In 2000, only two students from Miami Carol City Senior High School were accepted to UF.
Ten years later, that number has risen to 22.
The rise can be attributed to the help of the UF Alliance, an outreach organization that helps six struggling Florida high schools improve its educational standards and college acceptance rates.
The Alliance celebrated its 10th anniversary Monday evening with a reception at the Rion Ballroom in the Reitz Union.
The program engages parents and school personnel to do more to help students at these schools to prepare for college.
“The Alliance program helps kids from high-poverty areas of our state raise their sights so they will work hard while they’re in high school so they get to come to the University of Florida or universities like the University of Florida,” said UF President Bernie Machen.
The six partnered schools, located in Duval, Miami-Dade and Orange counties, are largely minority schools, according to Diane Archer-Banks, interim director of the Alliance.
“This is another way we can ensure that the student body of Florida represents the diversity of our state,” Machen said.
The program was started as a response to race no longer being considered on college applications, Archer-Banks said.
Stephen Backs, a world history teacher at Miami Carol City Senior High School, was one of the first teachers approached to help with the program and to select 40 freshman students to take part in the first UF Alliance campus tour.
Before the Alliance came to the school, Backs said, there were only two or three students who were accepted into UF.
Miguel Mejia, a 19-year-old elementary education major, said his journey to UF began as one of the students selected for the freshmen campus visit in 2005.
Mejia eventually graduated from Miami Senior High School and was accepted to UF.
“I didn’t even know what UF looked like, or what a college itself looked like,” he said.
