YPSILANTI, MI - It's a short 15-minute drive from his office in downtown Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti High School, University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel told a room full of promising prospective college students recently.

But the short distance between the neighboring cities can feel like worlds apart, Schlissel admitted, when considering the challenges many of those students face in ultimately enrolling at UM after high school.

Of the nearly 30,000 undergraduate students on the Ann Arbor campus this past academic year, Schlissel told the students only eight hailed from Ypsilanti High School - a fact UM and the district have been working to change.

"We don't get enough students from Ypsilanti," Schlissel told the students. "You're in our backyard, you're our neighbors. We pass each other on the roads, I'm sure. I want every one of the kids at Ypsi High and the other schools in the district to think about the University of Michigan as their public university, and that they have the same shot at getting in and being successful there than as any other kid around the state."

The university is attempting to bridge the gap of accessibility with students in communities like Ypsilanti with its Wolverine Pathways program, which began in 2015 as a free supplemental educational program focusing on project-based learning, intensive curriculum courses and pre-SAT preparation.

With the first set of students from Ypsilanti's Wolverine Pathways cohort set to graduate in June, 13 have plans to attend UM's Ann Arbor campus in the fall, with four of them from YHS. Another five students from Ypsilanti will attend UM-Dearborn in the fall.

In its first graduating class, 79 students overall were accepted to either UM's Ann Arbor or Dearborn campuses, with 51 confirming they will attend school there in the fall.

Now in its third year, Wolverine Pathways has expanded its offerings of annual cohorts of seventh and 10th graders in Ypsilanti and Southfield to the Detroit community, offering a full four-year scholarship to UM to students who actively participate in 90 percent or more of program activities and maintain a 90 percent or better school attendance rate. They also must maintain good school conduct and a "B" average or better in core academic courses.

More than offering four years of free tuition, Ypsilanti Community High School Principal Cory Gildersleeve said the program is beginning to establish roots UM planted in the school three years ago, presenting the university as a realistic, attainable option for students who would've previously considered it a pipe dream.

That's important at a school like YCHS, which saw its students score an average of 850 on the 2016 SAT with a four-year graduation rate of 53.1 percent in 2017, Gildersleeve said.

"One of the things we've worked hard on in my three years here is to change the expectations, the climate and culture to reach higher," Gildersleeve said. "A lot of our kids, with going to college and things of that nature - they weren't thinking about things like that three years ago. They weren't thinking about college, let alone the University of Michigan.

"Once the word gets out and we continue something like this on a yearly basis, the kids are going to be like 'Hey, the University of Michigan is accessible to me. I can do this,'" he added.

Dispelling the myth

One of the chief aims of programs like Wolverine Pathways is to target students in low-income areas, where there are higher populations of underrepresented minorities.

According to UM, of the 6,847 freshman students arriving on campus this past fall, 906 underrepresented minorities made up 13.9 percent of the class - an increase from 10.6 percent in 2013. Underrepresented minorities total 12.8 percent of the undergraduate student body.

First-generation students made up 12.4 percent of the freshman class in 2017-18, up from 10.9 percent five years ago, according to the university.

Schlissel was candid in speaking with the room full of Ypsilanti Community High School students recently, particularly when one student asked how the university is attempting to accompany its efforts to recruit a more diverse student population with a curriculum that is reflective of those efforts.

"The world is changing right now. It's changing from a world telling the world's story from the perspective of guys that look like me, to telling the world's story from the perspective of people that look like all of us," he said. "That change is happening - it's slow, it's frustrating, but it's happening right now.

"The curriculum is changing to reflect the richness of diversity in our society. Our society is becoming a majority-minority society," he added. "The world is changing, and the universities are trying to catch up."

That starts with eliminating obstacles students face in both getting into UM and providing them with the tools to be successful once they get there, Schlissel said.

Nearly a year ago, UM took a major step in addressing that, opening up its four years of free tuition policy up to half of the families across the state of Michigan with the announcement of the Go Blue Guarantee.

UM began offering all in-state students with a family income of up to $65,000 free tuition for four years in January, with 1,700 in-state students qualifying as recipients. Based on fall enrollment numbers, that means around 7.2 percent of current in-state students on the Ann Arbor campus are now receiving four years of free tuition under the guarantee.

Like Wolverine Pathways and UM's HAIL (High Achieving Involved Leader) scholarship, which targeted communication and simplifying the aid application process for high-achieving, low-income students, the goal is making the path to UM seem less daunting, Schlissel said.

"Probably the most important thing we've done is diminish the fear that many families have - that even if their kid gets into school, that they won't be able to afford it," he said.

"We're trying to get that idea into the elementary schools and the middle schools so that our children can be more aspirational and not have the weight of the world on their shoulders, or worry that the deck is stacked against them and even if they work hard, they can't afford it," he added. "That's off the table. Now it's on them and their families to get them ready, but the financial part, we're trying to take care of."

Ypsilanti Community High School senior Sharee King, who was part of the first Wolverine Pathways cohort in 2016, said mentors helped her during the application process, including working on essays and personal statements when applying to UM.

