HOUSTON — It was Deadline Day at YES Prep North Central, the day college applications were supposed to be finished, the day essays, personal statements and a seemingly endless series of forms needed to be ready for submission.

The day the school’s first graduating class would take one leap closer to college.

The seniors inside Room A121 hunched over plastic banquet tables, brows furrowed and eyes fixed on the screens of Dell laptop computers. Keyboards clattered, papers rustled and sighs swept across the room like waves of nervous energy.

So much was riding on this.

The reputation of a charter school built around the mission of sending every student to college. The hopes of parents who wanted more for their children than they had attained. The expectations of younger siblings, schoolmates and friends hungry for role models.

And above all, the dreams of 43 North Central seniors determined to turn stereotypes and statistics upside-down.

But first, those applications had to sparkle.

“We need that stuff ASAP,” said Chad Spurgeon, sounding more like a coach before a big game than North Central’s director of college counseling. “You’ve got to make sure these are where they need to be.”

Around the room, jangled nerves seemed to jangle just a little more.

Five students

Eric Salazar, a soft-spoken student at the top of the senior class, gnawed absently on his cuticles.

Brandon Gunter, normally jovial, rummaged frantically through his backpack. “I’m getting the feeling I forgot my essay at home. This. Is. Not. Happening,” he fretted.

Fernando Luna hunkered in the back of the room, staring at his computer screen. College, long a dream, was suddenly, tantalizingly, nerve-rackingly within grasp. He muttered, as if to reassure himself: “This is just an essay. I can tackle it. I can do it.”

A few years earlier, college had been just a vague notion for most of these students.

“I didn’t know anything about college,” said Carol Cabrera, 17, the oldest child of a construction worker father and a stay-at-home mom, Mexican immigrants who had not made it past high school.

Elizabeth Martinez and Brandon Gunter, both 17, had long been told that a college education paved the road to a better life. But how to turn the ambition into reality?

In middle school, Eric Salazar often felt like the only student striving for higher standards. Fernando Luna saw his future limited to technical schools or vocational colleges.

“It’s more difficult to be successful if you’re ashamed to be the only person on time for a test, the only one doing homework,” said Fernando, 17, as the five North Central seniors sat at a table in the school’s cafeteria.

Then these five students stepped inside North Central, where college for all is not just a catch phrase.

Against the odds

YES Prep — the name is an acronym for Youth Engaged in Service — was founded 11 years ago by Chris Barbic, a Teach for America alumnus who shaped his vision around a simple, singular goal: Every student is expected to go to a four-year college, succeed there and return to give back to the community.

It was an ambitious goal. More than 90 percent of YES Prep students are first-generation college-bound; 80 percent come from low-income families, and 96 percent are Hispanic or African-American. Most students enter the school at least one grade level behind in math and English.

Almost all can name friends or relatives who have succumbed to the streets, dropping out, landing in jail or getting entangled with gangs.

At YES Prep, every aspect of the school is designed to steer students away from stumbling blocks. Longer school days. A strict discipline code. A challenging curriculum. A small teacher-student ratio.

There is also a nonstop conversation about college. Each middle school homeroom is named after the teacher’s alma mater. On Fridays, everyone is encouraged to wear shirts with college logos. Banners in hallways tout schools.

A popular bumper sticker sums up the school’s mission: “Will my child go to college? The answer is YES.”

Parents of students must sign a contract agreeing to commit to the YES Prep philosophy and rules. Students are admitted through a lottery, with almost 4,000 now on a waiting list to enter.

‘Aha’ moments

The culture-of-college formula seems to be working. At YES Prep Southeast, the only campus to serve 12th graders until this year, 100 percent of seniors have been accepted to college since the first class graduated in 2001 — matriculating at some 266 schools, including Ivy League universities.

This year, North Central will become the second YES Prep campus to graduate seniors — and the class of 2010 doesn’t want to tarnish the charter school’s record.

The path to senior year has been strewn with obstacles and “aha” moments.

YES Prep students confront resistance from old friends, the temptation to slack off, worries about college costs.

“My cousins would say, ‘You are such a loser. You have to go to school on Saturdays,’” recalled Carol Cabrera. “Now I say: ‘I’m going to college and you’re not.’”

“We know that a lot of things outside school that have little to do with academics will affect academics,” said North Central school director Mark DiBella. “So we try to create a support system at this school. When they go back into their neighborhoods, they can hearken back to this community of like-minded people.”

The school is awash with inspirational sayings — on bulletin boards, newsletters and bright orange signs on an awning. For instance: “When we all pull together we move mountains.”

For many students, the turning point comes during the school’s spring and summer trips, when they tour colleges and participate in camping and community service trips. The experience can be transformational.

“If it hadn’t been for the trips, I wouldn’t know how it feels to be away from home,” said Carol Cabrera. “Now, I’ve been out there, away from my parents. It makes it harder for me to think about staying in Houston for school.”

For Fernando Luna, the “aha” moment came much closer to home. He was working a summer job at a farmers market when he noticed that people seemed to be looking through him. All they saw was another manual laborer, he thought.

“If I don’t get an education,” he thought, “I’ll be letting all the people who support me down and I’ll be proving the people who don’t believe in me right.”

The last step

Surrounded by white envelopes and application packages, Carol Cabrera wrinkled her forehead in exasperation. She had already submitted 13 applications, including one to her top choice, Whittier College in California.

Now, on deadline day, she was having second thoughts, uncertain about some of her choices. “I’m tired. I want to go home, take a shower and go to sleep. As a whole senior class, we’re tired.”

Across the room, Elizabeth Martinez fingered her application to her safety school, the last one she needed to mail. She’d already finished the paperwork for her other schools, including first-choice Vanderbilt University.

Just a month earlier at a parent-student conference, Elizabeth had cried as she talked about moving away from Houston. Now, she said, “I’m sure everything’s going to be OK. I hope so.”

She stiffened her shoulders, sealed the final envelope and placed it on the pile.

Now, the last step: At her laptop, she clicked the online application. And in no time, the on-screen message flashed: “Congratulations, Elizabeth! You have successfully submitted your application.”