The MAPS website is a result of ten years of experience assisting California’s young adults with lived experience in foster care apply for graduate degrees. This support was offered through two different organizations.
In 2013, the Guardian Professions Program (GPP) at UC Davis was established to increase the number of students applying for advanced degrees who had experience in foster care. Over the next four years, the GPP worked with students in undergraduate support programs throughout California, as well as former foster youth who had graduated and were already working but wanted to return to graduate school.
During this time period, over eighty applicants successfully gained admission to advanced degree programs in medicine, dentistry, higher education, counseling, law, social work and public policy, among others. GPP associated students attended graduate school at public universities across California, at private schools like USC and Stanford, and at out-of-state campuses including the University of Michigan, Midwestern University Dental School, Boston University and Harvard University.
In 2017, UC Davis re-focused the project’s effort and the GPP became a campus support program solely for former foster youth attending graduate school at the Davis campus.
In 2020, a group of young adults who had benefited from the GPP collaborated to form a new organization, Mentoring for Advanced and Professional Success (MAPS). Realizing the need to sustain state-wide graduate school information and application services, MAPS continued the work of the original program until 2024, helping an additional 57 students gain admission to graduate school programs.
The combined efforts of the GPP and MAPS helped 137 young adults create competitive applications and make their goals a reality. Collectively, the students received approximately $4 million dollars in funding for their education.
Currently, young adults with experience in the foster care system can find the same kind of supportive services with Ready to Succeed (RTS), a Los Angeles based non-profit. The organization’s Graduate School Pathways Program (GSPP) is offering the mentoring, coaching and workshops previously offered by the GPP and MAPS.
If you would like more information regarding the history of the GPP or MAPS, or would like access to the data resulting from these efforts, please contact Sylvia Sensiper, PhD, Research Associate at UC Davis: ssensiper@ucdavis.edu
This website provides the knowledge every prospective student needs to create a competitive application and successfully gain admission to graduate school.