Championing First-Generation and Marginalized Students to College and Law School: Meet Sydney Montgomery

My name is Sydney Montgomery , and I'm the founder and executive director of Barrier Breakers, an education nonprofit specializing in working with first-generation, minority, and immigrant students on the college and law school application process. Since 2020, we've worked with over 7,000 students on their process, helping them receive more than $490 million in scholarships.

My story starts in Germantown, Maryland. My mom is a Jamaican immigrant, and my dad is from the south side of Chicago. My parents met when they were in the Navy, and neither of them had a traditional path from high school to college. Both first joined the military, and my dad received his degree online when I was a junior in high school.?Even though education was so important in our household, they didn't know how to help me with the college application process. Thankfully, I had a teacher who believed in me. She held my hand through the entire college process, helping me become the first person from my high school to go to 美国普林斯顿大学 and later Harvard Law School .

These schools radically changed my life and my path. I started giving back to my high school, my church, and my area, helping students through the college process themselves and also helping them understand financial aid. I always tell people that if I hadn't gotten into Princeton, we wouldn't have been able to afford for me to go to a four-year school. That is because someone guided me through the process, and ultimately fueled my desire to help others. After I graduated from law school, I practiced law. I clerked for a judge and practiced family law, but I pivoted to education full-time in 2020 because I felt a pull to continue to help students.

When I pivoted to education consulting full-time, I didn't fully realize the magnitude of the problem in this country. The average ratio of students to counselors in this country is?408 to 1, and the average college counselor only spends about 38 minutes over four years with a student.?The percentage of black students in the top 101 schools in this country has decreased by 60 percent since?2000. And on the law school side, 49 percent of black applicants don't get into a single law school that they apply to. Only 2 percent of lawyers in this country are black women.?But that backdrop is precisely what made our solution so needed and so unique.

We exploded in 2020, ultimately converting to a nonprofit in 2022. We are radically changing the landscape of admissions consulting as a nonprofit. All of our admission services are done by current or former college or law school admissions deans and directors, all of whom are people of color, understand the lived experiences of first-gen students, and dedicate themselves to helping our students. As a faith-based organization, we also believe in holistically supporting our students, meaning we're there for their emotional needs as well as their academic needs. We provide continued free guidance to students throughout college and law school because first-generation students need wraparound support to succeed.

Having served over 7,000 students since launching, we are a uniquely scalable solution, allowing us to work with institutions like the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) , Yale Law School , and Dillard University and leverage asynchronous digital courses and tools to help reach students. We serve traditional students, students going straight to college from high school or law school from college, as well as non-traditional students, such as a single mom of two who is going back to school. We work with students as old as 65 who are pursuing higher education, formerly incarcerated individuals, domestic and sexual abuse survivors, refugees, formerly homeless students, and students who are military and veterans.

We love our students because they are passionate about education, and we know that with the right guidance, they can make a mark on this country. As a non-profit, we are blessed that we not only have revenue from our sliding-scale services but also?sponsorships from corporations and law firms, institutional contracts with universities, grant funding, and individual donors. In the past year, I have been blessed to be named to the Forbes 30 under 30 Social Impact List for my work with Barrier Breakers, and my TEDx Talk, First-Generation Graduates Drive Business Success, has garnered over 50,000 views. I am a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council and have been featured in Inc. Magazine , Forbes , FastCompany , Medium , and CNBC . I am also a sought-after speaker and have contributed to significant conversations about educational equity and success.

Barrier Breakers is excited to work with GlobalMindED because our organizations have so many synergies! At Barrier Breakers?, Inc. , we focus on the application process and supporting our students once they are in college or law school. Working with GlobalMindED will allow us to provide tangible career resources, networks, and opportunities to our community of first-generation students nationwide. We're thrilled that GlobalMindED shares our commitment and passion for supporting first-generation students and understands the importance of advocacy for this group of individuals.?

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