This reports on a paired mentoring pilot study aimed at supporting disadvantaged students who were taking their compulsory General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) science examination in their final year of secondary education in England (Year 11 – aged 15 to 16) by pairing them with undergraduate mentors from a university. The study was set up as a randomised control trial and involved 86 disadvantaged students across four secondary schools with half being involved in the intervention and half in the control – drawing on an inter and intra school comparison. The mentoring lasted for 23 weeks with an intensive six-hour mentoring session just prior to their GCSE examinations. Data was collected from Year 11 students’ mock and actual GCSE examinations results and questionnaires from both Year 11 and undergraduates. The pilot results found that mentored students did statistically better in terms of their attainment both in mock and actual GCSE examinations as well as a statistically greater improvement in their attitudes to science than un-mentored students. These findings demonstrate the impact and value of academically asymmetrical paired mentoring projects. Professor Ian Abrahams now leads the funded EEF/Welcome ASCENTS 1-2-1 project.