Introduction
During the Spring of 2010, researchers spent time shadowing school counselors at Bennett High School to better understand the barriers to college access that students in Buffalo face as they consider postsecondary options. That experience provided three key insights that serve as the foundation for the work of the College Success Center (CSC). First, school counselors are overextended and have very little time to dedicate to assist students through the college choice process. They do, in fact, spend a great deal of time on these activities but they cannot spend enough time with all students who plan to attend college. Second, schools are open to receiving assistance from outside organizations, but often these relationships place an additional burden on school staff because someone must be responsible for outside groups in the building. Third, even low preforming schools want to establish a college-going culture to support the aspirations of their students. In consultation with school counselors at Bennett, Dr. Daun-Barnett established three goals for what has become the College Success Center at Bennett High School:

1. Free counselors from the administrative burdens of the college choice process so that they can spend more time counseling students;
2. Create a space dedicated to college choice and designed to contribute to the establishment of a college-going culture;
3. Serve as a conduit between the school and the range of university and community partners that can be brought to bear to improve college access for Bennett students.

In this report we describe the work of the College Success Center at Bennett and the conceptual framework that links the activities of the center to the goals articulated above (Figure 1). We also develop a specific theory of change describing how we expect the work of the CSC to influence the college-going culture of the school (Figure 2). The second section addresses the outcomes after the first year of the program across all three broad goals. We first summarize outcomes related to the nine metrics articulated in the organizing documents for the center. Next, we examine outcomes associated with the three goals but not specifically articulated in the key metrics. The third and final section includes a discussion of potential changes to the work of the Center. The CSC is evolving and changing over time and we expect that activities of the center will change as well. There are no simple solutions to the college access challenge but a multi-faceted, comprehensive strategy has the potential to make a difference.

Outcomes
The first two outcomes for the College Success Center reflect the usage of the space and we estimate providing 1,221 individual consultations to 325 sophomores, juniors and seniors throughout the 2012-13 school year. Our estimates are conservative given that we spent much more time with seniors in classrooms prior to December 1 when the center was opened officially, but we did not have accurate records of each unique consultation. Once the Center opened officially, students signed into a log indicating their attendance and the purpose of their visit. On average, students visited the center on 3.5 occasions, with seniors spending closer to 4.5 periods in the center. The Center had set as goals to reach 50% of sophomores to begin the career navigation process and 50% of juniors to introduce them to the college choice process and on both metrics fell below our benchmarks. We were able to work with 46% of sophomores on career navigation but only 31.5% of juniors on the college choice process. In both cases, these activities were delayed by the later opening of the center.

Outcomes for FAFSA completion and college applications were more promising. Perhaps the strongest contribution of the Center this year was to work with students on the FAFSA. The Center indicated it would assist 50% of seniors with the FAFSA; when this number is limited to graduates, more than 70% completed their FAFSA by the end of the school year. To put this into perspective, FAFSA completions doubled in 2012-13 from the prior year when no services were provided. The numbers for college applications were also promising but leave some room for improvement. Overall, the goal was to increase the proportion of students applying to college by 20% and specifically to four-year colleges by 15%. We did not have complete numbers on applications because many students completed applications independent of the Center, but when asked whether seniors were going to college, 92 of 110 graduates said yes, 22 of which indicated they would attend four-year colleges. Overall attendance was up by 15% (slightly below the goal) but four-year applications appeared to be down. It is possible that more students applied to four-year colleges but were not accepted but we do not have that data for 2012-13.

Finally, we were able to establish baselines for three outcomes that will serve as the point of comparison for future years. We found that approximately half of seniors indicated participation in an after-school program and a third responded that they have attended a pre-college summer program in the past. These numbers were higher than anticipated and our work suggests these may be difficult to change because recruitment for these programs commonly occurs during the end of 8th grade or the beginning of freshmen year; both before the Center has access to students.
The Center had also established a goal to increase parent participation in the FAFSA completion process. If we consider only participation in the Buffalo Scholarship Fair, then participation actually declined, but if we also consider those that participated in conversations around financial aid, FAFSA, and Say Yes to Education, then we saw a modest increase. In either case, there is a great deal more work to be done with parents on FAFSA completion and more broadly their knowledge about the college-going process. The Center had also established a goal that 85% of students would aspire to postsecondary education once they graduate and our survey responses suggest that student aspirations were already high and seniors may have increased modestly.

