An abridged version of this story appears on page 3 of the Lance.

For students in the best of circumstances, with the most informed parents, applying to college is incredibly complicated and time-consuming.

Signing up for and taking the ACT or SAT, researching college options, figuring out how to submit applications, writing personal essays, gathering letters of recommendation, getting transcripts sent out, having a parent fill out lengthy financial aid forms, applying for scholarships…it’s a formidable task.

Just try figuring it all out if you’re the first person in your family to apply to college.

It’s no surprise low-income students, many of whose parents did not attend college, find the process especially intimidating and confusing.

For low-income students at Westside, though, it’s getting much easier.

This year, Westside has entered into a relationship with an organization called College Possible, whose mission is to enable promising students from low-income families to attend college and be successful there. College Possible is still a young organization, but it gets results: an astounding 98 percent of its students go to college.

Ellen Sundermeier, a college coach and the organization’s representative at Westside, is currently working with 35 juniors. Her job is to ensure these students will be ready to apply to four-year colleges next year. That includes teaching them how to navigate college websites, working with them on test preparation, and helping them with their resumés and college essays.

“These are students that are really, really driven, and just have such passion for the things they are involved in, and getting the chance to work with them and see that they do have the potential and the drive to succeed in college makes it really worth it,” Sundermeier said. “I really love getting the chance to just talk to them and understand where they come from and where they’re hoping to go in their future.”

To be eligible for College Possible this year, students had to have a GPA of 2.0 or higher, and their families had to fall in a certain income range, which Sundermeier said is confidential for now.

“Basically, the range that we go for are the students who have a good chance of doing well in college but maybe don’t have the resources to get there, unless they have us as an extra help,” Sundermeier said. “It’s the students who maybe have a great GPA but aren’t really able to succeed on the ACT because they can’t afford to pay for expensive test preparation or something like that.”

Last spring, all the sophomores who fit the GPA and income range — about 120 in all — had letters sent to their parents and were invited to come speak to a College Possible representative.

When junior Courtney Perquin got the invitation last year, she decided to check it out.

Her number one motivation, she said, was making her mom happy. After having a child at a young age, her mom didn’t have the opportunity to go to college when she was younger.

“She’s in college right now,” Perquin said. “But besides that, not even my grandma or my dad, or anybody in my family, really, has even graduated high school, so [for me] to be the first person to graduate college, or even go to college in general, is kind of a big deal, and [my mom] wants me to be something — be better. I think every parent wants their kids to be better than what they did.”

By the time Perquin finished the application process and found out she got in, she knew College Possible was something she wanted to be involved in.

“I knew it could help you get scholarships, keep you on track, and teach you about the ACT and get you in the ‘college zone’ so you know what to expect and what to do,” Perquin said. I knew I would definitely need the help. Especially as far as financial-wise goes, I needed a little bit of help there. So after I met the coaches and they were both super nice, I was like, ‘This is definitely what I want to do.’”

Perquin said she’s grown up knowing she would go to college, but might not have been able to find some college-related resources if it hadn’t been for College Possible. The most helpful thing, she said, has been the ACT preparation.

Twice a week, each student in College Possible attends a two-hour after-school session run by Sundermeier; the content will change over the year, but right now, the sessions are about test prep. Three different groups meet at different times, so students get plenty of attention. They all get Princeton Review textbooks at no cost, and on some Saturday mornings, they come to school and take practice ACT tests.

“When we get our results back, every single time, every [student’s] grades always increase, each ACT that we do,” Perquin said. “So far we’ve done four, and then we have the official one in April.”

In the fall, the juniors in College Possible had the opportunity to visit a number of colleges in the area on the weekends. Later in the spring, when the weather is nicer, they’ll visit more campuses.

Perquin’s favorite college so far, Peru State College, was the first college campus she had ever set foot on.

“I [used to think] that college was really scary, but after the college visits and everything, you kind of realize it’s just like a bigger high school,” Perquin said. “After the college visits, you get to know the student life and everything that goes on. Everybody at college just seemed super nice. It made me not really afraid anymore.”

The juniors will be required to apply for at least one summer enrichment program at a college or university. Sundermeier said summer programs benefit students because they get to experience what it’s like living and taking classes on a college campus, and can see if a certain college is a good fit for them. While some students attend summer programs at nearby colleges, others try to go further afield. Two girls from Westside recently applied for a summer enrichment program at Princeton.

Next year, when the Westside students currently in the program are seniors, they’ll get help identifying colleges to apply to, and a coach will guide them through the application process, including financial aid forms and scholarships.

“I think a lot of students have it in their head that it’s not really possible for them to go to school, because seeing those sticker prices of colleges where they’re so expensive — it’s really scary,” Sundermeier said. “A lot of them don’t realize that there are grants and scholarships and loans that we can work on. We’re making sure that they are able to do that and overcome the things that might seem most scary at first.”

Students in College Possible are strongly pushed in the direction of four-year colleges, but beyond that, it’s up to them what colleges to apply to. Past College Possible students have attended both public and private colleges across the country.

College Possible, a nonprofit organization, was founded in St. Paul, MN in 2000, and has since expanded to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Portland, Oregon. Its representatives in high schools are college coaches like Sundermeier, most of them recent college graduates. This is its third year in Omaha; it currently has coaches stationed in eight other high schools in the area.

According to guidance counselor Melissa Hansen, Westside and College Possible first connected in the fall of 2012, when Laura Schabloske, a Westside graduate and the director of College Possible in Omaha at the time, contacted Superintendent Blane McCann, Principal Maryanne Ricketts, and the English department head at the time, Nancy Mitchell, and gave them information about the program. After a series of meetings late in the year, it was decided that having a coach at Westside could really benefit students.

A major consideration in Westside’s decision to partner with College Possible was the fact that someone from the organization continues working with students once they’re in college and no longer have access to their guidance counselors. They’ll be reminded to renew their scholarships, register for classes, and so on.

“That was the key piece in the decision to bring College Possible in — that follow-up piece they do once the students get onto the college campus,” Hansen said. “Because a lot of times once they get there they have even more questions than they did when they were in high school, and they don’t know where to go, or they get told ‘no’ and they kind of give up.”

Soon, College Possible will start recruiting students from the current sophomore class, for next year. Hansen said all sophomores will receive a letter about the program, and there will be an informational table at parent-teacher conferences in March. Then, there will be information sessions for interested students and their parents.

Hansen encouraged any students who are interested to contact her. Going forward, she said, she envisions College Possible being part of Westside for years to come.

“Our demographics have changed in just probably the last five to 10 years, and we have more families that are needing that financial support, or need that additional information and more of that hands-on approach of helping them get papers processed for college, and things of that nature,” Hansen said. “This program is definitely helping those students access the American dream of going to college.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story listed Laura Schabloske as “the director of College Possible.” The story has been changed to reflect the fact that Schabloske was the director of College Possible in Omaha at the time. She is no longer the director.