The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley, has organized a program of undergraduate research during the past eight summers. Called SUPERB (Summer Undergraduate Program in Engineering Research at Berkeley), the program brings six to eight underrepresented minority students to Berkeley for a research experience. Individual faculty provide eight-week research projects and welcome students from other universities and colleges into their research groups. The goals of the program are to affirm the motivation of the students for graduate study while strengthening their qualifications. Based on evaluation of the program and annual tracking of the student participants, these goals have been met. About 75% of SUPERB alumni have attended or are attending graduate programs in engineering. In addition, other unanticipated positive effects have resulted. The Berkeley REU model differs from some others in ways which present interesting challenges.
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Simon Humphreys (2002) studied this question.