©2023 CURIOUS CARDINALS, INC. MADE WITH ❤️ IN CALIFORNIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
HURRY, MENTOR CAPACITY IS LIMITED
6 WEEKS OF PERSONALIZED WRITING MENTORSHIP FOR $510
Why 6 weeks? Supporting the mentee beyond surface level challenges requires time to both identify the source of struggles and build a foundation of trust and mutual respect. So, we recommend a minimum of six 1-hour sessions, occurring weekly, to see value come from the engagement. Students and mentors are encouraged to continue meeting if they so choose. Most engagements last a full school year, if not longer.
What happens if the mentor is not a good fit? Don’t worry - we can use your remaining sessions elsewhere and will prioritize making a rematch.
Our student + mentor matching process will ensure that we find the perfect mentor for your student based on their unique notes of connection. We select the most accomplished college students from the top universities.
Take a look at available mentors below and let us know if there’s someone that catches your eye.
Personalized mentorship with one of our incredible writing mentors
Valeria Gonzalez
POLITICAL SCIENCE, SOCIOLOGY @ STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Bold, Forthright, Spunky
Melanie Kessinger
ENGLISH & CREATIVE WRITING @ STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Passionate, Empathetic, Creative
Ambitious, Adventurous, Inquisitive
Nathaniel Hylton
POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY, ECONOMICS @ UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Your student’s passion for learning will be fueled by the relationship they build with their mentor.
Not to brag but our ability to find the perfect mentor for any student is unrivaled. Watch a real-life Curious Cardinals match in action below.
Who is writing mentorship for?
- Does your student have writer’s block and not know how to get their thoughts down into words?
- Does your student save their assignments for the last minute and not know how to overcome procrastination problems?
- Is your student a perfectionist who fixates on every detail and spends so much time on school work that they feel like they have no time for anything else?
- Is your student disorganized and makes careless mistakes?
- Does your student have a talent for writing but no avenue to take that talent to the next level?
- Is your student’s interest in their own writing talent waning due to not being challenged in school?
If you answered yes to any of these questions this program is for you.
Our Writing Philosophy
We aim to identify the root cause of a student’s writing resistance or struggles. Is it the writing fundamentals, the writing process, or personal confidence and motivation? What holds them back? Once we diagnose that, we hone in to make it an area of mastery.
Passion-Based Learning
What makes your student tick?! Whether it’s sports, fashion, or the creator economy, we start with what they’re interested in. When you start with a student’s interest, we know that they have something to say and excitement to share there. Then we use those areas of interest as the core substance of the writing itself.
Near-Peer Mentorship
College mentors can lay out the tracks that got them to where they are today and make them feel attainable for middle and high schoolers. Beyond proximity in age, there’s significant shared experience: our college mentors also had their education affected by the pandemic, they grew up on social media, and speak the same jargon. Our mentors get what it’s like to grow up as a kid in today’s world. With that closeness, our mentors are able to develop a strong foundation of trust and understanding with their mentees that is core to the efficacy of our mentorship model.
What would students work on?
That depends on your student’s needs. Typically they will fall in one of two use cases:
PERSONAL WRITING DEVELOPMENT
Working with a writing mentor to improve your writing by developing your own work. Learn not only the necessary skills to improve writing and through the opportunity to practice, but also learn the ability to take self-initiative and practice self-betterment without it being assigned as homework from your teacher.
What can students do with the work they develop?
Submit to national writing competitions like NYT Stem Writing Contest, Playwriting Contest for 11th graders, Ocean Awareness Contest, and/or the John Locke Essay Competition.
Start their own blog.
ACADEMIC WRITING SUPPORT
Work with a writing mentor to help your student build the foundational writing skills, develop a framework to nail the writing process, and gain confidence. Learn more about our approach to academic writing mentorship here.
What impact will this have on your student?
Increased confidence in school
Improved test scores + school grades over time
Higher engagement with coursework
Ready to sign up?
What makes Curious Cardinals different?
Our mentorship philosophy follows principles that create an engaging environment that students want to return to, inevitably leading to better results.
1
Students are matched to a mentor who shares their identity and/or interests so they can see themselves in their mentor and have fun working together.
2
Mentors aim to develop a foundation of trust and mutual respect with their students.
3
By identifying the root of a student’s struggle and connecting what they’re learning in school to what a student is interested in, mentors facilitate a learning environment meant to empower their student to thrive and foster a love of learning.
4
Mentors help their students gain confidence in themselves through practice, positive reinforcement, and by nurturing a supportive learning environment.
5
Mentors hold students accountable to actualize goals they established when they defined what success looks like in the engagement.
HOW MENTORS CAN HELP
This is John, a stellar Curious Cardinals mentor.
John recently graduated from Harvard where he studied psychology, neuroscience, and government. Listen to him explain how Academic Writing Mentorship can help your student.
Parents are fans, too.
“Every parent hopes that their kids can find role models who are not only highly ambitious and highly accomplished, but also have integrity and compassion too - and that's what Curious Cardinals has facilitated for my daughter. Her mentor helped her find her author's voice and put together a viable plan to launch her blog, all empowering her with more confidence in herself as an individual. She loved it so much that I signed my son up too!”
DEB LIU, MOM & CEO OF ANCESTRY
"We marvel at the fact that the best teachers our kids have ever had aren’t even teachers! Alec and Audrey have such an impressive mastery of their respective subjects. They create engaging, relevant and challenging coursework that accomplishes what we most want for our kids - a love of learning."
ALICIA TRANEN, MOM OF 5TH AND 8TH GRADERS
“Asher is an engaging mentor who inspires my son to love learning.
Igniting intellectual passion is the key to creating life long learners who never stop wanting to understand and grow and my son is lucky to have Asher as a partner in his unusual covid-period learning!”
HEATHER LEFCOURT, MOM OF 6TH GRADER
Mentor capacity is limited. Fill out the booking form so we know you're interested.