Barrier Breakers® founder, Sydney Montgomery, became the first person from her high school to attend Princeton University and later Harvard Law School. The daughter of military parents and a Jamaican immigrant mother, she became passionate about supporting other students on their educational journey. She started working with students on the college application process in 2012 and later the law school application process in 2015. You can learn more about Sydney's story and dedication to first-generation students in her latest TEDx talk: First-Generation Graduates Drive Business Success.

Barrier Breakers® was first born as S. Montgomery Admissions Consulting in 2018, a for-profit admissions consulting company that specialized in working with marginalized students. After rapid growth and realizing that she could serve more students in ways that aligned with her mission and values as a non-profit organization, Sydney converted her entire for-profit company into a non-profit organization in December 2022.

Since becoming a non-profit organization in 2022, Barrier Breakers® has been able to: 

• Provide free college counseling to high school students who qualify for Free and Reduced Meal Services.

• Partner with non-profit organizations and Title I high schools in Trenton, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA.

• Give away a free asynchronous online writing course and curriculum to thousands of law school applicants.

• Collaborate to provide free law school support to 3,000+ students in the Writing for Impact Program run by the Law School Admission Council. 

• Expand our virtual and free Break into Law Conference to 4,000+ registrants from 2023-2024 and add robust law school and career fairs for prospective and current law school students. 

• Give away $3,000+ in scholarship money to aspiring students.

• Provide discount essay editing services to college and law school applicants.

• Discount our small group boot camps and private advising packages over 75% off to low-income students with Fee Waivers from the Law School Admission Council.

• Provide sliding scale discounts to 97% of our students.

• Offer free guidance to all of our students throughout college and law school.

Still, we have a goal to do more.

As we continue to grow as a non-profit organization, we aim to increase donations and funding to expand our free services to more low-income high school students and transition to making all of our admissions services free or nominal to law school applicants who hold an LSAC Fee-Waiver (an indication of lower income).

We have a roadmap to drastically expand the number of college applicants accessing our high-touch services for free every year to 100 students and law school applicants accessing our high-touch services for free or nominal fee every year to at least 200 students by 2026.