They come from virtually all the high schools in the territory. They’ve set their sights on colleges and universities across the map. They are the lucky ones – 25 youth from St. Croix and 28 from St. Thomas/St. John, who just completed a four-week summer residential program at the respective campuses of the University of the Virgin Islands as part of the University Bound program.
“It’s pretty fun, but it’s a lot of work,” was how Náamah Leerdam summed it up. She will return to All Saints Cathedral School in the fall, starting her junior year.
Leerdam was one of nine students who met last week to talk about their experiences with University Bound.
Formerly called Upward Bound, the program provides special help on Saturdays and after school hours throughout the year to qualified high school students seeking to prepare themselves for higher learning. It also sponsors “Study Marathons” during which students dedicate a weekend to test preparation. The residential program, in which students live in UVI dorms Sunday night through Friday and attend a rigorous schedule of classes during the summer, is the showcase of the program.
“Better than 90 percent of our students get into college,” said Rosalia Rhymer-Rohan, who has been with the program on UVI’s St. Thomas campus for almost 35 years. “I sure know it works.”
Upward Bound is a national, federally funded program. When the U.S. Department of Education budget was squeezed, it cut back on the regional programs it funded, and the Virgin Islands was one that was dropped.
The local government has picked it up and renamed it, but can’t fund it at the same level as previously. Consequently, Rohan said, a number of cuts were necessary. Students no longer receive a stipend, for instance, and the residential program was shortened from six to four weeks.
Nevertheless, this summer’s participants don’t appear to feel short-changed.
“Our schedule’s kind of pretty hectic,” said Nyree Doway, a St. John resident who is about to start her senior year at Ivanna Eudora Kean High School. “It is summer and many people wouldn’t want to be here, but if you want to do something with your life, you have to make sacrifices.”
As a basic, students take courses in writing, college enrichment and SAT (Standard Admissions Test) preparation. Additionally, they may take courses in their area of interest, such as calculus or advanced math, essentially getting a head start on their fall courses.
“There’s a lot of competition,” Leerdam said.
Individual test results are posted in a coded system, but students laughed when asked if they hadn’t broken the codes. There are also team scores, pitting students in one dorm against those in another in what is clearly a good-natured rivalry.
Overall, the students said the academic side of the experience was rigorous.
“It’s challenging, but they are small classes, so there’s lots of help,” said Jeremy Knight, who will enter 11th grade at Charlotte Amalie High School this fall. “There’s a lot of studying time.”
“They really need study time in a structured setting,” said Patricia Adams, who is head of instruction for the college enrichment course and is also a counselor at CAHS.
That time is generally from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the UVI library, students said. Wednesday nights are often “sports nights,” but only for those who don’t have a pressing assignment. Sunday nights the library is closed, so study hall switches to the cafeteria.
There’s a lot more to the program than academics. It gives students a taste of independence and self-governance and of the social life that awaits them in college.
“You never know who you’ll encounter as your roommate,” said Doway, who added that she and her roommate get along well. Coming from different high schools, they met through University Bound.
“We’re supposed to be in the dorm by 10 and in our rooms by 12,” said Amiri David, an 11th grade student who is home schooled. As for actual bedtime, “It’s up to you and your roommate” to work out. “If he has something to do, I just go to sleep with the lights on.”
“Major meals we eat in the cafeteria,” said Leayrohn King, an entering junior at Antilles School.
Students are allowed to snack in the dorm, but, “If you eat in your room, you just have to clean up after,” said Ashley Thomas, a Eudora Kean student entering 12th grade.
Weekends are for visits home and, most of the students said, for getting clean laundry.
This summer’s extracurricular offerings were a dance club and a singing club. Besides sports, activities included field trips to Hassel Island and to the hospital, a Gracious Dining night featuring formal dining, and the Cinderella Ball, a sort of prom.
In the end, though, the group agreed with Thomas when she said “It’s academics first.” And while participants may be giving up the opportunity to earn a little cash at a summer job, they are enhancing their chances of getting a scholarship, “to get you to your dream career, not just a job. You should be able to do what you want to do.”
All University Bound students must apply to UVI, but they are also free to apply to other colleges and universities. Asked about their choices, everyone of the students unhesitatingly replied with the names of one or two institutions they are seriously considering.
In the running for this group: Rider University or Rutgers; Morgan State; Johns Hopkins University; Columbia or “someplace in Florida;” the U.S. Air Force Academy; New Jersey Institute of Technology or the Rochester Institute of Technology; George Mason University; Georgetown University or American University; Clark Atlanta University or Morris Brown College.
