Maurice Massonburg, once a promising student, has all but abandoned his college dreams, resigning himself to the hard knocks of life on the west side of Chicago. Despite impassioned pleas from both his guidance counselor and mother, Maurice remains fixed to his downward spiral of smoking weed and slacking off at school. Rachel Lemmons is a straight "A" student who prides herself on defying the stereotype of being a "dumb blond." Having been bullied at her previous school, Rachel works every day to rebuild her life - making new friends, getting past her depression, working to get into the college of her dreams, but an unexpected pregnancy and continued to bullying may be too much for her to handle. Brandton Stokely lives with his grandparents in the rural town of Mosca, Colorado, where he tends to the family alligator farm. Although he's at the top of his senior class (albeit one with only nineteen students), but the lack of school guidance and absent parents leads him to only applying to two top universities - a pretty big gamble in the current admissions environment. Brandton longs to escape his small town and to live somewhere he can be "himself".
—Al Jazeera America [us]