Gateway to College
What if you dropped out of high school but now want to get a high school diploma? Where do you turn? Can you succeed? The Community College of Philadelphia hosts a scholarship program, Gateway to College, that allows select students to earn a high school diploma and take college courses at the same time. Along with the opportunity, comes the challenge of coursework and personal hurdles. Here’s a look at the program and the students who are hoping that it will change their lives.
LATEST STORY
Despite pitfalls, core group sees college, a future.
Nov. 28 was "A Piece of You Day" for the Gateway to College students. Kind of a grown-up version of show-and-tell, it was a chance to share something about themselves. No grades, no pressure, and that was a welcome thing.
VIDEO
AUDIO
Lori Shorr explains how the city plans to cut the dropout rate in half.
VIDEO
Stephen M. Curtis answers questions about the importance of the Gateway students.
VIDEO
- Coming up on the middle of his first semester in a program he knew could give him the future of his dreams, Andre Patterson had a big decision to make.
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For 40, it’s a back-to-school special
- Starting with more than 700 applicants, the staff of Gateway to College had spent much of the summer testing and talking to 336 prospective students to find the select 40 they believed could succeed despite past academic failures and, in some ways even more significant, the obstacles they faced beyond school.
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MORE ON THE WEB
Visit these sites for information on Philadelphia’s dropout crisis and available help programs.
Project U-Turn
The Mayor’s Commission on Literacy
Gateway to College
How This Series Was Reported
Rita Giordano spent five months following students from their testing and application days last summer through the end of the fall semester of Gateway to College. She interviewed most of the 40 who began the program and their teachers and counselors. She sat in on classes and spent time in the homes and neighborhoods of the students she followed most closely. For them, she also interviewed families, friends and partners.
Giordano researched the dropout problem locally and nationally. The reporting was supported in part with a grant from the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University's Teachers College.
The information detailed in the series was either witnessed by Giordano or re-created based on interviews with participants or observers.- Top Jobs
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