Located 32 miles southwest of Boston, the town of Milford was incorporated in 1780 and is known for the pink granite that was discovered in its quarries in 1870. Milford High School is a four-year, comprehensive public high school with an enrollment of 1,327 students.

“Our conventional school counseling model is insufficient for the needs of many college-goers, especially first-generation college-goers from low-income communities,” says Otlin. In an ideal world where money was no object, Otlin says every guidance counselor would serve 80 students and every guidance counselor would be able to provide each of their students eight to 10 hours of individualized support for four consecutive years. “But it’s not an ideal world,” he says, “And we can’t run public high schools that serve a high concentration of students from low-income communities at ratios of 1:80, 1:100 or even 1:200.”

Milford High School is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) as part of its commitment to meet the needs of all its students. However, the school recognized students needed more advising and support with their postsecondary planning and appreciated the support OneGoal provides.

“Unless a student is aggressively advocating for themselves and insisting on high-level attention from their counselor, they’re going to receive somewhere between four to six hours of attention over four years. That’s just not enough time to make such a high-stakes decision for students who aren’t getting an awful lot of guidance and support outside of school.”

Joshua Otlin

OneGoal starts as a credit-bearing class during students’ junior year of high school. OneGoal then bridges the transition to a student’s chosen postsecondary path by continuing individualized support for a full year after high school.

After learning about OneGoal from a partner in higher education, Joshua Otlin, Milford’s principal, was eager to bring the program to Milford High School as it focuses not only on the academic component of postsecondary success, but the social elements as well.

“Once I heard about the program design, it had such strong common sense appeal to me that I felt compelled to bring this opportunity to our students,” explains Otlin. “And the response has been exceptional. It’s been unlike anything that I’ve seen in my career. I’ve had multiple teachers from multiple departments initiate conversations with me where they’ve said, ‘I’m speaking with my students and they’re telling me about their OneGoal experience and how more students at our school need to have this experience.”

Otlin estimates that 11th and 12th graders who are part of the OneGoal program at Milford are receiving 200 hours of class time between junior year and the first third of their senior year preparing for postsecondary planning.

“It’s not just the amount of minutes or hours that students are spending working on postsecondary planning, it’s the way in which they’re doing it,” says Otin. “OneGoal provides students with this experience where they become part of a community of learners that are all in it together. They become one another’s cheerleaders and coaches. I’ve seen how it brings about a mindset shift in students who now see college as something that is important for them to pursue and something that is achievable for them.”

Milford’s first cohort, which graduated in 2023, enrolled in postsecondary institutions at a 75% rate, which was considerably higher than the school’s typical rate. The administration has also observed an increase in the average number of applications submitted per Fellow from 2023 graduates to 2024 graduates.

Other ways that OneGoal has been able to support Milford and improve their students’ college and career readiness include hosting a student summit; professional development for staff, and a structured curriculum, as well as:

Milford now has a dedicated OneGoal teacher who works with a cohort of students. The teacher builds trust with the students throughout the year and understands their unique challenges in order to offer a personalized postsecondary solution.

“Upon joining OneGoal, me and Ms. Fransen made a plan for going to college with my documentation status,” explains Emily Braga, a Milford junior, who was born in Brazil. “We worked out what my future life would look like and how my aspirations would look on a day-to-day basis and narrowed my options down to business school. So now my plan is to go to a four-year school to major in international business affairs and go to graduate school for an MBA.”

Otlin also points to OneGoal’s partnerships with nearby universities as another advantage for students in the program. For example, one student received Bentley University’s scholarship for first-generation college students, which matches the tuition of a local public institution. As a result, her tuition is $6,000 out of pocket instead of the standard $80,000 to attend Bentley.

“She’s beyond thrilled and has been taking advantage of all of their networking opportunities,” says her teacher, a OneGoal Program Director, Annemarie Fransen. “She’s been getting involved a lot in the business sphere there and building her own business as a freshman, which is very exciting.”

To help foster a sense of community among the students in the OneGoal program, Fransen is also candid about her experience as the first person in her family to go to college.

“I think when students step into their identity—knowing that they’re a first-generation college student, or maybe an undocumented student seeking a degree, or an economically-disadvantaged student seeking a degree, or whatever it may be—they feel really empowered and they feel a sense of solidarity, which is honestly really endearing and a privilege to be a part of.”

“I love the mentorship I receive with OneGoal. It’s really good to have one person you can ask any questions, and you make really close relationships in your cohort with other students who are going through the same thing as you.”

Julianys Rntas

Milford’s administration has observed an increase in the average number of applications submitted per OneGoal student from the Class of 2023 to the Class of 2024.

Last year, more than 50% of Milford students enrolled in four-year colleges, while 16% enrolled in two-year colleges; nearly 8% opted for career education and 23% entered the workforce.

“OneGoal is cultivating knowledge, skills and dispositions,” says Otlin. “It’s about kids learning how to craft their personal narratives and learning how to become storytellers. And in that process of learning to tell their story, they’re interpreting their story and that’s shaping their sense of who they are and where they want to go.”

“The biggest advantage I see to having OneGoal is how prepared students personally feel to make informed decisions without their mentor and on their own—whether that’s entering the workforce or whatever postsecondary pathway they enter.”

Annemarie Fransen

College and Career Readiness, Enrollment + Persistence, Progressive Pathways, Equity

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