THE SECRET SAUCE An integral part of Reality Changers is the Academic Connections Program through UC San Diego
Extension , where high school students stay on campus for three weeks of summer , acclimating them to the college experience .
in school before — always on the board for something bad . But we treat them as the people they will be , not who they are in that moment .”
They show videos of others , once in trouble like them , now college graduates . They present the room with an offer : The top 12 students who raise their grades the most over the next month will skip the waiting list and join the program six months before high school starts . “ That ’ s when they look at all their friends , who are always getting in trouble , and think , ‘ I may not be perfect , but I can at least be number 12 in this room .’”
Yanov reports that up to 60 percent of the worst-performing students in San Diego ’ s toughest parts of town raise their grades within that month . “ No tutoring , no services . Just the idea and hope that something else out there could be better .”
Half of Reality Changers ’ students enter the program this way . They come to Reality Changers cautious , full of guarded hope . Most stay because they see older kids who believe in the program . “ The secret sauce to Reality Changers ,” Yanov says , “ is that if you want an eighth grader to buy something — whether it ’ s drugs , gangs or going to college — have an 11th grader sell it to him .”
AND THE FINAL PIECE in the program brings Yanov back to campus where he started . When students raise their grades to a 3.5 GPA or higher , they receive a $ 4,300 scholarship ( half paid by UC San Diego Extension , half paid by Reality Changers ) to attend Extension ’ s Academic Connections program , where high-school students stay on campus for three weeks of summer , taking courses and growing accustomed to the college experience . The program , Yanov says , is the ultimate game-changer . “ All of our students believe they can be first-generation college students , but by going to Academic Connections , they become convinced that they can succeed because theyʼve already done it , and they ’ re only in 10th grade . It transforms their chance of success , because they know they can make that transition . It makes the idea of going to college normal , even though nobody else in their families has ever gone before .”
And here ’ s the thing : it works . Since 2001 , Reality Changers has helped more than 1,600 youth in San Diego County prepare for college and find the scholarships they need . Ninety-three percent of students stay with the program year over year . They ’ ve produced college students at all UC and Cal State campuses , at Dartmouth and Duke and Princeton , at Northwestern and Columbia and Harvard . The sum total of scholarships Reality Changers students have earned now exceeds $ 100 million .
And the benefit goes beyond just getting students in . For minority and disadvantaged students entering college , a key metric is persistence rate — the percentage who graduate or stay in college with graduation as their goal . Reality Changers ’ students show a remarkable 88 percent persistence rate .
Results like these don ’ t go unnoticed . Cindy Marten , MA ’ 95 , superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District , has been a longstanding partner with Reality Changers , and the school district has funded the organization ’ s College Apps Academy program , a streamlined
30 TRITON | WINTER 2018