SJSU's Pre-College Programs are a collaboration of several programs designed as a retention program for students in grades 5 through12, said Priscilla Peebles, director of Pre-College Programs.
The programs, which employ about 20 full-time staff and more than 100 college interns, include Upward Bound, California Student Opportunity and Access Program in Gilroy, Elementary Education, Parent Education Program, Mathematics & English Test Preparation Academy, Collaborative Training Institute and Educational Talent Search.
According to information provided by Tony Diaz, the project coordinator for Educational Talent Search, "The mission of Pre-College Programs at SJSU is to increase student success and accessibility into higher education by coordinating the development and implementation of comprehensive, continuing school-family community academic and motivation support programs."
The interns for the programs go through a collaborative training institute taught by SJSU faculty and teachers in the community, Peebles said. The training piece is certified through the College Learning and Reading Association.
"Students are trained on three levels," she said. "It gives them a tremendous amount of experience." She added that 45 former interns are now working as teachers.
Peebles said that Upward Bound was the first of the programs, offered at SJSU since 1976, and the collaboration of programs was formed in 1996.
"Our project is unique (from other schools) because we have our programs working in collaboration," she said. "We're hoping that with budget cuts we can continue to do the work that we do for the community."
The programs existing under the collaboration are divided into state and trio programs. The trio programs include Educational Talent Search and Upward Bound, Tony Diaz said.
Upward Bound, he said, is very academic. Focusing on students in grades 9 through 12, it serves roughly 150 students. Educational Talent Search is the biggest program, working with 750 students in grades 6 through 12.
Diaz said that Educational Talent Search focuses less on academics and more on support and mentorship. While Upward Bound requires students to come to SJSU after school, Educational Talent Search goes to campuses and usually works while school is in session.
"We are able to meet their needs differently than other programs," Diaz said. "We are more flexible to their times."
He also said that the program tries to provide a variety of activities in a fun way that helps students learn about leadership and socializing.
Tutorial sessions are provided for middle school students and during the summer between eighth and ninth grades there is the Summer Literacy and Accelerated Mathematics Academy, a six-week residential program held at SJSU.
Students who attend the academy can receive full high school credit for the various math and English classes they take, Diaz said. After they complete those classes, they choose whether they want to go into Upward Bound or stay in Educational Talent Search.
Blanca Sanchez, a senior majoring in hospitality management, first got involved with Pre-College Programs when she did the summer program between her freshman and sophomore year in high school.
"(Upward Bound) was very beneficial not just because of academic support, but all the information about getting into college," she said. The program provides students with all of the information they need about getting into college, including how to apply for schools and financial aid, which classes they should take in high school to fulfill enrollment requirements and classes that will prepare them for admissions tests.
Sanchez started at SJSU in the fall of 1998 and began volunteering as an academic tutor. She joined the staff the following summer and now works as the Summer Program Coordinator, overseeing everything from recruitment to evaluation and interviews.
One of the goals of Pre-College Programs is to help ease the transition of students from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school and high school to college. Sanchez said the program helped her a lot in that capacity.
"It wasn't as intimidating as it is to a lot of freshmen," she said. "I had been coming here for four years and I spent six weeks in the dorms. It definitely made it an easier transition."
While the programs are designed to get students into college, they aren't entirely a recruitment tool for SJSU.
This week, Peebles said, they are taking students on a one-week tour of campuses in Southern California and later in the year they will go to New York to visit Columbia University and New York University.
Diaz said that the students who go on these trips have to raise a certain amount of money through various fundraising activities to be eligible to go.
As far as getting into the programs, students have to meet low-income requirements and preference is given to first-generation students, which means that their parents didn't graduate from a university in the United States, Diaz said.
Of students who participate in Pre-College Programs, post-secondary enrollment is at 95 percent, college retention is 81 percent, SJSU college retention is at 74 percent and college graduation is at 71 percent.
"Some of the students who work for us have gone through the program," Peebles said. "It's an educational pipeline."