The Puyallup School District has begun a partnership with the University of Washington Tacoma called Pathway to Promise.

Pathway to Promise gives Puyallup seniors more post-high school options. Vice Chancellor for student and enrollment services at UW-Tacoma, Cedric Howard, explains how the partnership started.

“This program started about a year and a half ago,” Howard said. “We entered this partnership asking ourselves how we could create more post-high school options for graduating seniors and we decided to start this program to prepare Puyallup seniors to get a four-year degree.”

The Pathway to Promise program was finalized in October of this year. This years’ seniors will be the first to receive assured admissions for this coming fall.

“Pathway to Promise went into effect in our meeting with the Puyallup School District. We should be seeing the first numbers this fall,” Howard said.

Graduating seniors will benefit from this partnership by receiving assured admissions if they meet certain requirements. Megan Beresford, Associate Director of University Recruitment, explains the criteria that seniors have to meet.

“For seniors to be eligible they have to have a cumulative GPA of 2.7, four credits of English, three credits of Social Studies, three credits of Math, two credits of Lab Science, two credits of World Language, half credit of fine art, half credit of academic elective and a 480 on each subject of the SATs,” Beresford said.

Puyallup high school seniors will be invited for a visit to UW-Tacoma next month to talk about the partnership. Director of Student Transitions Program, Amanda Bruner, discusses the visit.

“We are still working on the details of a visit to the UW Tacoma campus that will be just for Puyallup High School seniors but there will be an invitation coming out later this month so students can keep an eye out for more information,” Bruner said.