Additionally, UM also helped her in preparing for the SAT and paid for students to take it before taking it with the school. The support she received in Wolverine Pathways helped increase her SAT score from 1240 on her first attempt to 1350 on the second attempt.

King plans to study biology when she enrolls at UM in the fall as one of four students arriving from YHS.

"I feel like if I didn't do (Wolverine) Pathways, I probably would have been really discouraged against applying to Michigan," she said. "Here, a lot of people don't really think about it - they don't really try to apply. So, it was really nice having them to reach out to us and come to our schools to get us to join the program. It was really encouraging."

Preparing for the next level

Wolverine Pathways' curriculum consists of fall and winter sessions, each consisting of eight Saturdays of project-based, hands-on courses, as well as intensive math and speech and communication arts courses. They also participate in a 16-day summer session consisting of daylong, Monday through Thursday courses over four weeks.

In addition, students participated in community service and leadership opportunities, cultural events, field trips, college prep workshops, internships and visits to the UM campus.

For YCHS junior Emerson Wilson, Wolverine Pathways has opened his eyes to rigorous curriculum he previous hadn't been exposed to.

Beyond the academic aspects, he said, the program has taught him how to better connect with people and be more comfortable socially.

As he enters his senior year, Wilson's overall goal is to attend a school that offers him four years of free tuition - making UM one of his top choices because of Wolverine Pathways.

"The best aspects of the program are learning a curriculum that my peers and other students at my school have yet to learn," he said. "A lot of students in high school don't exactly know what to do when it comes to preparing for college. By being a part of Wolverine Pathways, it actually teaches us things that you wouldn't even know until you get to college."

While the first graduating cohort has found success in reaching UM, Wolverine Pathways Project Coordinator Dana Davidson said outcomes will become more favorable as it becomes more established.

That means instilling in students the type of courses they need to be taking earlier in their academic careers so that they'll be set up to take the classes necessary to be ready for UM and other universities.

"You have students who think they want to be an engineer at 16, but they're not taking (calculus) their junior year," Davidson said. "They're not going to take it until their senior year, which means when they get to the University of Michigan, they're going to be competing against students who took calculus for two years. If we have them in seventh and eighth grade, we can start to teach them and their parents about, 'What are the series of courses you should be taking if you want to pursue a degree that needs a lot of science or math?'"

Because the program is still in its early stages, Ypsilanti Community High School counselor Chris Donoghue said it is only now beginning to receive the same level of attention as other more well-established academic programs students participate in outside of the normal classroom hours.

"When you introduce something into the district or community, it takes a couple of years for people become aware of it," he said. "So, as the older sibling goes through, the younger siblings are gaining a better understanding of what it's all about."

Identifying talent beyond test scores

One of the first challenges Schlissel presented to UM Vice President for Enrollment Management Kedra Ishop when she arrived in Ann Arbor in 2014 from the University of Texas Austin was to simplify the university's financial aid policy with the state of Michigan.

The reason, she said, was to make the process of applying for financial aid less daunting for students and their families. The Go Blue Guarantee and Wolverine Pathways have created a more straight-forward message, she said, rather than presenting numerous forms and tax rhetoric to parents.

The simplified message of free tuition for four years has allowed UM to get students focused on the academic and extracurricular aspects of applying for college, Ishop said, rather than worrying about whether they'll be able to afford it.

"One of the things we take a lot of care with in our admissions process is to look at students in context," Ishop said. "We look to see where the student is coming from, what they have available to them and how do they maximize those opportunities."

While Wolverine Pathways provides students with test preparation resources, Schlissel said admissions employees take a more well-rounded approach when considering the tens of thousands of applicants to make sure students who might not have the same resources are on a level playing field.

Test scores, he said, while important, are measured different ways, based on what community a student grew up in.

"The average ACT score for our incoming students is 32 or 33," he said. "A lot of those kids come from families where the kids take the test six times and they took a paid preparation course or two or three. Then parents say, 'This is great, look at how brilliant my kid is.'

"We need to work to identify kids, regardless of what their test scores are if we think they can be successful in our environment," he added. "That's our challenge."

There are some challenges in identifying and recruiting students for Wolverine Pathways, Davidson said, including having access to potential scholars who might qualify for the program at an earlier age.

Eventually, the program will phase out its 10th grade cohorts, Davidson said, now that the seventh grade classes have reached their sophomore years in high school. That will allow Wolverine Pathways faculty to focus its efforts on stressing the importance of having the qualifications to be in the program at an earlier age.

Of the 586 students enrolled in Wolverine Pathways this year, Ypsilanti's site had the fewest in its cohort with 122. By comparison, Southfield's cohort had 297 students, while Detroit's cohort had 167.

"I would love having ways to figure out how we get more fifth graders to come into sixth grade ready to succeed, so that they can finish sixth grade with a high enough GPA to qualify for the program," Davidson said. "If you're hitting January of sixth grade with a 2.5 (GPA), you already don't have a chance to be a part of the program, and you've just started middle school."