Eileen Becerra was a prospective college student at Fox Lane High School in Bedford more than two years ago when she started to feel the stress associated with the college application process.
What school? How many applications? How to write the essay? What schools can a family afford? What is a FAFSA form? These were some of the many questions going through Becerra”™s mind.
“Being a first-generation student, I didn”™t have a lot of help from my parents,” said Becerra, whose mother and father are originally from Mexico. So, at the beginning of senior year, “I was really anxious and stressed.”
Then she got an email from Shirley Acevedo Buontempo about a program pairing high-achieving Latino high school seniors with mentors to help them through the college application season from August through January.
Becerra said she and her mentor met once a week to go over everything from ideas for college essays to SAT preparation. Becerra”™s mentor encouraged her to look at new colleges and showed her how to fill out the applications.
Today, Becerra is wrapping up the first few months of her freshman year at the Manhattan College School of Business.
“I think if Shirley had never reached out to me, I wouldn”™t be where I am today,” she said. “I think I would have struggled a lot and been confused.”
- Shirley Acevedo Buontempo
It is this kind of story that Acevedo Buontempo has in mind for all of the students that come through her White Plains-based nonprofit program Latino U College Access Inc., which she founded in 2012 to provide college readiness resources for Latino students in Westchester County.
Through its seminars, Latino U has met with more than 1,500 parents. It has also partnered with four school districts in Westchester County ”” Port Chester-Rye Union Free, Tarrytown Union Free, White Plains and Ossining Union Free ”” all of which have Latino student populations greater than 47 percent.
The program, which is supported through grants, corporate sponsors and the Westchester County Youth Bureau, has been recognized by the White House for its commitment to increasing Hispanic enrollment in the free application for federal student aid, or FAFSA. Latino UÂ is also this year”™s social enterprise in residence at Pace, which connects organizations with the academic community.
Clearing the path to higher education for Latino students is a job Acevedo Buontempo said she has spent her life preparing for because her story is much the same as many of her students in Latino U.
After leaving Puerto Rico with her family at 10 and moving to the Bronx, Acevedo Buontempo became the first in her family to attend college. She graduated from Pace University with a bachelor”™s degree in business.
“I found the whole experience to be transformative, life-changing and impactful for me,” she said.
For the next 15 years, Acevedo Buontempo had jobs in Hispanic marketing and advertising as a brand manager and account executive with different companies, including the Font & Vaamonde division of Grey Advertising, Block Drug Company Inc., Bestfoods and Conill Advertising.
Acevedo Buontempo said she left the industry after having children, but eventually decided to go back to work, this time for a nonprofit ”” Katonah-based Community Center of Northern Westchester ”” where she became assistant director.
“It was that experience that really inspired me to dedicate myself to nonprofit as a second career path,” she said. “I wanted to give back to my community and be of service to my community as opposed to selling product.” To help do that, she went back to Pace for a master”™s degree in public administration.
Around this time, in 2009, Acevedo Buontempo”™s eldest daughter entered her senior year of high school. This was when Acevedo Buontempo became aware of the challenging college application process.
“The fact that I felt overwhelmed by it and here I was educated, bilingual with resources and I said, ”˜This is not right,”™” she said.
From there, Acevedo Buontempo researched and framed the nonprofit idea for her capstone project at Pace, which is how she uncovered the difficulties many first-generation Latino students face when it comes to SAT preparation, having college essays reviewed, filling out the applications for schools and funding. Students like Becerra, she said, who are strong academically but have parents unfamiliar with how to navigate applying for college, often fall through the cracks and are afraid to take on those burdens themselves.
Latino U provides what Acevedo Buontempo said is culturally relevant, bilingual information to parents and students, including information sessions and meetings about admissions and paying for college, subsidized SAT and ACT preparatory classes at $50 ”” many are offered around $300 ”” and seminars on college essays, scholarships and financial aid applications as well as a mentor program pairing high school seniors with a volunteer to meet on a weekly basis about college materials.
Acevedo Buontempo said she has seen students”™ SAT scores increase 200 to 300 points after taking the prep class. Latino U has about 50 volunteers mentoring more than 20 seniors this year. The program”™s 18 alumni have gone on to school”™s including Cornell University, Princeton University, Boston University and University of Maryland.
“What has been the greatest challenge, and where we are now, is building our capacity vis a vis fundraising and corporate support,” she said, which has become a large focus for Acevedo Buontempo and her two full-time staff to propel the organization forward.
But what has been unwavering, she said, is the “faith and commitment that I have in the power of education to change lives.”
