By Melissa Berlant
Daily Aztec Staff Writer

12/11/02

All students graduating in 2006 or later from Sweetwater Union High School District -- except those from San Ysidro -- are guaranteed admission to San Diego State if they complete the Compact for Success program.

The program, which began in 2000, requires students to complete all of the California State University/University of California preparatory courses in mandatory subjects with a minimum grade-point average of 3.0, take the SAT and/or ACT Assessment test and satisfy the English Placement Test and the Entry Level Math test requirements with no need for remediation.

"The Compact for Success is aimed at trying to get more students into the university by increasing the rigor of the curriculum, making sure that students take the right courses, our faculty working closely with their teachers -- those types of things," Ethan Singer, associate vice president for academic affairs, said.

The most significant difference for Compact students' entrance requirements is that their EPT and ELM scores are more important than their SAT scores. If a student does not need remediation, he or she can still be admitted even if his or her SAT scores are low.

Scholarships to help students pay for what financial aid doesn't cover will also be offered. The scholarships for each class are sponsored by private donors. So far, $1.1 million has been donated.

The overall goal of the program, according to Singer, is to encourage and prepare students to go to college, even if they don't end up at SDSU.

Gonzalo Rojas, coordinator of Compact for Success, said he thinks the program may become a national model because it is the only program of its kind on this large of a scale.

Discussions on the project began about three and a half years ago because of concerns that there were not enough students graduating from SUHSD that were fully prepared for college, Lionel Meno, dean of the College of Education, said. The idea of guaranteed admission came when SUHSD Superintendent Edward Brand and University President Stephen Weber decided that in addition to increased academic standards and financial support, the students would need an incentive to participate.

"When this program started, only about 15 percent of the eighth graders were taking Algebra I. Now, 85 to 90 percent are taking Algebra I," Meno said.

The Compact also includes features to help students determine if they are following the right track, like including students' progress in the Compact on their report cards. SDSU helps to provide tutors to the students and sends faculty to work closely with teachers in SUHSD.

Students enter the program by signing a contract in the seventh grade. They must continue to be enrolled in SUHSD until graduation in order to maintain eligibility.

The first class to enter the program is now in the ninth grade. About 5,000 students entered the program at the time; there are now about 4,000 students from the class of 2006 still in the program. Meno said a majority of the decrease is a result of students moving out of the district.

"We probably will still be impacted and maybe even more severely so by (the time Compact students enter SDSU)," Rojas said. "It will have an impact in the sense that these students will be guaranteed admission and, therefore, it will be more competitive for other students. However, with the kind of support and preparation and the goals that we have for these students, these are actually very prepared students."

Once students are enrolled at SDSU, the university wants to increase the graduation rate of former SUHSD students from 22.2 percent in 2001 to 50 percent. Rojas said the school may use a program similar to the Educational Opportunity Program to retain students through counseling and tutoring support.

SUHSD is one of the most diverse secondary districts in the state, according to Rojas. Drawing students from the district will also help to increase SDSU's diversity.

Because San Ysidro voted in the mid-1980s to keep their middle school students in San Ysidro School District, the students do not enter SUHSD in time to participate in the Compact in 7th grade.

Hector Espinoza, principal of San Ysidro High School, estimated that only 34 out of about 535 of the school's freshmen attended middle school in SUHSD and are therefore able to be part of the program.

He thinks students at the school are aware that they are not included in the program and some feel left out, but they are still taking the same classes and reaping many of the district-wide benefits of the program.

Meno said SDSU had begun talking with SYSD so that San Ysidro students could participate, but the superintendent at the time was fired and the process was never completed.

Rojas said they have a meeting scheduled this week with SYSD Interim Superintendent Grace Kojima and he is optimistic about arranging a program that would allow San Ysidro students to participate soon.

Espinoza said the school still has the rigorous curriculum benefits of the rest of SUHSD. All of the courses offered at the school, including electives, are college preparatory. The school, which opened in July, is also in the process of developing the Stanford Yale Harvard program, which shares initials with the high school, to give the students a chance to prepare for three of the top universities in the nation.

SYHS's newness should be an advantage for the school because it is easier to begin new methods like small learning communities there, Rojas said. The communities are similar to schools within schools designed to make students feel like they are known and cared for.

To date, SUHSD is the only school district with a guaranteed admissions program to SDSU. Rojas said President Weber announced that if any district came to the university with a plan for reform like SUHSD's, the school would seriously consider another such program.

Psychology freshman Tim Chan said: "I think guaranteed admission is a good reward. It pays off and provides more self-confidence for them when they do graduate high school. A 3.0 average is a high average, and if students can maintain that GPA, they should be guaranteed admission to SDSU -- or any other college."

He said his high school had a similar program with UC Riverside which targeted students taking advanced classes, but not earning high grades. Most of the people he knew in the program ended up going to schools other than UCR, but said it helped them prepare to get into college in general.