The college access program operated within a Title 1 high school that served students who primarily came from East Harlem and the Bronx. The students were very academically capable, scoring an average of 1200 on the SAT.

When we began, leaders held unproductive Beliefs that students were not sophisticated enough to navigate college applications without a high-touch process. There was a 7-to-1 student to counselor ratio. Program enrollment was expected to quadruple within a year, and ultimately grow by 10x within 5 years.