Fair Opportunity Project

Hey All! Growing up in rural n. Minnesota, when I got into Harvard I figured out pretty quickly that most students didn't find about financial aid in the McDonalds takeout line like I did. We made Fair Opp (https://www.fairopportunityproje...) so that students never have to leave getting the information on attending or affording higher education up to luck in the future. This year is particularly exciting as we've also expanded to free mentorship in GA and W MA: https://www.fairopportunityproje... How this started is getting mono my Sophomore fall, I took time off and started mentoring kids at a public library when recovering back home. Seeing a big need, I emailed about 200 rural counselors in MN to get a sense of whether there were any consistent places where students got hung up in the application process. From the SAT subjects to the college essay, there was a lot of confusion out there so I decided to do my part in changing that. The first version of Fair Opp was a guide that I wrote and hosted on my personal website (lukeheine.com). After seeing great initial feedback and after some peer revisions, I then sent it out to about 9 states' public educators. Fast forward a couple years, and co-founder Cole Scanlon and I linked up along with the rest of our team (shout out to Carole Trone) and have been sending out a comprehensive how-to guide to about 64k public educators. The program has been featured in Forbes 30 u 30 and all the materials have been reviewed off-the-record by some of the nation's top colleges. We also opened a free near peer mentorship wing to help students from any background get access to college access information and material -- huge kudos to Sam and Spencer who have been amazing leading and rocking that (also shout out to Canyon and Elyem too!) We're launching it on PH because I'm a long time lurker and also to see if anyone would like to get involved or could find the resources helpful in the community. Any feedback lmk and would love to get some more peeps in the mix!

also game to collab!

I’ve known Luke for years now and am so glad he’s decided to post this as Fair Opp never ceases to blow my mind!!! Over the course of a semester off Harvard (watch out for Mono y’all) he tossed together a massive guide for applying to colleges and scholarships and pulled together a network of 64,000 teachers and guidance counselors from public high schools all over the US for distributing it. It’s run totally for free and for fun as a way to give back - Luke grew up in a rural area where college advice was super scarce. And the guide is top notch - on multiple occasions he’s caught “college counselors” trying to charge exorbitant amounts for his guide 🤪 I’m super excited to see the success stories continue to come in from it, and to see it finally pop up on product hunt 😊

Pros:

⚖️ Democratize college and scholarships 📚 Simple - core thing is a PDF w/ multiple translations 📈 Probably already at your high school

Cons:

📲 PDF tough on mobile! Any plans for a website? 👶 Mentorship program just starting out 🦑 Story of the guide could be featured