The remaining three portions of the outcomes section indicate the work of the center that aligned with the three separate goals but that were not captured in the metrics for the Center. The 2012-13 academic year was very much a formative period for the center and while much was accomplished, it simply laid the groundwork for future progress. In some cases the experience also highlighted what worked well and where other efforts may be necessary.

Anticipated Changes for 2013-14
In an effort to make greater progress toward achieving the goals of the Center, we have identified strategies to improve existing work and suggested new initiatives that may address unforeseen challenges or barriers. Some of our suggestions come in response to changing conditions in the school and all of them are rooted in the conceptual frameworks we have developed for the work of the Center.

Increasing College Knowledge
Most of the work of the center this year, and certainly any progress made on the metrics for success, are an indication of our efforts to increase students access to the knowledge and support they need to navigate the college choice process. Most of our strategies to improve students' access to the right information reflects our need to more systematically gather and manage data. With that in mind, the Center will consider or adopt changes in the following areas:

Managing the Flow of Data. The WEST system that the Center had purchased during the first year was not appropriately configured to serve the needs of the Center and we have since hired a consultant to create an alternative data management and reporting spreadsheet for the Center.

Intake Process. One of the keys to managing data for the Center is to ensure the right data is collected from the beginning. As such, we are changing our intake strategy and incorporating a paper file for each student. The Center has developed progress checklists for each grade level that allow us to track student progress that can be updated each time they visit the center.

Central Filing of Student Records in Center. In the past, counselors maintained college files for each of their students that resulted in more work for them. We will consolidate those two systems in the CSC and these files will include all relevant records for the college choice process and will include all of the intake, survey, and career assessment results for each student.

Increased Programmatic Efforts. Early in the academic year, we realized that a good deal more of our work would happen in classrooms than we had anticipated, in large part because that is how counselors do their work and how the school day is structured. In our work, we plan to spend more time earlier in the academic year working with sophomores on career navigation; develop standard programs that could be brought into classrooms, particularly to appeal to teachers interests for their classes; increase efforts to prepare students for understanding the costs of college and how to interpret their financial aid awards.

Increased Promotional Efforts. The success of the Center relies almost exclusively on word of mouth, whether from students, teachers, counselors, or visits from staff to classrooms. In order to reach a greater proportion of students, particularly in 10th and 11th grades, we need to spread the word more effectively. As such, we will employ three strategies to more actively promote the Center - promote the work of the Center during Freshmen orientation before the school year begins, create more print material for mail and Center distribution and develop a stronger, more cohesive digital presence including the Web, social media (Facebook and Twitter), and texting.

Creating a College-going Culture
We have laid out a fairly robust framework for influencing the college-going culture and toward that end, we plan to establish a peer advisory group to provide their thoughts, insights and direction for the Center, establish a "college conversations" series to connect Bennett students with current college students from similar backgrounds and experiences, expand our use of interns in the Center to bring energy and enthusiasm from UB students who want to help more students go to college, and potentially expand opportunities for Bennett alums to return to the school with college work study to share their insights and successes with their high school peers.

Serve as a Conduit Between the School and External Partners
As we described earlier, our plans evolved over time with respect to connecting the school with external resources pertinent to college access and choice. Our original proposal was crafted without any knowledge of the structure of the entire Buffalo Promise Neighborhood initiative. Given the evolving set of relationships in BPN, we have identified expanding relationships with Say Yes to Education and the United Way, to tie free tax preparation with FAFSA completion support. We will have an increased role in coordinating instant admissions programs offered by the local community colleges and will develop a partnership with College for Every Student (CFES) to formalize our role in working with peer mentors.

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There is no evaluation data set.