“…As precollege education has grown more unequal, our undergraduate institutions have persisted in using biased and exclusionary measures of merit for admission; despite our pretense toward a "level playing field" the emphasis on standardized tests and Advanced Placement have imposed gateways that disadvantage or exclude outright students in under-resourced settings, who are more frequently Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color (BIPOC), more frequently poor, and more frequently first in their families to attend college. 21 Students seeking to enter four-year institutions through a two-year college pathway or through military service find additional barriers in how previous work is credited or recognized, and how the transition to the new campus is facilitated and supported. 22 To broaden participation and engage underrepresented groups in EWD, our pre-college strategy focuses on developing curriculum, competency and inclusive pathways that leverage teacher networks, school guaranteed admission agreements, and informal education partnerships along with creating high-quality curricula, scalable teacher professional development models, and viable access pathways for students to engineering.…”