Morris assessed the situation. With both ambition and a career goal, Britteny possessed two traits that, though notable to an "outsider" such as Morris, may have been overlooked by others. For students who lack Britteny's stellar academic record, those "hidden" traits can make all the difference.

"The teachers and the counselors who have seen these kids for three or four years sometimes look at them differently," Morris explains. "They may look at a kid, and they know about his grades or how he behaves in class and say, 'This is a problem kid and he's going to have problems in college.' I saw them in a different light. I saw motivated kids who had made poor choices. I didn't see what was going on in class. I was in a unique situation; I was just there to listen. I couldn't fix their grades. I couldn't fix their transcripts. But I could help them with the belief piece – which is what the kids in Danville needed: someone to say: 'You can do this.'"

The message wasn't lost on the 400 seniors at George Washington High School. By year's end, after being praised, pushed and prodded by Morris, 270 GW students had received acceptance letters from two-and four-year colleges – a 2007 acceptance rate of 67 percent.

In 2006, the four-year rate was 34 percent. In Britteny's case, the notification letter came from an unexpected source. Using Britteny's transcript as a guide, Morris pointed the senior toward her own alma mater, the University of Virginia, and followed up with a phone call to an admissions counselor there.

The counselor knew Morris' name, knew her face and knew what Morris hoped to accomplish. A big part of the Advising Corps' formula is being part of a network mostly inaccessible to students in places like Danville, Va. The formula worked. In August, Britteny Madine moved into a residence hall at the University of Virginia, a school that has set aside an $8,600 annual academic achievement scholarship for each of the four years she is on campus. That same month, Morris and her new husband headed to Atlanta, where she'll attend the Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory University's School of Law.

Looking back on her efforts to help Britteny and other Danville students find their way to college, Morris cites a simple but profound explanation: "It's all about hooking up with the right people."

Saleisa Lampkin and Antonio Thomas can certainly attest to that. Their Advising Corps mentor was Maggy Lewis, the William & Mary Law student who spent her gap year rotating between high schools in Gretna and nearby Chatham, Va.

At Gretna, Lewis shepherded the effusive Saleisa Lampkin to Virginia State. "I was like a train wreck," Saleisa recalls. "She (Lewis) never met anybody like me, I'm sure. I was in her office all the time, asking a thousand questions. She'd tell me, 'Just calm down and breathe.' She made it real comfortable and easy for me."

At Chatham High School, Antonio presented a different challenge. Quiet and determined, Antonio has long harbored high aspirations. "He wants to get into the medical field," says his father, Lloyd. "I told him a long time ago that if he wants to do that, then he has to go to college."

The quandary Lewis faced when she first met Antonio was identical to the dilemma her peers in the Advising Corps faced all over Virginia: Where could Antonio go and, more important, how would he pay for it? Lloyd Thomas is disabled, and Antonio's mother, Joyce, is a factory worker. Complicating the equation was Antonio's strong desire to attenda small, four-year college. His initial inquiries to guidance counselors were not promising. "The first thing they throw at you is community college," he says. "They won't discuss four-year schools with you."

Not Maggy Lewis. From almost their first meeting, she encouraged Antonio to pursue his education at a smaller school. Then she pushed him to apply to those that matched his academic and financial needs.

The impact of the financial aid process on first-generation, low-income students can be huge. Despite efforts to streamline the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) – and despite programs such as College Goal Sunday (which gives low-income families hands-on help with the paperwork) – the FAFSA process remains an intimidating procedure. In fact, it can push some families to abandon the dream of a college education for their children. "We, as a country, need to rethink the processes we put kids through" to get to college, says Advising Corps Executive Director Nicole Hurd. "Complexity is the barrier for far too many families."

Ask Kim Morris.

"It wasn't that people didn't want to do it, they didn't know how," she says of the FAFSA process. "I had people walk in my office and slap their tax forms on my desk and ask me to do it. I saw more tax forms than H&R Block."