Shirin Pillay became interested in science in middle school, thanks to an inspiring teacher. A self-described "nerd' at that time, Pillay, who is hearing impaired, was shy, with distinctly different interests than her peers.

"If I went to a (regular) high school I would definitely not be talking with anyone,' she said.

But she's not going to a regular high school. Pillay is a student at the California Academy of Mathematics and Science, a school in the Long Beach school district geared toward bright students with a serious interest in math, science or technology careers.

A joint partnership between the Long Beach school district and Cal State Dominguez Hills, where the school is located, CAMS lets a select group of about 600 kids develop their math and science talents through college-level courses, internships and research projects.

University calculus, physics, anthropology, African studies and a host of other college courses are taken by CAMS students, who graduate with an average of 20 to 22 units of college credit.

One of Pillay's research projects has special significance. The 17-year-old is working in a Los Angeles lab, studying possible ways to regenerate hair cells in the human ear that are necessary for hearing. She lacks enough of the hairs to hear fully. Motivated students

CAMS exists for students like Pillay, who are motivated and fascinated by science and math. Who are willing to stay up past midnight building a robot, who want to intern at Nissan, take college-level chemistry, learn to make computer-generated 3-D models but who may also want to star in "Fiddler on the Roof' and write a thesis on Ayn Rand.

The 14-year-old school succeeds because it is tightly focused on cultivating driven students, with help from industry, not only for college but for careers, said Principal Kathleen Clark.

"People, meaning the staff and faculty and kids, really buy into what the school is about,' she said, "a place where you can have a lot of dreams satisfied regarding college admissions and careers. And kids are focused as a result of that.'

"I think the content and career focusing is absolutely important,' she said, "because we are providing kids with an environment to experience what's actually going on in the workplace.'

That focus has put CAMS among the very best high schools in the state. It has consistently ranked among the top six high schools according to the state's annual measure of academic progress, the Academic Performance Index, placing fifth last year.

CAMS pupils, who are drawn from 11 Southern California school districts covering 625 square miles, outperformed students statewide on the SAT by an average of 154 points last year.

Last year's seniors were accepted to prestigious universities across the country, including Columbia, MIT, Cornell, Stanford and UC Berkeley. Diverse group

And, perhaps most remarkably, the school succeeds with a diverse student body. A study by UC Berkeley researchers found that CAMS ranks among elite private, affluent schools in the percentage of students admitted to the UC system. But unlike many of those elite schools, it serves many low-income and minority students.

About 32 percent of the school's students are Latino, 26 percent are Asian, 14 percent are Filipino, 13 percent are African-American and 13 percent are Caucasian. And 43 percent quality for free or reduced meals.

The only public school that had a higher UC acceptance rate in the study Whitney High School in Cerritos has a student population of about 72 percent Asian, 11 percent Caucasian, 9 percent Filipino, 6 percent Latino, and 2 percent African- American. Only about 4 percent qualify for free or reduced meals.

Whitney parents also tend to be more educated than those at CAMS. At Whitney, 83 percent of students responding to a state survey last year reported that their parents had finished college or had gone on to graduate school. At CAMS, that number was only 54 percent.

Marghee Garduno is one example of diversity at CAMS. A Latina who will be the first in her family to graduate from college, Garduno is among 60 percent of CAMS students who speak a language other than English at home.

Although she loved attending her Huntington Park middle school in the Los Angeles school district, she says it had a "pretty ghetto' environment, including gates and a police presence.

At CAMS, she was initially interested in computer programming, but found "it was just a lot of hours of debugging just to see if you missed a comma,' she said.

Now she plans to study biology and medicine at college, and, thanks to CAMS, she expects to have about 30 college credits before walking in the door.

George McKaig, a former Hughes Aircraft engineer, has mentored several CAMS students from low-income families who have gone on to good four-year colleges.

One of them had been living in the same home with three low-income families. Now he is a Stanford student on scholarship who will be his family's first college graduate.

"I think it's amazing,' McKaig said. "Almost from the day they started CAMS, they are exposed to the fact that people like them can go to college, rather than somebody turning them down.'

One reason for the school's diverse student body is the administration's aggressive recruitment efforts at its 75 feeder public middle schools. CAMS tries to admit two eighth-graders from each public middle school, in an effort to ensure that CAMS' population reflects that of the Los Angeles Basin. Gaining admission

But getting in is tough for a student in any middle school. This year, only 18 percent of 930 applicants were accepted. But many of them weren't necessarily at the top of their class.

CAMS doesn't just focus on recruiting the top 5 percent of middle school students.

"We are looking for an indication that they are truly interested in math and science,' Clark says.

Applicants must have scored in the 65th percentile or higher on the math portion of the California Achievement Test and have A's and B's in math and science.

That may get some students in the door for a rigorous interview in which they must present a math or science project and answer tough questions to gauge their interest in those two fields.

An example: "Pick a world problem and tell us how you would solve it.'

The outstanding projects aren't out of a Mr. Wizard book, either. They have included the effects of pollution on brine shrimp (complete with a storm drain test) and the durability of arch and suspension bridges during earthquakes.

One can see the result of this intense vetting in the excited faces of students talking about their love of science and math.

