundation ((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXWS9LMmTo8&t=4s).

Beyond these already significant accomplishments, Jocelyne led an ACT Study Skills and Learning Strategies project with the goal of assisting more first generation and under-resourced students with developing the skills to become better learners; expand their understanding of encoding, retention, and retrieval; and develop a working understanding of the forgetting curve—all focused on increasing academic performance in school and their performance on the ACT. When we presented this idea to Jocelyne, she took off to identify student contributors for each ACT subject area. She developed a collaboration with academically accomplished students in Florida, Georgia, and Iowa. Her leadership resulted in developing the foundation for the project and a 300-page working document that other students will continue to develop as she moves on in preparation for college. One of the contributors on the project is an alumna of our program who is a current PhD student in math who has agreed to continue collaborating with Jocelyne until the project is published. 

I have treasured the 7 years that I have worked with Jocelyne and gotten to know her family. She comes from a loving and supportive household, through which she has been nurtured into an extraordinary young woman of impeccable character. While she is a passionate debater and full of ideas, she is respectful of both adults and peers; listens attentively; and articulates herself passionately. She is as aspirational in her personal goals as she is inspirational to peers. In so many ways I believe she will add value to your campus community, be an immediate contributor to campus-based organizations, and a joy to have in the classroom.

Lesson Learned…

The lesson to be learned from Jocelyne’s story is for every student to look beyond grades and test scores (although you must commit to pursuing academic excellence) towards committing yourself to an activity in which you can lead and serve in ways that make an impact on the lives of others. Then, as you apply to college or for scholarships, the faculty adviser, coach, supervisor, or organization can support your application through their first-hand testimonials of your impact on their club, team, workplace, or organization.