These study groups encouraged just the sort of collaboration Francis had imagined. ‘‘It took the competition out of it,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘It wasn’t, ‘I’m mad because you got an A.’ It was, ‘How do we both do that on the next test?’ We had this feeling if we all stuck together and helped each other, we would make it.’’ Marybeth Gasman, an education professor and the head of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions, which does research on and assists colleges that serve large numbers of black, Latino, Asian and Native American students, has carefully examined Xavier’s program and says no school is better at developing students’ shared responsibility for one another’s success. ‘‘It is dumbfounding to see,’’ she said.

What makes Xavier’s program most unusual is its strictly tailored uniform curriculum in freshman chemistry and biology. The faculty members collaborate on what they will teach and create a workbook for these courses that every professor must use. If professors want to teach something not in a workbook, they must present it to the faculty group for approval. The workbooks take the complicated material in science textbooks, which often overwhelms students, and specifies, step by step, everything students need to know for the class. The faculty members then incorporate regular tests and drills, not only to assess students but also to evaluate whether professors need to adjust their teaching. ‘‘This is fundamentally different than the way curriculum is taught across the country,’’ Gasman said. ‘‘What happens with faculty in general: We don’t want anyone telling us what to do in our classes; we pick our textbooks; we know what is right for our students. But they teach to where the students are and not just the way they want to teach.’’

For Johnson, when the workbooks and the study groups weren’t enough, he would spend hours after class in his professors’ offices as they patiently walked him through the material. By the second semester, Johnson was exhausted, but he was earning A’s and B’s again.

Excelling in biology and chemistry is only part of what gets students into medical school. Just as critical to Xavier’s success is the blueprint it created to help students navigate every step in the process of becoming desirable medical-­school candidates. ‘‘Our formula is built on believing there is no point in time where a pre-med student at this university shouldn’t know what they ought to be doing to get into medical school,’’ Quo Vadis Webster, Xavier’s current pre-med adviser, told me. By the end of the first semester, Johnson and other pre-med students needed to turn in the first of many personal statements that were critiqued by the university’s writing center. These essays, written and rewritten several times, would eventually become the ones included in their medical-­school applications.

Johnson attended weekly meetings with Carmichael, at which he continually received checklists and timelines, learned of research and internship opportunities and met graduates who spoke firsthand about getting into medical school. The pre-med office had Johnson and his classmates gather their letters of recommendation early, made sure they were good enough and then kept them on file until they were needed. Johnson prepared for his MCATs with the help of professors, whom Carmichael had instructed to take the exams themselves so they would know what their students should expect. Wearing a suit and tie, Johnson took part in mock interviews. And when the time came, Carmichael looked over every inch of Johnson’s application to make sure it would pass muster before he sent it out. Webster noted that wealthy students at elite schools pay thousands of dollars to agencies that help perfect their medical-­school applications and for courses that help prepare them for the medical exams. Xavier’s pre-med office, with a dedicated staff of two, provides nearly all of these services free.