The first generation at Rancho San Juan High School sets a high bar.

Getting into a four-year university is easier said than done. Students must fulfill a list of academic requirements, apply for admission and also apply for scholarships to increase their chances of attending the school of their dreams.

One initiative to help high school students navigate the process is the Puente Project, which focuses on improving college acceptance rates among underrepresented and first-generation students.

At Rancho San Juan High School in Salinas, the first Puentistas, 30 students who attended grades 9-12 and spent half of their high school life in online learning, are setting a remarkable record: 97 percent of them will attend a four-year college. Students got accepted to Ivy League schools such as Yale, Brown and Stanford, plus universities in the UC and CSU systems.

Of the 17 students attending UC Berkeley next fall who are graduating from Rancho San Juan – the first graduating class that attended all four years at Salinas’ newest school – 13 are Puentistas.

The achievements don’t end there. Five Puentistas were finalists with QuestBridge, a nonprofit platform that connects first-generation and low-income students with scholarships and universities.

Jordana Henry and Peter Williams, both English teachers, lead the Puente Project at the school. “We’re creating a four-year experience for students, not just one-off activities,” Henry says.

They aim to build community among the students and develop their knowledge, skills and abilities over four years. The program is offered at two high schools in Monterey County: Everett Alvarez and Rancho San Juan.

Students in the Puente Project are more likely to complete their UC and CSU requirements. In 2021, 54 percent of Alvarez graduates completed their required courses, while 88 percent of Puentistas from the school did the same. Transfer rates are higher as well, with 88 percent of Puentistas transferring to a four-year college compared to 65 percent of Alvarez graduates overall.

Jezmarie Avila, who will attend UC San Diego next year and plans to major in social psychology, says her second-grade teacher, a Stanford graduate, was a role model who motivated her to pursue higher education. Avila will be the first in her family to attend a four-year university; she says thanks to Puente she was able to navigate the application process, something she couldn’t ask her parents or other relatives about. “They can’t really give me the guidance I needed to get into university; no one in my family had ever gone.”

Karen Dorantes, the valedictorian at Rancho San Juan, and her twin sister Carolyn, both QuestBridge finalists, entered the program after they saw their brother’s success in the program at Everett Alvarez.

“Without the Puente Project I probably wouldn’t have been able to apply to as many schools as I did,” Dorantes says. She applied to 45 schools and got accepted to 36; thanks to scholarships, Dorantes will attend Yale next fall at no cost to her.