Video: Inside iMentor

Hear from iMentor Program Coordinator Kevin Finnegan about helping students succeed by pairing them with the right mentor.

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Adam Jacobs, a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley in New York City, has gained a lot from acting as a mentor to Kevin Wade (right). In fact, he calls it, “hands down, one of the best experiences I’ve been involved with. ... He’s like the little brother who actually listens to me.”

What once seemed a mismatch turns out to be a marvel

You’re from Long Island, the son of a man in the apparel business and a mother who didn’t work outside the home until you were 10. Having attended junior college, your parents insist—without ever really saying so—that you will go further.

College adviser Erica Elder confers with seniors Orin Bye (far left) and Austin Wright at her alma mater, Bassett High School in southern Virginia. Elder, a recent graduate of the University of Virginia, returned to Bassett recently to serve as a near-peer mentor for an organization called the College Advising Corps.

Near-peer mentors mean it when they say: ‘I’ve been there’

When a young woman returns to a place of painful experience — bullying, debilitating shyness, financial problems and low self-esteem — there are bound to be strong emotions. For Erica Elder, who came home to Bassett High School in southern Virginia last fall to be a college adviser and mentor, the first day back was, well …

Alexandra “Allie” LeBlanc (right), a 26-year-old EY employee, works with Cesarina Ruiz-Lara, a student at Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. LeBlanc, a Fordham University graduate, said she volunteered for EY’s College MAP program after conferring with a colleague “who lit up talking about it.”

Corporate program matches students with professionals

On a bitterly cold January day, close to 20 junior-year students perform a monthly ritual, filing into a third-floor conference room at Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School on Malcolm X Boulevard in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood.