He Survived A Refugee Camp. Can He Survive College Applications?

by Carol Scott · 2010-10-06 07:29:00 UTC
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Ugandan teen Sam Bwayo spent three years in a Kenyan refugee camp, speaks three languages and has gotten good grades at Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego, Calif. 

His dream school is the University of California, Riverside, where he wants to study medicine. Sam plans to attend medical school in the U.S. and return to his native Uganda as a doctor.

But Sam - who speaks English, Swahili and Luganda - is running into red tape as he applies to the University of California system. The refugee camp where he studied Swahili didn't give him a transcript, and without official paperwork, he can't prove his fluency in Swahili or Luganda. There's no SAT II test for either language.

Although he's working to find an expert to certify him as fluent, there's no guarantee that Sam will be deemed eligible to apply to UC Riverside, even though he's taken college-prep classes.

"I'm stuck in the middle," Sam told the Voice of San Diego. "I don't know exactly what to do right now. I'm done with high school -- but am I going to move forward or back?"

The Equality Alliance San Diego is working with students like Sam who are struggling to apply to the University of California and California State University. The San Diego Unified school district is making changes in order to ensure that its graduation requirements match up with college requirements. But Sam, whose guidance counselor told him he didn't need to take foreign language classes, is stuck in limbo.

Equality Alliance executive director Andrea Guerrero and her team are working to find an expert who can verify Sam's foreign language fluency. She's also pushing San Diego's school district to work harder to make sure all students meet the requirements to apply for college.

Join Change.org in telling the University of California to make it easier for applicants like Sam Bwayo to apply.

Photo credit: US Army Africa

Carol Scott is the Education Editor for Change.org.
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