Kamani Confident comes from a working-class family in Brooklyn.He was an outstanding student at Humanities Preparatory Academy – a public high school in New York, but the place had no counselor to help students apply for college.
When Bill Short – who ran a business helping students with the application process – heard about that, he stepped up, driving 3 hours from home, once a week to help.
“Middle and higher income families had access to resources and information that just wasn’t available for most low income ”
He planned to create a program and hand it off to someone – but he ended up staying for more than 20 years, advising high achievers like Confident, who’s featured in a new documentary called Admission: Possible?
“I’m super excited to go to college. I want to get that sense of individuality and be my own person.”
But in 2023, a Supreme Court ruling blocked schools from considering the fact that he was Black. Short explained to the kids that they could still share their personal stories with the schools they wanted to attend.
“Most of the schools have questions like this: What has it been like to be you? It can include religion, race, ethnicity, immigration.”
He’s also found a way to help students with expenses associated with applying to and attending college.
10 – In November I’ll run my 21st marathon, and I use it as a fundraiser to take the kids on college trips or to pay for application fees, to pay for SAT fees, to help them with move-in costs, like buying things for their dorm rooms.
And executive producer Cynthia Wade says Short is giving these students something money can’t buy as he coaches them through writing personal essays.
22 – The students understanding their life story and understanding that it had a narrative and getting that down on paper in a person essay – it’s fascinating to watch them find themselves and bloom.
That was certainly true for Confident – the modest son of immigrants from Haiti and Trinidad. He's now studying business at UVA where the film will be shown Saturday. Afterward, he and Bill Short will be on hand to share more of their stories with the audience.
