Leveling the playing field

This past summer, sociology professor and Wilson College master Miguel Centeno helped establish the Princeton University Preparatory Program, a mentoring program linking area high school students to University community members. Centeno recently sat down with 'Prince' staff writer B. J. Nayman to discuss the program.

'Prince': What exactly is PUPP?

Centeno: The program seeks to prepare middleto low-income students, traditionally underrepresented in places like Princeton, for admission into and success in those same institutions.

Roughly 15 percent of students at highly selective private universities come from households making below the national median income, while nearly half come from families that make more than $100,000 — the 90[th] percentile. For the top-tier institutions, the distribution of students is even more skewed and closer to less than 10 percent lower-income and greater than 60 percent upper-income.

The program lasts three years with intensive summer coursework and year-long academic support. We also add field trips to things like New York shows or museums. The best trip last summer was a tour of the Delaware Bay aboard a teaching sail ship. Each year we shoot for 25 kids per cohort. We started it last summer.

P: How did you get the idea to do the program?

C: I have always been sensitive to class representation for a host of professional and personal reasons. I became aware of the statistical data when I worked on President Shapiro's Admissions Study Group.

Given Princeton's incredible financial aid program, I realized that the problem was not necessarily money. Reading over a hundred application folders taught me that students from even middle-income families suffered from a severe disadvantage in admissions because of the kinds of opportunities that wealthier students enjoyed. The problem is that we need to make it possible for everyone to be able to enjoy and benefit from the same educational and life experiences.

P: Who helped you or worked with you in the program?

C: From the beginning, the program has been a partnership between Dr. Richard Carter and Dr. John Webb of the Teacher Prep Program and me. I have taken some initiatives on the fund raising front, but they're the ones who actually know something about education. We have also enjoyed incredible support from Nassau Hall since the very start of the program last year.

P: How were the students selected?

C: We concentrated on three local high schools: Trenton, Ewing and Princeton. We wrote to all ninth graders on the honor roll and asked them to apply if their families met some economic criteria. We then chose among 57 applicants on the basis of grades and essays they had written for the application.

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P: How do you think PUPP is functioning right now?

C: The results have been amazing — the first summer was a great success and the 23 students in the first cohort are now receiving mentoring and tutoring from Princeton undergrads and graduate students. Their response and willingness to work hard has been inspiring.

As we grow into the full complement of 75 kids, we will see how we do. The ultimate goal is to get all of them into the schools they choose to attend — but simply expanding the set of possibilities is a big success.

P: How can PUPP be improved?

C: Educational programs can always be improved —the difficult task is knowing how. We are designing the program as we go along and really do not have good data with which to determine what works and what doesn't. I suspect that after the first three-year cycle we will look back and be astounded by our mistakes. But, for now, we just need to keep the program running and the kids coming in.

P: Do you have any future plans, any new mentoring programs?

C: We have expanded PUPP from what was originally purely a summer program to one that goes on all year. Right now we have grown as much as we can manage. Once we have the basics of the whole three-year curriculum down, we can consider expanding the number of students or even export it to other institutions. The ideal outcome will be if in 10 years we can start reducing the correlation between family income and attendance at elite schools.