At Camden Prep, a renaissance school that is part of the Uncommon Schools charter network, almost all of its 1,200 students come from low-income households where only one in five adults have college degrees. Yet Michelle Mora, one of Camden Prep’s College Access Counselors, is determined that her students buck those odds. 

In a recent interview Mora described how this works in a school population that faces enormous obstacles—53% of students come from Spanish-speaking homes — yet is currently the highest-performing district or renaissance school in Camden City. It all comes down, she says, to establishing “intentional relationships” with students, which “is essential to their success and college completion.”  In a school with a strong college-going culture, Mora (whose first language is Spanish) and her colleagues strive to provide students with the same resources available to students from affluent communities, like college visits, SAT and ACT tutoring, and writing coaches. “We’re going to do everything possible to help them succeed,” she says.

This all-hands-on-deck approach at Camden Prep starts in eleventh grade when every student takes a college seminar class taught by a counselor, which continues for an additional semester in twelfth grade. “Our goal,” Mora says, is to “have our students talk through what they see as their purpose and their passions, and help them to get to know themselves.” At the same time, “we expose them to all the post-secondary options that are available to them.” 

Counselors are fully aware of the obstacles these students face, with many of them first-generation college applicants, some of whom are undocumented.  (U.S. public schools, by law, educate all students in their catchment areas, regardless of immigration status.) “There is a lot of uncertainty,” she says, and “we need to meet with them one-on-one in order for them to feel safe opening up to us, to feel like they are emotionally supported, to get them past those self-doubts.” In some cases, college counselors meet with their students every day.

How does this work? Camden Prep prides itself on the ratio of students to counselors, the only way to ensure students have so much attention. Mora’s caseload this year is 22 students and the average ratio for Uncommon students is 17.1. To put this in perspective, the national average student to counselor ratio in 2022-2023 was 385:1. (In Camden City district schools the ratio is 412:1. And it’s not about money: According to the NJ Department of Education database, Camden district schools receive $36,338 per pupil each year and Camden Prep receives $17,462.) 

These staffing decisions have consequences: This report  from the National Association of College Admissions Counselors finds that students who meet one-on-one with a school counselor are 6.8 times more likely to complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), 3.2 times more likely to attend college, and 2 times more likely to enroll in a bachelor’s degree program.  

To wit: Last year every Camden Prep graduate was accepted to at least one four-year college, with an average of six acceptances.

The college seminars at Camden Prep include counselors taking students on site-visits to colleges, as well as to college and job fairs; the school offers free preparation for college admissions exams and essays. According to the DOE database, 100% of Camden Prep students take the SAT (compared to 61% of the city’s traditional district students). In some cases, colleges offer “fly-in” opportunities; one of Mora’s students recently visited Colorado College at the university’s expense. Mora also notes that she and her colleagues have the  responsibility of walking students and parents step-by-step through the daunting FAFSA application process, which becomes more onerous when there is a language barrier. Camden Prep offers workshops where parents come in and sit one-on-one with a counselor who ensures the application is completed. “

“To do this work, your passion must be all-consuming,” says Mora, sufficient to “spend so many hours on the phone and staying up late to review essays. My students are very close to my heart.”