For the second summer in a row, the University of California is inviting high school students from five Pueblo Indian tribes in northern New Mexico to participate in a program designed to familiarize them with the college-going experience and help them prepare for applying to college. Experience Berkeley is an intensive three-day residential program at the UC Berkeley campus. One high school sophomore or junior each from the Jemez, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Cochiti and Pojoaque pueblos will be admitted to the Berkeley program. It accepts 50 participants in each of four separate sessions from July to August.
Attendance is free of charge, although students or their pueblos are responsible for travel costs.
Applications for the program are available from respective pueblo education coordinators and from Barbara Grimes of the LANL Community Relations Office. Applications must be submitted to Grimes by April 27. Experience Berkeley, now in its third year, uses an interdisciplinary approach to enhance students' critical thinking, writing, speaking, study and research skills. The objective is to help students prepare for the challenges of the junior and senior curricula, the college application process and the transition to higher education, both academically and socially. Students explore the resources of the Berkeley campus and are exposed to its faculty, undergraduate students, libraries, research and computing facilities.