An Ivy Stepladder

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To be admitted to Miami Dade's honors program, students need either a minimum 3.7 high school grade-point average or 1800 on the new SAT (26 on the ACT), and they have to maintain a 3.5 GPA to stay in. More than half the 60 credits the students must complete have to be in challenging honors-level courses. Honors students are offered free courses in Europe or at top-flight schools like Smith College. In addition, some 90 four-year schools, including Smith and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, have agreements with Miami Dade that, in some cases, guarantee its honors grads acceptance right into their junior classes. Therein lies a bonus benefit of the honors boom: as the Supreme Court has made it harder for university admissions offices to use minority quotas to diversify their student populations, the programs at these two-year schools are graduating more black and Latino students whose talents and preparation mean they don't necessarily need to rely on a quota system for admission into those schools. "It does make it easier for selective institutions like ours to recruit a greater diversity," says Peter Spear, provost at Madison. And that, in turn, is making it easier for community colleges to keep recruiting honors students. •