SUMMIT SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT: EY
EY College MAP: Ten years of connecting young people to their college dreams.
In 2019, College MAP (Mentoring for Access and Persistence), EY’s signature mentoring program, celebrated its 10th anniversary. At this year’s MENTOR summit, EY College MAP will be honored for this exciting milestone. At EY, we are so proud of our passionate EY College MAP mentors and the students who are working hard to attain their college dreams.
EY celebrated 10 years of College MAP success with a Facebook Live event. The Facebook Live event was hosted by Sam Johnson, EY Americas Vice Chair of Accounts, and Felecia Hatcher, noted entrepreneur, author and mentoring spokesperson. Together, they talked with College MAP participants about the impact that private-sector mentoring can make on students’ lives and on the business world.
Hailed as one of the most innovative and high-impact corporate volunteer programs in the country, College MAP is a model of private-sector mentoring as a way to support access to education for underserved youth and develop future generations of talent.
This is important because 65% of jobs in the US require post-secondary education, but too many underserved high school students don’t consider going to college. The goal can seem too distant, the application process too confusing, the cost too expensive and the rewards too unclear.
The College MAP program addresses this gap by matching employee volunteer mentors with groups of 11th-and 12th- graders in underserved high schools throughout the US so that they can gain access to college and succeed in higher education. The program helps demystify the process of applying to and affording college, encouraging students who might not otherwise have considered it an option. We then work with students to build the skills to help them persist in completing their post-secondary goals
The results are impressive!
- Since 2009, 1,800 EY Professionals have mentored more than 2,000 underserved high school and college students
- 99% of College MAP Scholars graduate high school, compared to 72% in their relevant peer group.
- 90% of College MAP Scholars who graduate high school go on to pursue higher education (the average college matriculation rate for US underserved students is 41%).
- More than $2.8M in college scholarships awarded to College MAP alumni through the EY Foundation since 2013
In addition, annual employee engagement surveys show that EY professionals who are involved with College MAP receive significantly better performance ratings, stay with EY longer, and report best-in-class engagement, which ultimately impacts our business and bottom line.
College MAP currently has active program sites in 38 US cities (more than quadruple the number of US cities since its pilot year), and we’ve committed to developing a lighter touch model that can be deployed anywhere in the US to help bring the program to even more students in the coming years.
EY and MENTOR
As part of our commitment to increasing access to education, we collaborate with MENTOR, the unifying champion for quality youth mentoring in the United States. Nancy Altobello, retired EY Global Vice Chair, Talent, serves on MENTOR’s national Board of Directors. We also sponsor the annual MENTOR conference, bringing together champions of youth mentoring from the private, public and nonprofit sectors to share leading practices and develop a shared viewpoint about the best paths forward.