WE ARE HAPPY TO BE COLLABORATING WITH THE FAIR OPPORTUNITY PROJECT!
Learn more about their amazing cause and founders below
The WLSA College Admissions Network provides in-depth guidance around college admissions to secondary schools in our network. Recognizing that this information is important to schools beyond our network, we’ve partnered with Fair Opportunity Project to distribute free college admissions resources more broadly.
The hallmark resource is the ‘FOP’s Guide’, a free 70-page college admissions guide that is available in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. We encourage our partners to share these resources with other schools in their own communities and networks.
The Organization
The Fair Opportunity Project is an organization of 20 college student and 250 high school counselors compiling free resources for applying to college (successful college essays, free online videos, scholarship websites, etc.). Last year they sent a free 70-page guide to 57,000 public schools that has been translated into Spanish and Mandarin and awarded Forbes 30 Under 30.
They have a strong advising team including from Michael Brown (CEO of City Year), Richard Barth (CEO of KIPP Schools), and Katherine K. Merseth (Founder of Harvard Teacher Fellows Program). The resources also got the off-the-record ‘good stuff’ from Harvard and Stanford’s admissions committees and is well-received by educators.
The Fair Opportunity Project has been featured in Thrillest, Harvard’s SEAS, and the Harvard Ed Magazine.
The Directors
Growing up in rural northern Minnesota, Luke only applied to Harvard as a chance conversation informed him of its affordability. Starting the nation’s largest Ultimate Frisbee charity tournament in high school, Luke created now one of the biggest webapps in the Ivy League freshman year, summerplaybook.com, a platform connecting thousands of students in 128 countries over summer break.
Now a second-semester senior, Luke leads a Harvard VC research team, served as a US-Student-Delegate to the World Internet Conference, submitted a Machine-Learning/Artificial-Intelligence patent application, and was a keynote speaker @ Amsterdam Capital Week on how cities support entrepreneurs/VC.
As the son of a high school English teacher, Cole’s respect for education was instilled at a young age. Growing up in Miami, FL alongside his four siblings, Cole attended a large urban public high school and honed his interest in public service. Cole founded Stride 4 Senegal, a non-profit organization that raised $21k through a charity 5k run to build water pumps and create scholarships.
Now, a senior at Harvard studying applied math, Cole has scaled his impact in economic development and education. He initiated his own development economic research projects, including published work, is a part-time consultant for the World Bank, and recently completed a microfinance project in Senegal.