The Peerlift team members in California (L to R): Amira Chow, Sam Gorman, Basil Aranda, Sofia Acosta and Vivian Vasquez.
“Peerlift is the resource we all wish we had in high school,” says
Chen.
While current providers only offer scholarships, Peerlift is the
first that features six different opportunities: summer programs,
internships, scholarships, study abroad opportunities, free college
advising, awards and college fly-ins.
“We’ve carefully crowdsourced opportunities from current
college freshmen at the country’s top universities,” notes Chen.
“Our content is specific and carefully evaluated—we only feature
opportunities that offer significant financial aid and are vouched
for by past participants. This personal connection to our users
builds trust and promises students that they are getting the
information they actually need.”
Peerlift currently has 26 student ambassadors from all over the
country in low-income or minority high schools, and expects to
have 60 in the next couple of months. Each student ambassador
goes to schools in their area to speak about Peerlift and its
resources. With these students, the program is able to reach
schools directly in a more intimate way.
“Peerlift started with a simple 28-page booklet last summer,
and since then has grown to a complete website,” says Chen.
“Our content is rapidly growing with plans to add personal
testimonials to each opportunity and expand to regional and
state opportunities.”
The team has plans to grow on different social media
outlets and form partnerships with influential college advising
organizations. “At our core, Peerlift is a resource that prepares
students for higher education—meaning we have goals of
creating mentorship programs, doing physical events in high
schools or student conferences, and offering other college advice
to high school students.” ■
For more information about Peerlift, visit peerlift.org.
Julie Chen with Victor Yu, a current junior at NA and the
Associate Director of Outreach for Peerlift.
NORTH ALLEGHENY
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SPRING 2018
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