This past summer, Calvin hosted 57 students of color from West Michigan and far beyond — including Austria and Japan — at the annual Entrada Scholars Program.

The Entrada program at Calvin College offers ethnic minority high school students a “gateway” to the future: the opportunity to experience college learning and living while earning college credit. The heart of the program is a regular three-week Calvin College summer school course that Entrada students take with enrolled Calvin students.

“We want students to get a true sense of what college — particularly Calvin — is all about,” said director Rhae-Ann Booker. “At the end of Entrada, students have taken an actual Calvin class for credit, and they’ve lived on campus for a month. The Entrada experience gives them a good look at what college life entails and what it takes to succeed in college. It also gives them a taste of what Calvin’s unique brand of Christian education is all about.”

Entrada scholars are assigned an academic coach — a trained teacher — who attends classes with them in the morning and leads a study period (academic coaching session) with them following the class. Academic coaches model and teach scholars how to be successful in their specific course and in college in general. As a result, the Entrada scholars often do better in their courses than the regular college students do.

But beyond academics, the Entrada participants are given a taste of actual college life. They live in a residence hall, worship and grow spiritually together, eat in the dining hall, study in the library, shoot hoops in the gym, order late-night pizzas, do a service project, get a heavy dose of computer skills — in other words, have a typical college experience.

Last January, Calvin received grants totaling $450,000 for its Pathways to Possibilities (P2P) program and its Entrada Scholars Program, including a $250,000 grant (over two years) from the Maryland-based VanLunen Foundation and a $200,000 grant (over four years) from the locally based Meijer Foundation.

Entrada has had strong success in terms of getting high school students to move on to college, with a 96 percent success rate — something both Meijer and VanLunen resonated with in deciding to make their gifts.

Since Entrada’s inception in 1991, about 350 students have completed the program. Some have gone on to Calvin; some attended other colleges. But almost all have pursued some sort of post–high school education.

The Entrada application deadline is March 15 • 1-800-688-0122 • www.calvin.edu/entrada