Summer College mentor program offers life-changing opportunities

Maria Diaz, left, a Summer College senior from the High School of Environmental Studies in New York City, stands with her mentor, Cornell Hotel School undergraduate Christina Lofton '04, at Cornell Plantations. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Cornell's Summer College for High School Students offers talented students a taste of college life, and for some, a potentially life-changing opportunity to work one-on-one with a member of the Cornell community as part of the Summer College Mentor Program. For these "mentees," who may be the first in their family to attend college, the mentor connection helps with the transition to campus life and with the academic rigor of fast-paced college courses.

"Mentors help students with all kinds of adjustment issues: social, homesickness, finding their way around Cornell and also with academic issues," said Summer College Director Abby Eller. "Mentors are also simply friends to their mentee and can join them for meals and attend special events planned by the program coordinators at Undergraduate Admissions to help the students ease into life at Cornell."

Maria Diaz, a Summer College scholarship recipient and a native of El Salvador now living in New York City, is very enthusiastic about the program. "My mentor, Christina Lofton, has been like a blessing since I came here," said Diaz. "We've hung out a couple of times and even had brunch together at least once a week. I have learned a lot from her experience, and it's been refreshing to know that someone shares my worries."

Diaz, who found herself missing the sounds of the city when she first came to Cornell, said her mentor even helped her work through that. Lofton, a rising senior in Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, shares the enthusiasm of Diaz and others she mentored. "The experience has been so wonderful. I enjoy learning about my mentees, their goals and aspirations, and ultimately developing a friendship. It's especially exciting to keep up with them to see where and what they end up studying and if building our relationship was helpful."

"Since the program's launch in 1996, it has grown tremendously," said Siv Somchanhmavong, one of the program's key founders and coordinator of multicultural recruitment in the Undergraduate Admissions Office at Cornell. Somchanhmavong remembers the program's first year when there were only six mentors for 56 students. This summer, the mentor/mentored student ratio has been virtually one to one, with approximately 34 students and 31 mentors. This year's mentors -- 16 graduate students, 11 undergrads and four staff members -- came from many different departments across the university. "It's an incredible opportunity for both mentors and mentees to make connections and achieve success," said Somchanhmavong.

Cornell's Summer College for High School Students is one of the nation's longest running and most highly acclaimed programs of its kind. Every summer, it offers one-, three- and six-week programs for approximately 600 talented high school sophomores, juniors and seniors from around the world. Students in Summer College live on the Cornell campus, take college classes with leading Cornell faculty members, earn an average of six credits and explore careers and academic majors.

For more information about the Cornell Summer College, contact its office at B20 Day Hall, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853-2801; phone: 255-6203; fax: 255-6665; e-mail: summer_college@cornell.edu ; or visit the Summer College Web site at http://www.summercollege.cornell.edu.