SEMO PREPARATORY SCHOOL TO AID SOME NEARBY PUPILS

Southeast Missouri State University plans to establish a college preparatory academy this summer that would provide a way for academically ineligible high school graduates to meet the university's admission requirements.

"We are going to keep it fairly small this summer to see if it works," said Sheila Caskey, Southeast's interim provost and dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Extended Learning.

The pilot program would be limited to students in a 5-county region who are more than an hour's drive from a Missouri community college, said Caskey.

That region would comprise Cape Girardeau, Perry, Bollinger, Scott and Mississippi counties and the northern part of Stoddard County.

Caskey met Thursday with representatives from 15 high schools in the region to discuss plans for the college preparatory academy.

She said the need for a college preparatory program was prompted by the university's adoption of tougher admission standards and a desire to provide an opportunity for area residents to get a college education.

She said "part of what drives our thinking" is the fact that Southeast is the only four-year institution in Southeast Missouri. In addition, there are only four community colleges in the 24-county area.

The university rejected the applications of 78 Southeast Missouri residents who had sought admission for the fall 1992 semester. The 78 were among about 300 people who were denied admission because of their inability to meet higher admission standards.

The eight-week academy program would be limited to those in the immediate region who have the potential to be successful college students but fall just short of Southeast's tougher admission requirements.

High school graduates who fall a course short of meeting core-curriculum requirements, or fail to meet the minimum 2.0 grade-point average, or fall a point or two short of the ACT requirement would be eligible for the preparatory program, Caskey said.

Students, for example, who score 16 or 17 on the ACT, a national admissions test, would be allowed to take the preparatory program.

They would then have to retake the test and meet the university's ACT requirement, which is a minimum score of 18, in order to enroll for the fall semester, Caskey said.

The program, she said, is not intended to allow all academically ineligible students an opportunity to enroll at Southeast.

"This is not a backdoor way for kids not to take the core curriculum, not to earn a 2.0, or not try to do well on the ACT."

Relatively few area residents will be admitted to the preparatory academy this summer, Caskey said. "We are really talking about a handful of students."

Those students accepted into the academy would have to take courses to make up their academic deficiencies. Such courses are already offered in the summer session, Caskey said.

In addition, academy students would be required to take a new "survival skills" course, similar to one offered several years ago when Southeast was an open-admissions institution.

The new course is designed to teach students good study skills.

Caskey said Southeast informally assisted some area students last summer, allowing them to take preparatory courses in an effort to meet enrollment requirements.

"Only six of the 26 (students) didn't meet the conditions that we set," she said. Twenty-three of them were subsequently enrolled last fall, said Caskey, with three of those admitted as "part-time, special students."