Through the Front Door at USC

One by one, the USC freshman literature students took turns telling the class where they came from: Hawaii, Chicago, Texas, New York, South Africa.

But Karina Mendoza was the one who set necks craning for a better look.

“I’m from L.A., a couple blocks from here, actually,” she said in a strong voice, nodding toward east of campus.

Though the University of Southern California prides itself on diversity, only rarely has it drawn in youths from the Central City streets just beyond its walls. Historically, few neighborhood kids applied to the pricey college; worse, even fewer met basic entrance requirements.

That began to change this semester when Mendoza and a handful of other local teenagers stepped inside as freshmen after six years of special preparation.

In 1990, Mendoza was among the first group of 50 Los Angeles school district sixth-graders recruited for the Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a discipline-heavy college prep academy that sought to bring average students up to admitting par. Those who met USC’s requirements were promised a full scholarship.

Last spring, a Times story described the drama as the children, all of them students at Manual Arts High, learned through thick and thin envelopes who had made the cut. Today, the freshman class includes 10 of the original 50 “USC scholars” and seven others who joined the group along the way.

With the end to affirmative action admissions at University of California campuses, such high school enrichment for minorities may become an important model of achieving parity without bending rules. Though the academy costs about $2,100 per student above the regular Los Angeles Unified School District program, other districts as far away as Connecticut and as close as Las Vegas and the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court schools have consulted academy Director James Fleming about launching similar efforts.

And another 330 middle school and high school students in the Neighborhood Academic Initiative are following in the USC freshmen’s wake, venturing onto the college campus for accelerated classes before school, afternoon tutoring and again on Saturdays for workshops in computer use, note-taking skills and study tips.

The ultimate measure of the program’s worth will not be known for four years--when members of this first class of academy scholars graduate from college. Fleming says he is optimistic, and already there are signs that the scholars are fitting in.

On the first day of school last week, while other freshmen carried telltale campus maps, the scholars effortlessly maneuvered their way behind buildings and through back entrances.

“We know all the shortcuts,” Mendoza said, grinning.

During a special academy tour of USC’s research library, the librarian warned students to carry IDs at all times because “you don’t want to find a whole bunch of high school students in here when you need to work on a paper.”

A few scholars giggled because, until now, they were those pesky high school students trying to sneak in to study at USC.

Acknowledging Differences

Bright and articulate, conscientious and good-humored, Karina Mendoza feels confident that the hard work that earned her an A-plus average at Manual Arts High has evened up her odds of competing with students from middle-class schools.

What makes her nervous is that she is poor and most of them are not.

Not being able to fall back on mom and dad for cash adds urgency to the inevitable hidden costs of college: delays in financial aid, fees for books not covered by the scholarship package, even a charge for a fruit salad not included in the cafeteria meal plan.

On move-in day, Mendoza and fellow scholar Cynthia Rios carried their possessions in satchels, plastic bags and cardboard boxes, while other students rolled entire sets of perfectly matched luggage into the dorm. They made up their beds with well-worn bedspreads from home as some of their neighbors pulled brand new bedding sets out of the store packaging.

Later in the week, when Mendoza asked one of her dorm mates for help filling out a financial aid form, the girl was unfamiliar with the process because her parents are paying her way.

“It made me feel a little strange,” said Mendoza, the daughter of a seamstress and a refrigerator repairman. “But it bothers me less than I thought it would.”

Because the academy aimed to bring the students in the front door--with grade averages of B or above and SAT scores of at least 1,000--freshman Tony Toledo was able to inadvertently one-up his blond, pony-tailed roommate from Tennessee.

James Ian Owen asked Toledo what he had taken his senior year in high school and exclaimed, “Wow!” when Toledo described a full load of advanced college placement classes, including one class not offered at Owen’s high school.

For Toledo, moving day had begun with frenzied early morning packing in the small back bedroom behind his parents’ kitchen after he found himself too anxious to sleep.

When he, his father and his friend--fellow scholar Johnny Chavarria--reached USC’s Fluor Towers dormitory, they encountered one broken elevator and a long line for the other. After trudging up six flights of stairs, they discovered Toledo’s room already cluttered with Owen’s stuff--his toiletries spread over both desks, his dirty clothes filling the floor.

For the tidy Toledo, whose parents brought him to South-Central from El Salvador as a toddler, this seemed like cruel punishment heaped atop the assignment of a room on the regular sixth floor instead of on “El Sol,” the Latino-dominated seventh floor location he had requested.

“I don’t know what to do,” Toledo said, standing stunned in the doorway. Minutes later he regained his composure, kicked the dirty clothes aside and stacked his gear under one of the desks.

By the end of the afternoon he and Owen--a jazz saxophonist--were sitting side by side in their matching desk chairs, discussing music, as Latin hip-hop band Proyecto Uno blasted from Toledo’s boombox.

Their conversation underscored their differences.

“What kind of music you listen to?” Owen shouted.

“Everything--hip-hop, R&B;, rap, even classical,” Toledo replied. “But for some reason, I don’t like country.”

“I don’t blame you,” Owen said.

“You like Spanish music?” Toledo asked.

“I’m not familiar with it,” Owen said. “I don’t speak the language.”

‘I Know They Can Do It’

Neighborhood Academic Initiative director Fleming, who runs the academy with a combination of private donations and USC contributions, says his only major worry is that the scholars will outgrow USC and transfer to more competitive colleges.

