A Year in Volunteering
To celebrate Global Volunteer Month this April, we think it’s right to celebrate the incredible work of our Project Access (PA) volunteers over the past year. With 145 team members volunteering a staggering 34,000 hours to help students from underrepresented backgrounds get into their dream unis, let’s look at their highlights over the last year.
April 2023
The Annual PA Denmark Roadtrip
April 17-19: PA Denmark successfully hosted its three-day flagship outreach event, which was attended by 200+ students from the Academy for Talented Youth. In addition to introducing our mentoring programme, bootcamps and webinars with insights into university admissions in the UK, EU and US, we were joined by the Christ's College Admissions Team (Cambridge).
A massive thank you for the invaluable contributions of Agnes Bjørn Andersen, Jakob Petersen, Harrison Smith, Sindhura Siddapureddy, Freja Goldman, William Lenander and the Cambridge team of Emily Tomlinson and Ellie Wood.
PA's Slack Mentorship Community Launch
By seamlessly onboarding our hundreds of mentors on Slack and setting up PA mentor channels for #mentors-us, #mentors-eu, and #mentors-uk, our Product & Programmes Team has developed a thriving community hub that enables dynamic collaboration and support among mentors and interaction with mentees.
Congratulations Roll In: Acceptances to Harvard, UPenn, NYU, Stanford, and Brown!
The dedication of our hard-working mentors has been rewarded. With recent Ivy Day decisions, several of our mentees secured acceptances at renowned universities such as Harvard, UPenn, NYU, Stanford and Brown. Their success mirrors the commitment and ongoing support of the entire PA community!
Connect & Explore: Virtual Speed Dating with Team Austria - Gateway to University Insights!
April 18: PA Austria hosted a virtual speed dating event, where the mentees were given an insight into the doors and opportunities open to them to allow them to discover what best suits their ambitions and interests.
Tripling Impact with New Google Grant Accounts for Country Teams!
An important milestone has been reached by securing new Google Grant accounts for our country teams, tripling our Google Ads budget. This expansion promises to improve our online activities and increase our impact across regions.
May 2023
Cambridge x Project Access Programme Successfully Completed
The completion of our Cambridge x Project Access programme proved to be a resounding success. Pairing all 130+ offer holders meant a huge step towards equal access to educational opportunities and closing the gap for students with barriers to admission. The provision of mentors, resources and programme courses by our programme team was ground-breaking - huge thank you to the Product Team, especially Taran Glasson and Sören Twietmeyer!
Submitting Application for ECOSOC Consultative Status
With our application for consultative status at the UN ECOSOC (the outcome remains to be seen!), we are taking an important step towards a deeper commitment and the fight against inequality globally!
June 2023
Launch of Project Access Greece!
The amazing Stella Katsardi launched our latest team in Greece, allowing us to support underrepresented uni applicants from Greece.
July 2023
Launch of our internal data platform
July 21: The most revolutionary innovation of the year (and perhaps in the history of PA) was driven by our Head of Product, Benedikt Mautner. With his unwavering commitment over months and the product guidance of Lukas Popp, we developed and officially launched our proprietary digital platform. With a central screening function for mentors and mentees, a calibrated pairing algorithm and numerous indispensable functions for the PA Team, it revolutionizes the mentorship work of Project Access and significantly increases our impact.
Project Access Africa Application Bootcamp
July 24-28: PA Africa's online US college application bootcamp drew dozens of participants who were guided through the requirements, college selection and intricacies of the CommonApp system. The team around Takunda Chikuvire highlighted the importance of providing students with valuable insights and practical tips for their educational journey.
August 2023
Mentor Recruitment Hackathon
Our Global Director of Campus Operations, Sindhura Siddapureddy, organised a mentor recruitment hackathon to get more inspiring students to sign up as Project Access mentors.
Alongside this, our Co-Heads of Marketing, Ieva Petruskevicius and William Lenander, created our beautiful mentor recruitment flyers, which were released around the revered halls of Harvard by our team members Nilay Ersoy and Lauritz Neubauer, and Erin Keita, a Project Access mentor.
October 2023
Grammarly X Project Access Partnership
Partnerships Officer Celine Winata signed a partnership with Grammarly to get our mentees, mentors, and team members 150 spots for Grammarly+. A much-needed boost ahead of all those late-night essay deadlines!
Project Access Elects New CEO & Vice-CEO
Lukas Popp and Cosima Paul were announced as our new CEO & Vice-CEO, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in our story!
Project Access Couchsurfing & Spotify Playlist
A little fun amidst all our hard work! Our CEO Lukas Popp brought back our beloved couchsurfing initiative: we have members in over 50 countries, and from this date onwards we all made sure they had a place to stay all around the world.
