Scholars' Latino Initiative mentors N.C. high schoolers

Published on Monday, 24 November 2008 15:38

Linda Herrera’s cell phone rang on a warm, Wednesday afternoon last spring. It was about 4 p.m., and the then-senior of Jordan Matthews High School in Siler City was napping.   

“I was really not going to pick it up,” Herrera said.

But she answered the phone to find a representative from UNC’s Admissions Department on the line. Herrera’s name had been taken off the wait list. She had been accepted to UNC. Herrera was told she could take time to think about attending the school since she got word relatively late, after she applied and was accepted to other schools.

“I said, ‘No, there’s no thinking about UNC,’” Herrera said. She began her freshman year at Carolina in August.

From her sophomore to senior years in high school, Herrera participated in the Scholar’s Latino Initiative, a three-year mentoring program that pairs UNC sophomores with Latino high school sophomores. The program officially lasts from each student’s sophomore to senior year, but often the mentors and mentees stay in touch beyond that, said Kaitlin Carr, the group’s co-coordinator and assistant director.

SLI encourages the students to pursue higher education and offers a helping hand through the application process, Carr said.

She said the mentors help their students with FAFSA forms, SAT prep, college applications and class work.

The group also hosts two social activities each month that bring all of the mentors and high school students together.

For Herrera, her mentor was instrumental in getting her through the college process. She is the first of her family to attend college, and while her parents want her to continue school, they could offer limited help since they had never been through the application process.

Her parents moved to the United States from Central America. Her father is from El Salvador. Her mother is from Nicaragua.

Herrera was born in California, and her family moved east when she was about 2 years old.

After Herrera received the call that Wednesday afternoon, she immediately called her mom.    

“She said, ‘I had faith that you were going to go there,’” Herrera said.

Herrera and her mentor, Imani Asher, still talk regularly. Asher graduated last year and is in Howard, Wash.

“It was a little intimidating (when we first met),” Herrera said. “It all started by ice breakers, and we just developed a relationship over time.”

With Asher’s help, Herrera applied and was accepted to UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Wilmington, East Carolina University and UNC-Charlotte. But UNC was always her first choice, partly because of SLI.

“It’s really pleasing, and it’s really an honor to come to the school I’ve been working with since sophomore year,” she said. “Coming here was a big dream.”

Herrera plans on joining SLI and becoming a mentor in her sophomore year so she can help another student realize her college dream as Asher did for her.

Matt Tomsic is a senior in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Scholars’ Latino Initiative