By Omar Duwaji, News Correspondent

Northeastern students collaborated with East Boston YMCA to initiate the Let’s Get Ready (LGR) program at East Boston High School this fall.
LGR is a non-profit organization of college students helping high school students get into college by teaching them skills to help them excel in the SATs.
Northeastern’s LGR chapter, which has 16 students, was launched through the efforts of a small number of students who felt the need to volunteer through teaching in the local community. These volunteers become ‘coaches’ to the students who need help in the math and critical reading sections of the SAT. Fifty-seven students from East Boston High School meet with their 16 coaches every Tuesday and Thursday to develop their skills in both sections of the SATs. Each coach is assigned a group of students to teach testing techniques and help correct mistakes they had made on diagnostic exams.
Francesca Sorrentino, a senior communication studies major at Northeastern, had been working with LGR through Harvard College this summer when she decided that it was time to bring LGR to Northeastern.
‘We felt there was a need to bring LGR to Northeastern because it’s such a great program, and there was a real need at East Boston High School to get kids to do better on their SATs so that they could get into colleges,’ Sorrentino said. She also said that many of the students that attend LGR are from the local communities surrounding NEU, such as Roxbury and Mission Hill. She mentioned LGR to be the largest student-run SAT prep program in the country, and that that alone was something to be proud of.
Mark Calley, public relations director of LGR, said he is proud to be part of an effort that helps kids get to college. At the same time he knows that being part of LGR will benefit in the long term.
‘You actually get to go out and teach and gain teaching experience,’ he said. ‘It’s intense because we have to make our own study guides, and we interact with the students’ he said.
Calley said students can add being part of LGR to their resumes as legitimate teaching experience and it can help in the long run for students contemplating going into education. Calley also said that in order to be a coach, students must have scored at least a 680 in both the math and critical reading sections of the SATs.
Sorrentino said she was proud to assemble such a relatively large amount of students to dedicate their Tuesday and Thursday nights to volunteer.
‘We really tried to spread the word about the effort by contacting everyone from department heads to the Center of Community Service and even picking out students from the volunteer fair as well as word of mouth,’ she said.
Virgilio Rojas, a senior at East Boston High School, took the SATs twice. Now, after completing a semester in the LGR program, he’s set to make his final attempt at getting the scores he wants.
‘LGR helped me to realize the flaws I had been making earlier and definitely helped me to increase my scores,’ he said. Rojas said Sorrentino did a great job in preparing him for the exam through her special methods and memorization techniques.
‘It’s a fabulous program and I think everyone should go through it to increase their scores,’ he added.
While being part of LGR can further one’s career, the most impact coaches have is on the students they teach. Calley said that the aim of the program is to see a 110-150 point increase in each student’s score on the SATs. The students’ results are also used as a measuring stick for how well the teachers were able to deliver the material to the students.
‘Our ability to help these kids improve on the SATs shows that we as a group are capable of holding our own,’ he said.