We didn’t stop there! Aakansha Das showed off her DJ skills by creating our very own Spotify playlist. It’s things like this that make volunteering at PA super enjoyable :)
November 2023
180 Degrees Consulting Cambridge X Project Access Partnership
Our UK Programme team worked with 180 Degrees Consulting Cambridge, a student-led consulting organisation, to revitalise our mentor recruitment at UK unis. They came up with a host of ideas, most of which will be implemented until the end of 2024!
HEC Paris X Project Access Event in London
Our brilliant UK Campus Director, Carlotta Denkman, organised an event in London with the world-leading business school HEC Paris. It was a great opportunity for students to learn more about their university’s Master’s programmes.
New Global Leadership Team
We announced our new Global Leadership Team (basically our version of The Avengers!) welcoming five Global Directors:
Beni Mautner (Technology, Data Science, and Research)
Michelle Yaochai (Marketing and PR)
Gabby English (Talent and Culture)
Nilay Ersoy (Country Operations and Outreach)
Taran Glasson (Mentorship Programmes and Campus Operations)
December 2023
Xmas Gift Exchange
Our very own Project Access Christmas Elves Lukas Popp and Aakansha Das sent presents to all our volunteers, making Christmas extra special!
January 2024
Mentor Recruitment Event at Christ’s College, Cambridge
With the help of Christ’s College, our team of trailblazers ran an event to recruit mentors ahead of our Cambridge Offer Holder Programme. A massive well done to Carlotta Denkmann, Tarun Rao, Vivien Alves Passing, and Lea Havemeister! With their help, we recruited a staggering 130 Cambridge mentors in two months!!
Taran Glasson, a Project Access team member, reunited with his former mentee and current Cambridge student at the Cambridge Mentor Recruitment Event.
Introduction to Project Access Event at Oriel College, Oxford
Not content with one event, our Oxford Campus Officer Tarun Rao made it two in two weeks by hosting an event for Oxford students who were eager to volunteer as mentors. We recruited over 20 mentors from Oxford in January 2024 alone!
DACH-Region Programme Launch
At the start of 2024, DACH Programme Director Simon Schümann and his team - Paula Grau, Ben Litzinger, and Erich Forst - performed minor miracles to launch a brand new mentorship programme. Aimed at applicants to universities in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), we’re hoping to help 50+ mentees by the end of the year.
February 2024
Re-Launch of Our Project Access ‘Prep’ Programme
We re-launched our ‘Prep’ Programme, designed to help students with over a year left before applying to top unis in the UK, US, and EU. Well done to the Programmes Team - Sören Twietmeyer, Harshita Singh, Alexander Németh, and Beverly Dweck - for organising this!
London Project Access Social
Our incredible Talent Team - Gabby English, Mika Sprenger, Sophie Anker, Nico Fischer, and Isabella Farbahi - alongside Project Access icons Aakansha Das and Jakob Petersen, organised an outstanding social in London. It was amazing to get our global volunteers together in one place!
Cambridge Offer Holders’ Programme Launch
Our brilliant Cambridge Programme Officers Tom Vaughan and Matthew Ramli kicked off our Cambridge Programme, which helps 125 offer holders from underrepresented backgrounds meet their offers to start studying at the uni of their dreams!
AlphaSights X Project Access Partnership
We joined forces with AlphaSights to widen our impact and reach even more communities worldwide! A huge congratulations to Jakob Petersen whose hard work made this happen.
March 2024
UCL Education Innovation Careers Fair
Our team members - Taran Glasson, Nico Fischer, and Tarun Rao - represented Project Access at the UCL Education Innovation Careers Fair. We were proud not only to be recognised for our work in fighting education inequality, but to be the only student-led, volunteering organisation at the event.
April 2024
TutorHive X Project Access Partnership
A UK-based tutoring company, TutorHive, partnered with us to give all our mentees a free tutoring session on their platform!
SaveMyExams X Project Access Partnership
SaveMyExams, an exam resources organisation, offered Scholarships to 125 Project Access mentees! They have free access to over 20,000 revision notes, 100,000 practice questions, model answers, past papers, mark schemes, exam tips and more put together by expert teachers. Just in time for summer exams!
Congratulations to Our Mentees: Acceptances at Princeton, Harvard, and Oxford
From Jan-April 2024, we received the incredible news that many of our mentees got offers from some of the best universities in the world, including Princeton, Harvard, and Oxford.
It’s fitting to end this blog on the success of our mentees. They’re exactly what we do this for, and why more needs to be done to democratise education once and for all.
Interested in joining our team of trailblazing volunteers? You can find out more about joining the team here and becoming a mentor here.
Help us change the world, one volunteer at a time!