My research is about mentoring and tutoring young middle school students. Though ultimately my capstone went in a different direction then I expected, and I believe this change helped me in the end. A Lot of my research focuses on high school freshmen struggling. Every year more and more students are dropping out of high school, and this can be traced back to students beginning to struggle as early as middle school. Every year about 1.2 million students drop out of school a year, and 25% of high school freshmen fail to graduate on time ( 4 years) (stark, 2015). This inspired me to want to go and help middle school students be prepared so they don't fall behind in when they get to high school.