Entering a larger world

Desmond Huynh is a UW senior majoring in neurobiology and comparative history of ideas. He plans to go to medical school after he graduates. Even though Huynh is a senior, he is 18, the age of most freshmen. Huynh came to the UW at age 13 as a student in the Early Entrance Program (EEP). The EEP is designed to accommodate students as young as 13 who want to be students at the UW. Before they take university-level courses, they are required to complete a year in the Transition School, completed in a one-room schoolhouse at the Robinson Center in Guthrie Annex 2, with a tuition of $13,000. Huynh was one who decided to skip the traditional high-school path and go into the EEP. He had an idea of what he wanted his life to look like within the next four years. The transition EEP Director Julie Lancour said the program is a rigorous and radical acceleration to prepare students to become freshmen. The EEP requires students be younger than 15 before the school year starts. To gain entrance into the program, prospective students and their parents are interviewed together and separately in order to assess if the transition school will be a good fit. This also ensures that the student wants to participate and their parents aren't simply pushing them. Huynh followed in the footsteps of his sister, who went through the EEP before him. He said that having her pave the way helped his parents feel more comfortable with his entering the program. Lancour said it is very important to make sure the students want to be in the EEP program. "We have a history of seeing that motivation [of what] a parent really wants is not enough for the students to drive them to get through this," Lancour said. EEP students typically have gone through the most advanced courses available in their traditional academic setting. "These are students who have experienced as much rigor as they can in their current school settings, and their academic needs aren't being met, so they come to us," Lancour said. During their year at transition school, students take courses in English, history, pre-calculus, physics, and ethics. These courses are taught by both UW faculty and graduate students. They also hire former Transition School students to be teaching assistants for each of the subjects. Students typically have four to six hours of homework every night after school. "Some students have referred to it as boot camp," Lancour said. "We're not looking to replace the high-school experience or all of the high-school curriculum, but it is to ensure these students are ready, that they have the critical-thinking skills, the writing skills, the math skills, in order to be university students." UW alumnus Jonathan Kane, 22, said his year in the Transition School was the most stressful year of his life thus far. Kane entered the EEP program at age 13 and went on to earn degrees in both linguistics and math. He had already skipped a grade and said he was not challenged in his previous school, but was extremely challenged in the EEP program. "Transition School was far harder than anything you do in college itself," Kane said. The curriculum of the Transition School is designed to push students, who often have not been pushed before. Even though there is a set curriculum, the courses are often tailored to the students' individual needs. "Some students may be struggling in pre-calculus, but they're doing great in physics," Lancour said. "So they're going to get pushed in physics to make sure they're still being challenged, but they're going to get the help they need in pre-calculus." Huynh said he struggled his fall quarter in the Transition School. "Fall quarter, it was sink or swim," Huynh said. "And I was starting to sink; professors came in and pulled me up." Throughout the year, the students and their parents meet with the Robinson staff for meetings to assess how the students are doing. Lancour said that because the coursework is so rigorous, it is expected for students to struggle at some point throughout the year. "When we do find that students are struggling, we have some intervention methods; we have a step that goes on focus and we have a step that goes on probation," Lancour said. "That is not meant to be punitive. It's meant to be supportive and acknowledging, 'Hey we know something is going on, and we know this is tough. How can we help best?'" Kane said, looking back, he felt he probably would have been able to handle the stress of the program if he had been a few years older. Now a UW research faculty member in forestry, he said that while in the Transition School, he was constantly at risk of failing. "I am much better at math and science than humanities, and I was basically incapable of passing two humanities subjects at the same time," Kane said. Kane said he considered dropping out but stayed because his school district would have placed him back with his age group and not his intellectual group. Not wanting to return to the ninth grade, Kane passed with the understanding that he would only take one college-level humanities class at a time. Lancour said the idea of the transition school is not to make the students stellar in all areas, but to ensure they have critical-thinking skills, writing skills, and the emotional skills to handle being a college student. The EEP students who go on to the UW will have to navigate a campus designed for older students. Lancour said the EEP students are at a disadvantage developmentally because they haven't had as much time in making decisions like asking for help or going to office hours. The