ABSTRACT
During my fieldwork, I was hosted by an academic counselor, Ms. Mendez, at a public high school ranked among the top 100 best high schools in the nation by U.S. News and World Reportin 2007. She had been at the school for three years and her advising load was 300 students, including 82 seniors. The school’s student population was 82% low income, 66% Latino, 17% Asian, and 14% White. Ms. Mendez described the school as “competitive with a strong college-going culture.” Despite the school’s excellent academic reputation, however, she told me that only a small percentage of their students go on to four-year universities. She explained that although many students are accepted to four-year schools, they ultimately choose to attend local community colleges due to financial concerns. I was skeptical how a school that was so highly ranked did not have high college-going rates. Toward the end of my visit, when I asked Ms. Mendez about her student “success stories” she helped get into college, she could not recall any to tell me about. As I conducted more interviews with educators, I began to realize that there is something special about those, who unlike Ms. Mendez, had stories for me of students they had put on the path to higher education.
