“Admission Possible” founder Jim McCorkell grew up low-income, watching his parents work physically demanding jobs to make ends meet.  With help from mentors, Jim earned his way to college, ultimately receiving a master’s degree from Harvard where he studied the economics of poverty.  Believing a college education is key to ending multigenerational poverty, Jim founded Admission Possible in 2000 to help make college admission and success possible for low-income students through an intensive curriculum of coaching and support.

Thanks to Jim’s belief in the power of national service, Admission Possible was the first organization to apply the AmeriCorps service model to the college access issue. Recent college graduates serving as AmeriCorps members are fulltime mentors to high school and college students, andVISTAmembers build organizational capacity. A 35-student pilot program launched from Jim’s spare bedroom has grown more than 200-fold to annually serve 7,400 students in 24 high schools inSt. Paul-Minneapolis,MNandMilwaukee,WI, and on nearly 150 college campuses nationwide; and grew from 26 part-time AmeriCorps members in 2001 to 67 fulltime members in 2011. Jim’s plans call for reaching 20,000 students annually across 10 markets nationwide by 2020.

AmeriCorps “coaches” lead cohorts of 10-15 high school students through a two-year, after-school curriculum that includes SAT/ACT test preparation, college admissions and financial aid consulting, and college transition guidance. College program coaches support students as they work toward degree completion and workforce readiness. Since its founding:

• High school juniors have raised their ACT scores by an average of 21%.
• 98% of students have earned college admission and 93% have enrolled.
• Nearly 80% of college enrolled Admission Possible students are working toward their college degree or have already graduated, compared to the only 11% of low-income students who earn a bachelor’s degree within six years nationwide.

Jim insists on internal and external evaluation-based management.  Independent evaluations in 2005 and 2009 confirmed the program’s top-of-field results, and an historical analysis conducted by a Harvard researcher in 2010 found that Admission Possible students are 140% likelier to enroll in a four-year institution than their non-program peers and 75% likelier to enroll in any form of postsecondary education.

Jim was elected an Ashoka fellow in 2006 and led Admission Possible to win excellence awards from National College Access Network and the National Association for College Admission Counseling in 2009. In her 2010 book, The American Way to Change, policy expert Shirley Sagawa highlighted Admission Possible as one of only 25 service organizations ready for scale. President Obama cited Admission Possible’s extraordinary work at a 2009 White House event saying, “Admission Possible operates in just two states now. So imagine if it was 10, or 20, or 50.”

Under Jim’s direction, Admission Possible has successfully managed AmeriCorpsState, National andVISTAgrants since 2002. In 2010, Admission Possible received five applications for each AmeriCorps position and has maintained 100% enrollment and 96% retention rates while exceeding match requirements with one dollar of AmeriCorps investment leveraging four privately generated dollars.