decision In addition to their typical academic course work, the students are assessed throughout the year on what Lancour calls the "intangibles," or the emotional maturity to handle what life will be like as a college student. The courses the EEP students take in transition school do not count for college credit. During their spring quarter, the students are required to take a five-credit course at the UW in an area that interests them. "That's also to evaluate how they're going to do out in the university setting," Lancour said. There are cases where students decide the EEP is not a good fit for them. Those students then begin high school, and the EEP staff works with them to create a transcript so their year in transition school counts for credit. For a student who completes transition school, there are two paths: being promoted to the UW as a freshman, or the faculty deciding that he or she is not ready yet and should return to high school. Lancour said this is an extremely difficult decision that takes the Robinson faculty members hours. Typically, all or most EEP students graduate and become UW students. "It is a tremendous amount of work, and we tell students just getting through transition school is an accomplishment," Lancour said. Lancour said when students don't move on, they typically express loss, sadness, and frustration. She said many times those students will come back later and thank them because they realized with time that it was the right decision for them. Becoming part of the UW The EEP students who do become UW students go into a wide spectrum of majors, and 44 percent of them double or triple major. Lancour said many of the students are adventurous about their majors and intellectually curious. "I think people think stereotypically, 'Oh, they're all math and computer science majors,' and yes, we have a lot of math and computer science majors. But we also have arts majors, humanities, and social science majors," Lancour said. One of the characteristics of the EEP students is that they are really involved: Thirty percent of EEP students study abroad, and many are involved in research. They also have their own drama society, participate in Humans vs. Zombies Tag, and utilize the Robinson Center kitchen to bake as a stress reliever. Each year the students throw a "not-a-prom" dance as well. Huynh said one of the things that made the transition easier for him was having two social groups, one in EEP and another with friends from his old school. "I went to prom when my friends were juniors and seniors," Huynh said. "I still am in good contact with my old [friends]." Lancour said when she interviewed for the position, she was surprised to find out that the students did not have a traditional high-school experience. Since then she has realized that most of the EEP students don't miss high school, because it is something they never experienced in the first place. "I think a lot of times, parents or people who see us from the outside are concerned, 'Are the students' lives being ruined? They're missing out on high school; they're going to not have the social development that they need,'" Lancour said. "While they may not have access to some of the things in high school, they have the University of Washington. I think they find the activities they would have been searching for in high school. They can find those plus a tremendous amount more." Kane said he didn't feel like he missed out by not having a traditional high-school experience. He said the one area in which the age difference did bother him was dating. "I feel like I missed out because right around the time I was interested in girls, all of the girls were older than me," Kane said. The EEP students form a very tight-knit community and become attached to their one-room classroom. Huynh said they worked hard together in the classroom but also had fun and bonded in the lounge. "That intensity made us come closer together," Huynh said. Lancour said it's often hard for the Transition School graduates to get used to spending time in the lounge instead of the classroom. "They so want to be back there, and they so want to see the new [Transition School students], and they're so surprised at how small they look," Lancour said. "They want to be there to help because they know what they're going to be going through." Lancour said students typically don't identify themselves as younger when they are in classes at the UW. She said this becomes more difficult when, for example, students are in the graduate program and office hours are at a bar and they cannot go. "I find students aren't necessarily interested in being different," Lancour said. "I think we provide a really unique community where students don't necessarily have to explain or worry about people understanding why they're younger." Huynh said he never hid his age but he didn't offer up the information unsolicited either. "I didn't want that to be people's first impressions of me," Huynh said. He said his first day in his first UW class he was intimidated by the other students being so much older. "I thought, 'these people are big,'" he said. "As soon as class started, things cooled down, [I thought], 'I got this.'" Huynh said that having close faculty looking out for him really helped his experience. "The comfortable feeling came from peers and staff looking out for you, whether you would like it or not," Huynh said. "It was always to your advantage." Reach reporter Sarah Radmer at features@dailyuw.com.

Entering a larger world

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