The road to college depends heavily on the guidance of adults

’Tis the season when hopeful college applicants across America begin checking their mailboxes with increasing anxiety, hoping for an envelope that is thick, not thin, marked with a cheerful “congratulationsffl” — not regrets.

Actually, that’s the Hollywood version. In 2017, acceptance letters come first in an undramatic, even killjoy fashion: via email. For my nephew, that email announcing his acceptance arrived on Saturday. His dad managed to keep it a secret for three days, trying to hide his giddiness as he covertly submitted an online rush order for a jacket and hat from the kid’s soon-to-be alma mater.

Then, the kid saw a follow-up email Tuesday morning, dashing the Hollywood ending, just hours before the envelope arrived.

No matter. The drama and celebration and tears are flowing this week in our family. My nephew, the son of a manicurist and a handyman from Seguin, both incredibly bright but neither college graduates, got into his dream school, the No. 1-ranked liberal arts college in the nation, Williams College, in western Massachusetts.

The opportunity will change his life. It will open doors he never knew existed. And, thanks to a generous financial aid package, he won’t be burdened with debt as he might be at a state school.

The journey to this point — with all the research to find the right college, and the tours and the essay-writing and the form-filling — was long, grueling, at times infuriating. Something of a cross between childbirth and a medieval gauntlet. Honestly, the only thing that makes me happier than the final result is that it’s finally over.

But as I think back at the process, I can’t help but think of the kids who didn’t make it through. The kids who didn’t even know how to start. The kids who weren’t as fortunate as my nephew to have someone guiding him, pushing him, even at times, nagging him, to the finish line.

He’s a bright, talented kid with great grades and scores and an impressive list of extracurriculars. But these days, that’s not nearly enough. In many ways, a highly qualified student is either limited or buoyed by the grown-ups around him — from parents who either encourage college or not, to the teachers and counselors and administrators at school who either have or don’t have the skills, optimism, energy, connections and general wherewithal to help.

In so many schools, this support simply isn’t there.

Back when I was in high school in Seguin, I told my college counselor I wanted to go to Syracuse University in upstate New York for its journalism program and she told me it was too cold and I probably couldn’t get in anyway. Things worked out well for me at the University of Texas, but I would have liked a few options.

Nonprofit bridges gap

My nephew had a lot of support and encouragement from school teachers and staff. I helped him as much as I could, and applied what I’d learned from the EMERGE program. But like many rural and semi-rural high schools where few kids apply to top-tier colleges, the process was foreign. Basic components such as a school profile that provides statistics and demographics information weren’t readily available. A teacher seemed to take offense when I asked if she could follow College Board suggestions in writing her recommendation letter.

These days, we’re all about encouraging a college-bound mindset among students. But what’s it all for if the grown-ups don’t share that mindset, or if they lack training and education to make college dreams a reality?

This gap is in part what led Rick Cruz, a former Houston ISD math teacher, to start the nonprofit EMERGE back in 2013. I’ve written about the program several times through the years. I’ve watched as its mission to help low-income, first-generation college applicants get into elite institutions has become more and more successful, as it began to partner with HISD, where Cruz now works in college readiness.

This past summer, I attended college tours with students in New England and saw first-hand how actually stepping foot on the scenic campuses, gazing up at the towering libraries, eating in the dining halls and talking with current college students showed them that Yale and Harvard, Smith, and Williams aren’t just names on glossy brochures. They’re places, and people, and — indeed, endowments — that can change your life.

My nephew paid his own way to tag along on that trip. After an information session and one stroll through Williams, he knew it was the place for him. Without that trip, he probably wouldn’t have known it existed.

Begin in middle school

Over the next few years, EMERGE will expand even more in public schools. Earlier this month, the nonprofit Houston Endowment Inc. awarded the program $13 million in grants, one of the largest private donations in the district’s history. In announcing the grants, Superintendent Richard Carranza said it would help thousands of additional HISD students access “life-changing postsecondary opportunities.”

Already, EMERGE’s program in Houston public schools has helped about 600 students attend elite colleges and universities across the country, Cruz says, with most receiving more than $200,000 in scholarships and grants, and around 94 percent graduating or on track to graduate within four years.

With the grants, HISD plans to add to its ranks of college advisers, broaden access to high-quality college advising and increase the number of students it sends to college from 250 to

350. It will also extend the college readiness programming to middle school.

Yes, middle school. That’s how early students today need to start preparing for college, because they’re making pivotal decisions about what schools to attend, classes to take, and they’re developing a mindset that either sets them on the course, or not, to compete.

I applaud the Endowment and other private organizations that support college access programs. They’re helping every taxpaying Texan’s investment in public schools go even further. We need more of that support. We need more school districts to prioritize funding for college counseling. We need state leaders to understand as well as the private sector that investing in higher education pays off through the educated, motivated, well-employed citizenry it produces. Slashing the budgets of our public universities only hurts the future of this state and encourages our brightest students to go elsewhere.

Every student who is willing to work hard deserves an opportunity. So many kids are holding up their end of the bargain. We grown-ups should hold up ours. lisa.falkenberg@chron.com twitter.com/chronfalkenberg