Attend A Private School Through A Better Chance Program

“Do you aspire to great heights? Is a barrage of honors and awards in your future? Do you achieve A’s and B’s consistently? Are English and math your strengths? Are you entering seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, or eleventh grade?
If the answer to the above questions is a resounding “Yes,” then you should think about applying to The College Preparatory Schools Program, conducted by A Better Chance (ABC)—a privately-funded, national program, with a Southern California chapter located at the University of Southern California (USC).
For the past 35 years, A Better Chance has referred academically-excellent students of color to independent day and boarding schools, as well as select public high school programs throughout the country. Each year, about 35 Southern California students of various economic backgrounds enter and graduate from the program. About 1,150 students around the country are currently enrolled in the program, with about 325 students entering each year.
The director of the Southern California branch, Michael W. Anderson, enjoys talking about Tim McChristian, one of the program’s many success stories. When McChristian first applied to A Better Chance, he was attending John Muir Junior High School, in South-Central Los Angeles. With the help of A Better Chance, he attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. From there, he earned an undergrad degree from Yale University, a graduate degree from USC, and he is now “second in command of IBM operations,” headquartered in Japan.

It is an alternative to affirmative action
Last June, Oprah Winfrey committed herself as A Better Chance’s national spokesperson. Anderson says, “It’s time that we all rally around the fact that we’ve got to save our youth . . . It’s also very important to make mention of the fact that A Better Chance has been one of the best alternatives to affirmative action, because of the fact that we do adequately prepare students of color to be productive in the real world.”
What makes the 189 schools that participate in A Better Chance special? As a whole, they offer small classrooms, with the personal attention guaranteed by a small student-to-teacher ratio, as well as universal access to computers and other necessary technology, a demanding academic atmosphere and curriculum, a wide range of extracurricular sports and activities, and a safe environment conducive to learning. Says Anderson, “Most of us only use 10 to 15 percent of our innate intelligence. These schools are able to draw that extra out of these students, by virtue of the academic programs they expose these students to.”

Ride horses at Thacher School
Some of the highlights include the Horse Program at Thacher School in Ojai, California, in which a horse is assigned to each ninth grader, who rides and cares for it. Most students continue to ride the horses after fulfilling the requirement.

Enjoy the outdoors at Baylor School
The Walkabout program at Baylor School in Tennessee is one of the country’s premier outdoors programs, in which students and teachers participate in after-school and weekend canoeing, kayaking, rafting, hiking, and climbing, as well as traditional sports offerings. Recent trips include paddling down the Grand Canyon, climbing the Wind River Range in Wyoming, hiking the Appalachian Trail, visiting a ranch in Montana, and kayaking in Chile. The school’s location in the southern Appalachian Mountains, along the Tennessee River, offers students the unique opportunity of kayaking at the ’96 Olympic kayaking site.

Study off-campus at Deerfield Academy
The off-campus, domestic and international study program at Deerfield Academy, in Massachusetts, allows juniors, for a semester, to run a farm in Vermont while they attend classes at the Mountain School of Milton Academy, or work on a farm and wood lot in Maine—on a 400-acre, coastal peninsula with a salt marsh, tidal inlets and bays, and scenic shoreline. Sophomores can spend a semester in a little town in Switzerland, where they attend classes in geology, European history, foreign language, and required, core courses, as well as ski, climb, and hike. Juniors can trade places with a South African student, from January to June. After 2 years of language study, juniors and seniors can continue their studies for a fall semester in China or a year in Germany, France, Spain, or Japan.

Learn forestry at Foxcroft Academy
Foxcroft Academy in Maine offers the state’s only on-site forestry program, in which 44 students manage 650 acres of land. Students learn to market forest products; to collect data, with relevant computer technology, about such things as wetlands and diseased trees; and to harvest land in a way that ensures its health and future viability.
Abbey Harris, A Better Chance scholar who graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in 1994, is now interning with ARCO and entering her senior year at Cornell University. She says of A Better Chance, “It’s opened many doors to me, as far as education is concerned. Just the opportunity of being a student in the finest institutions is something that many people don’t get… I became more worldly at a young age. Most African-American females don’t get exposed to that. It opens doors to other programs, other scholarships, and job opportunities, coming from A Better Chance. It’s strange that [a program] I started in seventh grade is still having an effect on my life now… I was able to go to Switzerland and France, twice. In seventh and eighth grade, I went to the American Schools there. That type of exposure, so early, broadened my life. I got to meet people from all over the world, not only the U.S.”
You, too, can become take advantage of A Better Chance. Although students entering the seventh and eighth grades are referred only to local day schools, students entering the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades have the option of being referred to day schools as well as boarding schools in California and 26 other states.
Since A Better Chance recognizes that the transition from one school to another may not be easy, it conducts a three-day residential, orientation program each summer for newly-placed students. Alumni, as well as member school faculty and administration, speak to students and provide them with information to dispell their fears and ease their transition.
A Better Chance conducts follow-ups on all its students, sending Southern California director Anderson to visit local member schools, where he talks with students, their teachers and administrators, to make sure that the students are not having any problems. When an ABC student graduates from college, they can participate in the Business Professional Partnership (BPP) Program, in which affiliated-Fortune 500 companies offer them summer internships and entry-level managerial positions.
For more information about A Better Chance, call Michael Anderson at (213) 743-2674. Most deadlines for the program are in November.”