“They feel they belong here and that’s the key. . . . I know they can do it,” he said.

Like a protective parent, he frets that his former charges could become mesmerized by what he calls the “Trojan mystique”--the partying that can distract even the best of students.

Although the scholars have seen more of the hard side of life than most of their fellow students--growing up in neighborhoods pocked by violence and broken families, drugs and poverty--the academy’s strict requirements left them little opportunity to get into trouble. Even turning in homework late prompted a demerit, and five demerits were grounds for expulsion.

Free of those rules, temptation awaits.

Karina Mendoza and Cynthia Rios seem already to have struck a balance between socializing and staying home in Fluor Towers to catch up on gossip, reading and sleep.

Moving away from home was a hard sell for both of them, as it was for most of the girls in the program and some of the boys. Their parents shared Fleming’s concerns about temptation.

“They have this culture concept that in order for a girl to get out of her parents’ house, she has to be married,” Rios said.

On the first day out of the house, though, both girls already were pining for their pets, siblings and even their parents. They plan to go home every weekend, even if it’s just to do their laundry, which they were shocked to learn would cost $1.25 a load in the dorms.

Tony Toledo, on the other hand, began the school year staying out late most every night, sampling Greek Row parties, student services soirees and impromptu get-togethers in rooms of friends old and new. The morning of the first day of class he slept in late and still had not purchased any books. That afternoon he was ensconced in one of the girls’ suites, chatting on America Online.

Yet several days into the semester, as the weight of the work ahead loomed heavy, Toledo kicked into high gear. He bought all his books, read 30 pages of chemistry homework, was trying to arrange study groups and was headed out to buy a calendar to organize his time.

“It’s a lot of work, I have to admit it--but it will be OK,” said Toledo, who narrowly missed becoming Manual Arts High’s class valedictorian, an honor bestowed on Rios instead.

Obstacles Remain

Toledo’s partner in partying has been his friend Johnny Chavarria. At USC, Chavarria stands out--his head freshly shaved, large diamond stud in his left ear, the crotch of his baggy pants hanging nearly to his knees.

At fraternity parties, he sometimes is mistaken for a party crasher from the neighborhood, an error only reinforced when he tells questioners he lives off campus with his parents.

“A lot ask me if I’m just visiting,” he said. “They don’t believe me.”

Chavarria waited and waited for his financial aid packet to arrive over the summer. Then, just days before school began, he learned that an obscure wrinkle in the 1996 welfare reform laws prevented him from receiving federal grants and USC had declined to make up the difference.

Though born in Honduras, Chavarria became a legal resident under “family unity” provisions of the 1986 immigration amnesty law. Last year’s welfare overhaul excluded those children from all forms of government aid.

As a private college, nothing would have prevented USC from paying anyway, but it would have meant footing the entire bill. The school was counting on the scholars’ poverty to bring in government assistance to help offset the college’s costs, said financial aid Dean Joseph Allen.

A 1990 memo from the provost’s office promising full tuition--$20,000 at current rates--to any of the admitted scholars required them to apply for financial aid, but did not specify that they must qualify for government aid.

Allen said he sought to clarify that commitment when he took over the job four years ago, meeting individually with parents to explain the exceptions to the full scholarship rule. In a 1996 memo to Fleming, Allen officially spelled out the need for entering scholars to meet state and federal eligibility criteria.

“Certainly seven years later one could say [the 1990 memo] should’ve been worded more carefully,” he said.

Fleming unsuccessfully lobbied on Chavarria’s behalf, then hurriedly fashioned a scholarship from a private donation originally intended for an engineering student. That covered Chavarria’s tuition and a salary for his on-campus job, which would pay for other fees and books--but not housing.

Coming up with the almost $7,000 for room and board was out of the question for Chavarria’s father, who works as a parking lot attendant to support the family of six. So Chavarria finds himself hiking the seven blocks to his house most days, sometimes sleeping in friends’ dorm rooms or bumming a ride.

His easygoing nature helps him accept the last-minute glitch.

“I care, but I don’t care, you know?” he said. “I can chill out at home for a while.”

Chavarria’s mother is torn between respecting his need for independence and being thrilled that the change of plans has kept her oldest son at home, where he provides a studious role model for his three younger brothers.

“At least Johnny got his problem resolved, more or less,” Lilian Chavarria said. “Imagine, he could be in Elva’s situation.”

It had been known for years that academy scholar Elva Rojas was undocumented and unlikely to receive the scholarship. She had applied for her “green card,” but the process dragged on and on.

Rojas is attending Santa Monica City College and hopes to transfer to USC next year.

The Next Generation

Long after their classmates had gone home for the day, 28 middle school students sat in a classroom at Foshay Learning Center, less than a mile from USC, plowing through their voluminous homework. They are the younger generation of scholars and, on Wednesday afternoon, Chavarria was among the academy graduates assigned to tutor their class.

He moved from desk to desk, gently suggesting ways to approach an essay on earthquakes, organize an outline on the Revolutionary War and solve mathematics puzzles using powers of 10.

In jokes and whispers wedged between serious questions about schoolwork, the budding scholars sought reassurance that their extraordinary efforts would pay off.

Eighth-grader Erika Daniels said to the girls at her table that many people have told her the academy is “a fake”--its promise of a scholarship too good to be true.

“We want to know what to expect,” she said to Chavarria. “It’s hard, but it’s worth it, right?”

Chavarria just laughed and nodded his head.