[thedevelopnik]

Thanks for calling this out. It’s not that obvious, and we need to make some improvements, but there is a way to get access if you don’t qualify by zip code/school.

If a student does not automatically qualify, we offer them basically an appeal form where they can say how much their family makes among other things. And we do qualify a number of students that way.

Partnering with other orgs like BGCA is an awesome idea that I will pass to our outreach coordinator. Thank you!

[donw]

You probably want to start from this.

I grew up on the bottom rung of our local socioeconomic ladder, and self-selected out of a lot of potential opportunities because I knew I would be excluded.

[alymurray]

Do you mean that you didn't want to be labeled "low-income"? If so, I relate. There were definitely periods when I was growing up that I was eligible for free or reduced price lunch but was too embarrassed to accept it.

We try to avoid using the word "low-income" in all of our student-facing communications for exactly this reason. For example, this is how we talk about eligibility on the students' page of our website (https://upchieve.org/students):

"Is This Really Free? YES! UPchieve is a nonprofit organization that exists to help students achieve their academic goals. Any student whose family can’t afford a private tutor or admissions consultant is eligible for free tutoring and college counseling through UPchieve. Instead of charging you, we rely on volunteers and donations to provide you with free academic support."

One of my long-term goals with UPchieve is actually to destigmatize being a low-income student. It's obviously not the student's fault if their family can't afford something. (In fact, it's probably not their parents' fault either.) Not sure exactly how we'll do this yet, but I hope that we can :)