When Morgan Park Academic Center seventh-grader Thaddeus Scott-Larkins and his family were preparing for him to make the leap to middle school last year, they knew he could use some extra academic support. Scott-Larkins' mom found the University of Chicago’s Maroon Tutor Match (MTM) program and Thaddeus’ twice-weekly on-campus sessions with UChicago student Emi Fung quickly started paying off. “Middle school meant more teachers and switching classes and more to manage and I really liked the fact that the Maroon Tutor Match program has structure but there’s space to talk to your tutor holistically about what the goal is,” Ebony Scott-Anderson said. “Because Thad is not a kid who had Fs, but we knew that school’s going to get harder and as a parent there’s only so much I can help him with. Emi’s just been really great.”
Maroon Tutor Match, a University-student led program within UChicago’s Neighborhood Schools Program, provides one-on-one tutoring to local K – 12 families at a fraction of the cost of other traditional tutoring programs. In the 2023/2024 school year, MTM’s nearly 100 University student tutors served more than 150 families, mostly on the South Side, with a limited number of scholarships provided to families based on financial need.
“Tutoring plays an such a critical role in building academic confidence and addressing learning gaps, especially during student’s formative years,” said Brandi Snodgrass, Director of Neighborhood School Partnerships at the UChicago Office of Civic Engagement. “Through the leadership of our student team, the scholarships for South Side students made possible by the UChicago Women’s Board, and the dedication of our tutors and tutees, we’re so proud to be shaping brighter futures and supporting students on their educational journeys. One of the best aspects of Maroon Tutor Match is the flexibility it offers, as our tutors have the ability to create their schedules directly with the students and families they serve, making the tutoring experience even more personal and effective.”
That was the case for Scott-Larkins, whose schedule at his new school has shifted his meetings with Fung to three virtual sessions per week this year. The two have covered everything from better organizing and showing his work in math to analyzing themes in reading assignments to adjusting to middle school’s more demanding expectations.
“Emi’s been able to explain stuff to me—she’s given me tips she’s learned about being a student, she’s given me advice on notetaking skills, how to annotate,” Thaddeus said. “I feel like my grades have gotten better and I’ve felt more confident.”
Fung, too, has found the experience of working with Scott-Larkins to be not only meaningful but valuable for her own professional aspirations.
“Thad’s enthusiastic and brings a lot of energy that’s just infectious so I love working with him. I enjoy the connection in general. It gets really easy to get so wrapped up in your own schoolwork that you don’t get to experience the community so it’s been so rewarding,” Fung, now a second-year double majoring in physics and Law Letters and Society, said. “This experience has taught me a lot about how to communicate— being able to distill really complex topics into simpler terms—and how to be patient. I’m thinking about law school right now and of course for law school it’s really important to be able to communicate effectively and I think these skills will translate in that I’ve learned how to communicate better to a wider range of people.”
For Scott-Anderson, who was able to secure an MTM scholarship for Thaddeus this year, the program’s cost and quality have made it a vital resource. “The average family doesn’t have a ton of insight into the complexity of how one can be prepared for college. There are so many skills that if you have not explicitly been exposed to them by the time you’re in eighth or ninth grade, you’re really going to struggle when you get to college,” Ebony Scott-Anderson said. “When you look at the kids who are from an opposite demographic, who live in a different zip code, and a different income area—they have tutors, they have test prep, they have all of those resources all around them. I know that in college [Thad’s] going to have to learn how to find resources on campus and study with others and learn from others and so I do see this as a way for him to pick up those soft skills in addition to the academic tutoring.”
The time Thaddeus has spent on UChicago’s campus and interacting with college students like Emi has also been helpful, he and his mom say, in allowing him to see himself as a college student in a few short years. Currently, he even sees himself aiming to attend UChicago when the time comes and working toward a job in STEM.
“UChicago looks super cool, I do feel like I want to go there,” Scott-Larkins says. “I feel like it would be a good experience and from what I’ve seen it could help my goals.”
Scott-Anderson has seen Thaddeus’ work with Fung and interaction with UChicago already pushing him closer to those goals: “He’s getting exposure to sitting in the library and seeing all these other students who do their homework and take it seriously and treat it like a job—he has to see that in order to know that that’s what it takes.”