Overcoming the Preparation Hurdle Programs have been developed that attempt to both identify and prepare minority students in a more effective way. Vanguard Program identifies and recruits students from under-served communities, primarily urban areas, and provides them with intense academic preparation. Their selection process is quite novel.
Evaluators walk around observing the students and their problem solving strategies.
Using this assessment process, proven to be effective in evaluating students from a wide range of educational backgrounds, the program identifies seniors who are likely to be overlooked by student recruitment practices at engineering schools, but who possess the skills, motivation and interest to be successful in top tier engineering education environments. Once identified, students participate in intense academic preparation programs that integrate math and science knowledge and immerse students in the culture of engineering delivered by a carefully chosen cadre of university faculty members. It would be an extremely expensive and monumental task for national-scale numbers of students. But we recommend schools look further at this promising program.