CHICAGO (CBS) — At Noble’s Pritzker College Prep in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood, 112 seniors are doing what many didn’t think they could: graduate high school and go to college.

“I never thought this day would come,” says senior Josh Sosa, 18, the first in his family to go to college.

With the help of his counselor and advisor, Sosa applied to dozens of schools and was award more than $376,000 in scholarships and financial aid. He is attending Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. on a full tuition scholarship.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Lisa Fielding reports

Principal Pablo Sierra says many of his students overcome the odds to achieve success. Most are Hispanic and come from low-income families.

College Signing Day is a tradition at the school. It’s done before the student body, the underclassmen, as an incentive for what every student can achieve.

“It’s good for them to see the seniors, where they’re going to college and kind of have that energy and inject that kind of enthusiasm saying this is the goal, this is why we are here. To me, the most important audience is the lower class-men,” Sierra says.

One hundred percent of Pritzker’s College Prep seniors are going to college.

Pritzker College Prep is a campus of the Noble Street Charter School. All students are admitted via lottery with the only requirements being that they complete the application on time, successfully meet their eighth-grade graduation requirements, and must live in the city of Chicago.