Seven years ago, Punahou School kicked off an intensive summer program for low-income public school students, most with middle-of-the-road academic records.

The goal: Get the kids, who were preparing to enter sixth grade at the time, planning for college.

This year, the first cohort in the program graduated from high school — and many are headed to institutions of higher learning.

Their ranks include a Gates Millennium Scholar who will go to Princeton University.

"The kids have inculcated in their lives and their families’ lives the idea that college is a necessity and that college is something that is attainable," said Carl Ackerman, director of Punahou’s Partnerships in Unlimited Educational Opportunities, or PUEO, and a history teacher at the school.

The program admits 40 new public school students every year, and has attracted several large grants, including $3 million from the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation.

Over the years, the original 40-member PUEO cohort lost 12 students, several to summer programs at other private schools and a few to off-island moves and family emergencies. Most of the students who filled slots left empty by departing students came in at least five years ago. The most recent addition joined in 2009.

On Friday night, Punahou President Jim Scott held a special send-off dinner for PUEO’s first cohort to recognize how far they’ve come.

Of the 40 honored, nine will be attending mainland universities, 12 will go to four-year institutions in Hawaii, 18 will head to community colleges and one is enrolling in a vocational school.

That means all of them, Ackerman said, are headed into some sort of post-secondary program.

"It was an experiment," Ackerman said, adding that the beginnings of the program and its continued life at Punahou is thanks to Scott. "It was his vision. Jim really took a big chance with this."

Perhaps the biggest success story in PUEO’s first graduating class is Kristy Huang, 18, whose parents emigrated from Vietnam. She was attending Lincoln Elementary in Makiki when she was picked for the program. Three years later, she was admitted to Punahou School as a freshman, and attended with the help of financial aid.

Last month, she was named among 1,000 Gates Millennium Scholars in the nation, chosen out of an applicant pool of 24,000, and will receive a good-through-graduation scholarship. She wants to study math or engineering at Princeton, where she’ll start this fall.

Huang said PUEO has taught her self-confidence and life skills. "I’ve learned about preparing for college," she said.

Students in PUEO attend six weeks of intensive courses aimed at not only building their skills, but sparking their imagination. Courses include robotics, for example, or marine biology. Students also get small-group tutoring by a college student.

Over the years, as new cohorts have been admitted, a few things about the program have been added, including more structure during the orientation. But the core classes haven’t changed, and neither has the basic premise — that given the opportunity, these students can succeed.

"A lot of these kids have really severe issues at home," Ackerman said. "I think many of our kids probably would not have gone on to college. I think they’re kids who may not have thought about college."

Another standout in the first PUEO graduating class is Kaia Kong, a graduate of Anuenue School, a Hawaiian-immersion public school. The 18-year-old will attend Louisiana State University-Shreveport on merit scholarships and plans to major in environmental studies. After college, she wants to return to Hawaii to study ethnobotany and native plants.

She said PUEO gave her intensive courses that tested her skills and built on her knowledge, allowing her to write better essays and excel during the regular school year.

If she hadn’t been chosen for the program, she said, "I think there would be a lot that’s different."