SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Frustrated with students who come to college ill-prepared and an applicant pool that lacks the diversity of the nation’s high schools, universities around the country are creating their own.

The University of the Pacific launched a high school in Natomas, Calif., last year. Stanford, University of California at Berkeley and at San Diego, the University of Chicago and others around the country also have started high schools in recent years.

All of them focus on steering disadvantaged kids toward the university gates. And educators say they are making headway.

"The reason these are happening more is that the universities are trying to do something to increase the number of minority students that come on their campuses and can be successful," said Rob Baird, who funds school-university partnerships as vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

"Universities are now seeing these schools as laboratories for learning how to do something about remedying the achievement gap between more affluent, typically majority population kids, and poor urban minority kids."

Adriana Guerra, who goes to the West Sacramento Early College Preparatory Charter School, is just the kind of student the schools are after. Her parents were born in Mexico and never graduated from high school. Her mother makes a living cleaning houses, and her father works as a tile setter.

Adriana chose the West Sacramento charter school because she wants opportunities her parents never had. She’s only 13, but has her eye on college.

The West Sacramento Early College school opened in August with 100 sixth- and seventh-graders. It will add a grade each year until it serves students through the end of high school.

The University of California, Davis, is stepping in, even though the West Sacramento students are years away from taking a college class.

UC Davis School of Education faculty consult regularly with teachers, many of whom are UC Davis students or grads themselves. The school uses a math curriculum developed by UC Davis professors that focuses on the real-world meaning of mathematical operations.

In DJ Whaley’s seventh-grade math class, for example, a recent lesson on the growth of a tree combined concepts of recognizing positive and negative numbers, identifying patterns in a chart and plotting numbers on a graph.

"What’s happening to the height of the tree as the years go by?" Whaley asked the class.

"It’s increasing," a boy called out.

"Can somebody add to what John said? By how much is it increasing?"

"One foot per year," a child shouted from another corner.

"So in 10 years, how much taller would the tree be, Oswaldo?"

"Plus 10 feet," he replied.

"You’re not really answering the question," Whaley said.

She wanted him to say the tree would be 10 feet taller. It may be a subtle difference, but to Whaley it’s the difference between understanding how to solve a problem and understanding what the problem means.

Many students have struggled with this approach, Whaley said. But Adriana said she likes the school’s focus on "explaining the way you learn things."

At her old school, Adriana said, "in math, some of the formulas you wouldn’t understand them, just know how to do it. Here, they make you understand why you got to your answer."

The richer curriculum is one benefit teachers say they get from UC Davis’ involvement. They like being able to bounce ideas off experts and ask for help in reaching certain students.

But the university benefits too, said Harold Levine, dean of the School of Education.

"It takes us out of the ivory tower and into the real world of schools," he said.

Like UC Davis, University of the Pacific started its high school to get more black and Latino kids on the path to college. But it has an additional goal: to get them into law school.

Law is one of the least ethnically diverse professions in the country, said Emily Randon, director of educational outreach for McGeorge School of Law, which runs Natomas Pacific Pathways Prep, also known as NP3.

Students must take a college-prep curriculum in addition to classes in criminal and constitutional law. They participate in mock trial and moot court competitions and pay weekend visits to law firms. They listen to speakers at McGeorge law school and meet with law students who serve as mentors.