Frequently Asked Questions
Signing Up
After I sign up, what are the next steps? After signing up, you will receive a welcome email from our secretary, Pardiss, that outlines the next steps to get paired.
Why do mentors have to complete a background check? We have a partnership with the Miami-Dade Public School District, and one of their requirements is that every mentor completes a background check since the mentees are minors. So, we cannot pair you with a mentee until we receive your background check confirmation. The background check is very easy to complete and only takes a few minutes!
What do I do if my background check hasn’t been confirmed and it has been over 48 hours? First, check your spam. Many universities block certain emails and they may not show up in your inbox. If it is not there either, please reach out to the MAC President, Nathalie Rodriguez, for her to get in contact with a Miami-Dade School Distrct’s background check office to resolve this issue.
What if I am an international student? International students are also required to fill out the brief background check. For the portion that asks for your Social Security number, you can put all “5’s.” Also, please make sure to reach out to our secretary, Pardiss Kaviani, at pkaviani@mentoringamerica.org to notify her that you are an international student to notify the background check office.
What is Breezio? Breezio is a software that we have recently begun using to make the mentoring, pairing, and administrative processes easier for our mentors and mentees. Here mentors and mentees will have access to their meetings, resources, be able to communicate and network with other mentors and mentees, and participate in mentee and mentor specific communities.
Mentor-Mentee Meetings
What is a mentor? A mentor is a person who is paired with a mentee, high school student to assist them through the college application process. Oftentimes our mentors are college students, and have recently gone through the application process.
What is a mentee? A mentee is a high school student who is paired with a mentor. Mentees come from our partnership with the Miami-Dade Public School District, but they can be from any U.S. public school.
How are mentors and mentees paired? Mentors and mentees are paired based on interests and extracurricular activities! When mentees sign up, we ask them to indicate their potential field of study in college, and we pair them with a mentor currently studying that field. For example, a mentee interested in studying Finance will be paired with a current Finance student in college. This allows the mentees to ask questions about their interested field of study, have experienced mentors who have applied to a specific program, and helps them bond based on mutual interests.
How long does it take to get a mentee? We get most of our mentees through in-person recruitment events at high schools. If there are no available, unpaired mentees when you first join, we most likely had just had a recruitment event. We have mentee recruitment events at different high schools across South Florida every month or every other month. So, the most time you will be waiting for a mentee is about 6 weeks, but we are usually able to pair mentors in about 2-3 weeks after they join, if not sooner.
What can I do while waiting for a mentee? While waiting for a mentee, we have many fundraising and social media opportunities that you will be able to find in the MAC Mentor Resources folder on our software or posted on our Instagram. In the MAC Mentor Resources folder you will be able to find an image with the name MAC Service Hour Opportunities that has many of the different ways you can get involved and the amount of service hours you will receive for each one. We also have monthly fundraisers to participate in. Every time there is a fundraiser it will be posted on the Instagram, discussed in a general body meeting AND reminders will be sent in the Mentor GroupMe. Even if service hours are not something you are interested in or need, participating in fundraisers and other items outlined in the MAC Service Hour Opportunities is still a great way to get involved with MAC while you are waiting to be paired with a mentee!
How often should I be meeting with my mentor/mentee? The timing of the meetings is up to you guys! Most of our pairs meet once a week for an hours, but it depends on the schedule and task(s) the mentee needs assistance with.
What resources do I have access to for our meetings? The MAC Mentor Resources folder is a place on the software where we provide you with any information you may need during your time as a mentor. It includes documents such as the MAC Mentor Guide which has information to help you guide your mentee, scholarship opportunities for you to tell your mentee about, our monthly newsletters, recordings of general body meetings and more. Additionally, you can find other useful documents like an excel sheet that you need to use to keep track of your meetings, 11th and 12th grade checklists, and a FL Department of Education document on different Florida colleges and universities for students interested in staying in-state.
Who do I contact if I have any questions or concerns? You can contact our Director of Mentorship Recruitment, Hannah Drum, at Hdrum@mentoringamerica.org.
Fundraising and Social Events
How often does Mentoring America have fundraisers? We usually have fundraisers every month or every other month. This is a great opportunity to get more involved with the nonprofit, get service hours, and raise money for a great cause, our mentees!
What are we fundraising money for? The majority of the money we raise goes towards a scholarship that we will be offering to mentees in the future. We will pick a mentee each year that will receive the scholarship based on academic performance, extracurriculars, and leadership roles. The rest of the money we fundraise goes towards ensuring that we can provide our mentoring services to our students, such as providing recruitment events to get new mentees and administrative costs, like legal, software, insurance fees.
Service Hours
What if I’m not meeting with a mentee, can I still get service hours? Yes, even if you may not have a mentee, you can still get service hours for participating in our fundraisers, sharing posts and stories on social media, and spreading the word about Mentoring America to friends and family and getting new mentors and/or mentees to sign up!