City Prep Press

Elite boarding schools have long been the domain of the wealthy, but one Bronx nonprofit specializes in getting underprivileged kids into those privileged academies. City Prep helps motivated middle school students with academic preparation and aid in securing scholarships to private boarding schools and competitive parochial high schools in the city.

The after-school program, founded in 1996 by a public school teacher who has taught in the South Bronx for more than 30 years, has even placed students at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. - whose blue-blooded alumni include both Presidents Bush.

Frederic Gluck, an English teacher at Intermediate School 229, started City Prep when he saw the bright lights of his classroom start to dim after graduation. "We were graduating good kids," he said. "But I'd see them years later and they weren't doing much."

Gluck set out to create a program that would take motivated students in the perennially worst-performing school district in the city and get them into top-tier high schools, which would lead them to good colleges and successful careers.

In September, Ivonne Morales, 14, will head off to the Millbrook School, an upstate boarding school, on a full $32,000-per-year scholarship she won with the help of City Prep. Ivonne, who wants to be a pediatrician, said she was reluctant at first to go away to school. "But after I considered it," she said, "I realized that it was a better opportunity and I should take it. My mother is still a bit apprehensive, but she knows it's for the best."

Students don't have to go to a far-away boarding school, though, since City Prep also works to get students into the best parochial schools and into honors programs at the city's public high schools. Students who remain at home also stay in the City Prep program, which supports them with tutoring, mentors and help with college admissions and financial aid.

Yenifer Romero, 18, chose to stay in the city and graduated from the Gateway honors program at John F. Kennedy High School this year. With the help of City Prep's SAT prep course, not only was she accepted at Cornell University, but she also secured enough financial aid and scholarships that her family won't have to pay a cent for her Ivy League education.

"City Prep really gave me the confidence to see that I could do this," said Romero, who wants to be an obstetrician.

Students and parents who are interested in the City Prep program can apply online at www.cityprep.org.