Greenwich coaches help student reach academic heights

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) — When a young woman whose parents never completed high school got into Cornell University this spring, she wept with surprise and joy.

It was also a noisy day in Greenwich, where two "coaches" who helped guide her through the college-application process were celebrating her success.

"I started screaming, from one end of the house to the other," recalled Cristina Ceballos, who along with another Greenwich resident, Cynthia Chang, spent dozens of hours guiding Erika Yupangui, a Port Chester High School senior, to the gates of the Ivy League. Erika was coached for college through an expanding program at the Don Bosco Community Center, a social-services and educational non-profit in Port Chester.

The Don Bosco college program takes kids like Erika, who have little family connections to higher education, and helps put them on a college track. Begun in 2015, it has helped numerous students get coached for the college-admissions process, 17 this past year. Erika was the first to gain acceptance into an Ivy League school.

Ceballos and Chang have been working with Erika since last spring, while she received test-prep services and enhanced instruction from educators working through the Don Bosco Center. The two coaches spoke by phone at least twice and week with Erika and met once a week in person — and there were countless emails.

The coaches set up a calendar, discussed which schools to apply to, worked out college visits, ran through mock interviews and made sure more than a half-dozen essays by Erika were completed. They did not re-write essays, they noted, just made sure they were done. Erika got a relative to drive her to a number of college campuses for on-site visits and interviews.

She fell in love with Cornell; it was on top of her list. But being pragmatic, as the Don Bosco program...