A record number of international students -- 162 -- are participating in this year's Cornell Summer College Program for High School Students, which invites talented high school sophomores, juniors and seniors to live and study on the Ithaca campus for up to six weeks.

Students from across the country and all over the world are experiencing university life while exploring possible majors and earning credits. Students in the program typically take two three-credit courses.

Enrollment in the China-Cornell College Preparatory Program, now in its second year as part of the Summer College Program, has leapt to 33 students from six high schools in China; up from seven students in 2006.

"Last year's students raved about this revolutionary program, so we're delighted to be able to work with more students this year," said Abby Eller, Summer College director.

The Chinese students are taking a writing class in English as a second language and a second course of their choice.

Also, 10 students from Doha, Qatar, are taking classes in English immersion and science-related offerings -- such as Bioscientific Terminology and Biological Research and the Health Professions -- in preparation for entering Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.

"They're a great group of students," said Tamara Lovell of her English as a second language students. "What I've found with this group this summer is their English is really better than expected. I haven't had to worry quite as much as I have in the past about comprehension."

Students are writing about topics in the news, their personal lives, and about psychology and social issues, she said.

"They have so many different specialties, we try to pick things that are going to be generally interesting to them. We've been doing a fair amount of writing on global warming recently, because of the Live Earth concert, and it has been in the news a lot," said Lovell, who taught English as a second language to part-time students for 23 years in the former Intensive English Program at Cornell.

The international students are learning "to understand the different rhetorical patterns we expect students to know, how to use resources without plagiarizing, and how to paraphrase, which is hard in a second language. And how to refer to sources, so that they can be prepared to write the kind of papers that are expected of freshmen."

The English courses and writing seminars for mainly international students are taught by the staff of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), a year-round program for matriculated undergraduate and graduate students at Cornell. Students also visited the computer center at Uris Library and were given a comprehensive introduction to the Johnson Museum as part of their English course, said Deborah Campbell, senior lecturer and EAP director.

"The students write in various rhetorical forms and are given a chance to work in summary and critique; they go to the art museum and pick out a painting they particularly like and write about it," Campbell said.

The summer program is now in its 45th year at Cornell. Total enrollment this summer is 784 high school students, from 38 states and 38 countries, including Brazil and Malaysia.

For more information on the program, visit http://www.summercollege.cornell.edu, e-mail summer_college@cornell.edu or call (607) 255-6203.