From
charter to prep, the next step
Private high
schools display big interest in Newark students
Thursday, August 26, 2004 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
Dressed in his school's
green sweater-vest and white shirt, Johnny Carmona sat
ramrod straight, a little nervous but not too shy to have a
few questions of his own.
Before him was an
admissions officer from the Taft School in Connecticut, a
boarding school of stately brick dormitories and rolling
fields, who traveled to Newark's Robert Treat Academy
Charter School yesterday to lure bright -- not to mention
minority -- students like Johnny.
"What colleges do your
students go to?" Carmona asked Taft's Felecia
Williams.
"What do you expect of
your students?" he prodded.
Jotting notes as he spoke,
Williams was duly impressed. "He's definitely boarding
school material," Williams later told Johnny's
mother.
Those are words not spoken
often in Newark's North Ward, a hardscrabble and mostly
Hispanic neighborhood, but it's a situation that the Robert
Treat Academy is trying hard to change, 50 kids at a
time.
The charter school, three
weeks into its fall semester, hosted more than two dozen of
New Jersey's and the country's most prestigious prep
schools. The recruiters spent the day interviewing its
eighth-graders for high school admission next
fall.
The "Interview Day" was
extraordinary for an inner-city public school, and the signs
lining the tables in the school's gymnasium -- Phillips
Academy Andover, Miss Porter's, Pingry, to name a few --
showed there clearly was no shortage of
interest.
It also was testament to
the success of Robert Treat, not just by Newark and charter
school standards, but for all public schools. Last year, 98
percent of its fourth-graders passed the state's tests;
nearly half reached advanced standing in math.
"These schools want the
best and have incredible standards," said Vicky Martinez,
Robert Treat's high school placement officer. "And I think
we have a great product to offer them."
Once bastions of white
privilege, private schools have long sought minority
students and have built partnerships with a number of
scholarship foundations that reach into both public and
private inner-city schools.
The Wight Foundation, A
Better Chance and Prep to Prep are among the most prominent
that help low-income minority students attend schools where
tuition typically starts at $20,000, topping $30,000 at
boarding schools.
Private schools are more
aggressively recruiting. Some have even started marketing
efforts to sell themselves in urban communities and all are
actively seeking minority candidates.
Unless students reach out
themselves, admissions officials said, public schools are a
tough source, either unfamiliar with or unwilling to allow
in private school recruiters. But that hasn't stopped them
from trying.
"We are making a conscious
effort to come to these schools," said Susan Mantilla,
associate admissions dean at Phillips Andover, where about a
fifth of the students are black or Hispanic. "We know there
are bright kids in all types of schools."
Robert Treat, among the
state's first charter schools, has tapped into that desire.
More than a year before any of its first eighth-grade class
would even graduate, it invited schools to tour the building
and its classes. The school requires all seventh-graders
visit a boarding school.
And in preparation for
yesterday's interviews, teachers coached students about how
to present themselves. It even held a last-minute workshop
with parents on Monday.
"We just went over the
basics with the kids: no slang, just be yourself and use
plenty of anecdotes," Martinez said. "Try to have a
conversation, tell them what you are interested
in."
All 46 eighth-graders
participated in at least one interview yesterday, some as
many as six.
Jonathan Valentin, 13,
spoke with Montclair-Kimberley Academy, Pingry and Newark
Academy. After MKA's session, he claimed no jitters to speak
of.
"I told them I was a
pretty good leader, curious, intelligent," Jonathan said.
"And I asked them about their math advanced-placement
classes. That's what I'm interested in."
For all the competition
between them, the admission officers are a pretty cozy
group, and those from the Northeastern schools often travel
together and find themselves at the same events and schools.
Those seeking minority applicants find the circle can be
even smaller.
Hispanic students remain
among the toughest catches, and that made Robert Treat all
the more attractive, with three-quarters of its enrollment
Hispanic, mostly from Puerto Rico.
"I definitely wanted to
come to this one," said Williams, the Taft School
officer.
One school official said
Hispanic families seem the "last to let go," and a few of
the mothers who met with schools yesterday blanched at the
prospect of their children off at a boarding
school.
Rocio Rivera followed her
daughter, Jessica, to meet with Lawrenceville's officer. She
also visited the school last year.
"It was huge, like a
college," she said.
But she said if her
daughter wants to go to a boarding school, she'd be willing
under one condition.
"Nothing out of state,"
she said. "I will never allow it, I want her
close."
John Mooney covers education. He can be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
Copyright 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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