Hard Work Doesn’t Pay Off for Determined Inner-City Students : Education: Teens accepted to boarding schools, but a lack of funds keeps them in violence-stricken areas.

A boy from school set Ana Vilchez’s hair on fire. He just came up from behind and put a lighter to her head. His friends were laughing. “That’s life,” she said a few days later. “They’re savages, that’s all.”

Ana has grown up with violence a constant shadow: on the subway, in her Washington Heights neighborhood, around New York’s public schoolyards. Tough talk, a stony face and black leather jacket back up her bravado.

But she’s only 15. And even if she denies it, Ana still has dreams. So on Saturday mornings, while most kids her age are sleeping off Friday night, she drags herself out of bed and heads for a place known as the Dome.

It’s here that over the last year she has been tutored in reading comprehension and writing, prepared for tests and filled out applications in the hope of getting into a prep school far away from the city’s noise.

The cruel joke of it is, the work paid off. Ana and a half-dozen other kids from the nonprofit Dome Project were admitted to private boarding schools around New England--but without the financial aid they need.

“I think to myself, I could get everything I can’t get here: education and a safe environment, support and quiet,” said Amana Lopez, 14, who is careful to tie her silky black hair back before going to school each day.

“I can’t walk the halls of my school without being afraid of being raped or being mugged. What kind of environment is that?” said Amana, who was accepted at two prep schools. “Now I’ll always have it on my mind that I could have gotten out. But I couldn’t. Because of money.”

Government loans aren’t available for secondary school education, foundation grants are limited, endowments are spread thin and scholarships are especially competitive in these recessionary times.

At the same time, more and more middle-class families are strapped and in need of aid, much of which schools commit to upperclassmen whose talents and place in the community are already proved.

“It’s a very unhappy situation,” said Kathleen Johnson, a veteran school administrator now with the Department of Education’s private education office in Washington. “You try to stretch the budget, but then the roof springs a leak. You just run out of money.”

Proctor Academy, for example, is graduating three Dome alumni this year. Next year, none will take their place. “We don’t feel it’s appropriate to say, ‘Look, we’d take you if ONLY you could pay.’ It’s like dangling a carrot,” said Michelle Eaton, director of financial aid and admissions.

“We’re committed to multiculturalism. We’re trying to spread the money around as much as possible,” she said. “But we have finite resources . . . and a lot of families for whom $18,000 tuition really is tough.”

Maria Gregorio has blossomed over four years on scholarship at Proctor’s campus in Andover, N.H. Had the same bright, young woman applied this year, however, she’d likely be out of luck. Her younger brother is.

Though he wasn’t accepted at his older sister’s alma mater, Edgar Gregorio was offered a spot at Cheshire Academy in Connecticut. But there’s just no money.

“We agonize over it every year,” said Jon Deveaux, director of financial aid at Cheshire. “We try to be clear with the candidates beforehand so they won’t be disappointed. But it seems still the kinder way to go is to accept them so at least they know they were qualified.”

Edgar felt great about completing the application process. And it was terrific getting the nod. Stumbling at the final step is a sorry blow.

“Every place around here, I mean in New York, is bad,” said Edgar, a soft-spoken 15-year-old who kept fiddling with his baseball cap. “At school, it’s not safe. At home, there’s arguing. That’s why I spend so much time at the Dome. I like getting away. I just want to get away.”

Caged behind metal bars in an old storefront on Amsterdam Avenue, the Dome office is something of a scar among tasteful Upper West Side brunch spots. But appearances don’t count for much among the kids who come.

Coming as many do from single-parent homes burdened with financial, health and other problems, just getting away is nice. They have a chance to borrow a new book or get some advice about AIDS, sexual abuse or alcoholism.

Some are in trouble with the law and using the juvenile justice program to get straightened out. Others require tutoring either because they are failing classes or because they know what they are getting isn’t good enough.

Kids in the prep program are often frustrated at school, where disruptive students wear out overworked teachers. At home, their parents may not speak English well and TV talk shows are about as intellectual as it gets.

Their backgrounds are shaky, and admissions officers know it.

“Let’s face it, these are at-risk kids. They’re not the ‘talented tenth’ of society. They are going to need help catching up and staying up,” said Leslie Fields, the prep program coordinator.

“But it’s an investment in prevention. The Dome--our society--spends so much on intervention with the bad kids. Why not spend some resources on the good kids, the ones who are trying? They’re always getting overlooked.”

Even the most vigilant parents risk losing their children to the streets, which is why Clara Morel would rather keep her 14-year-old daughter Judith off them.

“I have a friend, and her daughter has problems,” Clara Morel said in broken English. “She has problems with the drugs, and there are problems with the pregnancy too. It’s difficult, the situation. But how to get out?”

“You’ve got to have money to go away,” said Judith, who was accepted at two New England prep schools. “And I don’t know anybody rich.”

Noelle Murrain, 14, long ago focused on what it would take to get her from the Bronx to medical school. Bright, sharp and more responsible than many adults, she reads voraciously and listens up in school.

Because her parents have been able to set some money aside and the Berkshire School has been able to offer partial aid, it’s likely Noelle will be in Massachusetts come fall. But she can’t rest easy yet.

“There are so many people who have money, but no ambition or talent,” she said. “Here you’ve got people working hard to get an education, to better their lives. But it’s like they’re being punished instead.”

The kids who commit to the Dome’s prep program know education won’t guarantee them anything. But they have been told that in America, if you work hard and do well, you will be rewarded.

So, that’s what they have done. Now they’re getting another message.

“The message is that society doesn’t care about us,” said Jonelle Tippins, 13, an articulate girl with huge brown eyes. “All a lot of kids want is a chance. But it’s, like, the message is: Why even bother trying?”