ELP Mentor Matching Program

We recruit mentors during the Fall semester, from late August to October. The ELP cohort students are recruited during the same period with the completed cohort announced before Thanksgiving. Mentors and mentees will be required to submit an interests form, attend an info session, and participate in the virtual mentor matching mixer which will occur between mid-November and late-December. The ELP program officially starts in January with mentor/mentee meetings running through April. 

Additionally, you will be invited to participate in the student application assessment and interview process as an optional way to interact with the upcoming cohort of students. This process can be done remotely and will take place during October.

Based on the information from your interest form, the student’s intake form, and a ranked preference provided by you and the students we will suggest a match. If there are no objections, we will finalize the match. This process will be completed before the first week of December. It’s important to note that there is a chance that you will not be matched with a student if there are more mentors in the program than students.

Program staff will send an email introduction to all mentors and mentees notifying them of their match in early-December. The match pair are required to connect in early January to set-up a time to meet for their first meeting.

At the first meeting, the match pair will create 2-3 entrepreneurial career goals to work through during the program. Here is an example of a mentee and mentor goal.

Goal: I’d like to participate in the optiMize social challenge as a founder this summer, but am having difficulty figuring out what solution to pitch and what problem I’d like to solve. 

• The mentee will … (objectives)
  • Examine possible challenges that are important to the student by creating a mind map at an upcoming mentor match meeting
  • Compose  3 potential solutions to 3 challenges identified in mind map by brainstorming with mentor
  • Interview 5 people associated with the top problem and solution discovered to better understand what specific pain needs to be addressed
  • Complete optiMize social challenge application 
• The mentor will … (objectives)
  • Work with the mentee on creating a mind map of challenges that are important to them at an upcoming mentor match meeting
  • Share best practices and experiences on the process of ideation to support the mentee’s second goal
  • Potentially provide two personal contacts for the mentee to connect with regarding the challenges discussed previously 
  • Debrief progress with mentee and assistant in optiMize social challenge application