About SUPA
Syracuse University Project Advance (SUPA) is a premier cooperative partnership linking Syracuse University with secondary schools.
Through this partnership, high schools can offer qualified seniors the opportunity to enroll in SU courses for university credit. Teachers who have qualified through SUPA as SU adjunct instructors teach enhanced concurrent enrollment university courses in high schools during the school day.
Curing Senioritis
SUPA began in 1972 as an attempt to address “senioritis,” the tendency for seniors who have completed their graduation requirements to relax rather than prepare for the transition from high school to college.
SUPA’s cure for senioritis was to develop a concurrent enrollment (sometimes called “dual enrollment” or “dual credit”) college readiness program. Project Advance does not offer advance placement exams. Surveys have shown that advance placement programs have lost their luster, with too much emphasis placed on a single exam.
By contrast, SU courses offered through SUPA intellectually challenge students, requiring them to deeply explore and thoroughly interact with college-level subject matter. Dual enrollment not only better prepares students to transition from high school to college, it gives them course credit that 90% of SUPA graduates receive recognition for at destination colleges.
Expanding Horizons
Since its official launch in 1974, SUPA’s professional development programs for high school teachers have helped more than 750 educators become SU adjuncts. And the first six pilot schools have become part of a community of more than 200 schools across six states and abroad, enrolling approximately 8,000 students every year.
Today, Project Advance offers 38 SU courses from 22 academic disciplines, with new courses added annually. The broad spectrum of introductory college courses offered through SUPA includes:
| Accounting | Cybersecurity | Italian | Spanish |
| American history | Earth System Science | Latin | Sociology |
| Biology | Economics | Personal Finance | Sport Management |
| Calculus | English/Writing | Physics | Statistics |
| Chemistry | Forensic Science | Presentational Speaking | Website Design |
| College Learning Strategies | French | Psychology | |
| Computer Engineering | Information Technology | Public Affairs |
These university courses for high school seniors are identical in all important aspects to courses offered to matriculated SU students—they use the same syllabi (where appropriate), materials, textbooks, assignments, and assessments.
Detailed student and teacher manuals, testing and evaluation instruments, course outlines, and record-keeping instruments have been developed for these courses. Course descriptions and syllabi can be found here.