"I was that person who would spend countless hours on the NASA Web site,' said senior Achala Edirisinghe, who hopes to one day journey to Mars. "I was kind of a bookworm in eighth grade.' Science and technology

The school's job is to give students like Edirisinghe a taste of the scientific and technological careers early. The school requires ninth-graders to take an introductory engineering course to ignite those career interests, especially among women, who are underrepresented in science and engineering fields.

In one recent class, teacher Andrew Williams held up a V-shaped block of wood to show how much force would be exerted on it if it were hung from the ceiling.

Students in the class recently worked in teams to build a multiple rocket-launching system and a sailboat.

Like many classes, this one has elements of a college atmosphere. Teams work on complicated projects involving advanced concepts and are in many ways responsible for their own learning. Self- motivation in large part drives the school.

That approach to learning impressed MIT officials when they spoke with Williams.

"The model of teaching here is very MIT-friendly,' he said.

The hallmark of the school's cooperative approach is its interdisciplinary projects, which have teams of students analyzing an issue using their language, math and science skills.

One senior-year project has students researching a personal financial portfolio and conducting a stock market simulation. Later, students develop a product, research companies making similar goods, create a business plan using original data collection and present an ad campaign.

In the "Halls of Justice' project, teams of sophomores become lawyers arguing before judges on issues like resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, implanting computer chips in criminals, the merits of the metric system and mining in space. This cooperative approach extends to teaching as well.

Students in each grade share the same five teachers in their core classes, so the teams of teachers can closely coordinate not only on the interdisciplinary projects but also on helping students who are having difficulties.

"You just get to know (the teachers) very well,' said senior and student body president Camille Encarnacion. "I have a couple of teachers who are like my parents, so I go to them for advice.' Students' focus

The school's newly constructed, $1.7 million buildings fuel this college campus image. Small columns mark the beginning of a large concrete plaza surrounding the sleek, 3-year-old buildings. This summer the school will break ground on two new buildings, which will include half-a-dozen classrooms, a cafeteria and an engineering lab.

During one recent visit to the school, a few students sat researching colleges and financial aid in a computer lab primarily dedicated to these purposes.

In a neighboring lab, 11th-grade students worked on required theses on a surprising array of subjects that typically could be the subject of a college midterm paper: medieval architecture in Edgar Allan Poe's works, the impact of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton on medical fields and vampires in literature.

English teacher Deborah McVay watched as the students work. "I'm excited about reading these term papers,' she said. "They amaze me constantly.'

She has a simple explanation for the CAMS impressive success.

"The main difference is these are very motivated students because they are so motivated they go to the deeper level to analyze,' she said.

At one English class, students discussed the olfactory metaphors in a poem by Nobel-prize-winner Seamus Heaney. They are also tackling "Crime and Punishment.' On a table in an adjacent classroom sat 155 novels 10th-grade students have written, including a fake author's biography at the back of each book.

A chemistry class reviewed complex reaction calculations as the teacher scribbled on an overhead. A student in a science class began work on a competition in which he must build a small box-size machine capable of doing a variety of mechanical tasks involving, among other things, switches and playing cards.

"It's pretty hard,' 14-year-old Richard Kim said. "It's a chore.'

Very few things are, though, for CAMS students.

"They are different students,' said parent Lenore Reed, whose three children who attended CAMS sometimes worked past 1 a.m. on group projects.

"These are students who really want learn. You don't have to tell them to be in class on time.'

Corporate connections

And those are the sorts of students employers salivate over. That's one reason why corporations and foundations, including companies like Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman, have poured $10 million into CAMS since the school opened. Almost $4 million of that sum helped pay for the school's modern buildings that opened in the fall of 2001. (CAMS students earlier were stuck in some ugly bungalows.)

Professional engineers also teach classes and mentor students. For engineering and science firms, the money goes not only toward a good cause, but a good investment. They are looking for multitalented hires who, like CAMS students, are just as comfortable giving a Power Point presentation as they are balancing equations.

"To have people that have overall, balanced skills like that, with a strength in math and science, is clearly very important to us,' said Sonya Sepahban, vice president and deputy of technology development at Northrop Grumman Space Technology.

The company takes an active role in the school's robotics classes, and several CAMS students have interned at Northrop during the summer. Some of them eventually were hired.

CAMS students have also interned at Texaco, Caltech, American Honda, Virco, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Hughes Aircraft and Warner Music Group.

Northrop Grumman is exploring having students work at the company during the school year, Sepahban said.

"It came evident to me that CAMS really does represent some of the best that our state has to offer in terms of scientific and mathematical skills development,' she said.

In the school's computer-aided design class, CAMS students get a taste of how the engineering profession functions. As part of the course, they divide into teams to create a robot that can find and retrieve tennis balls placed on the floor. As part of the project, they set deadlines and produce a budget.

If they miss those deadlines, their grade drops 10 percent.

Joseph Carpenter, a Northrop Grumman engineer who teachers the course, says that students effectively work as a professional engineering team, serving him as a client.

"It's like I'm the government or NASA and they are a company hired to solve a problem I have,' he said.

"I run it like a business,' he added. "There's no tests. It's based on performance.' CAMS roots

The idea for CAMS was born in the late-1980s, the brainchild of then- CSU Chancellor Ann Reynolds. She approached several school districts in 1989 about the project, but ultimately settled on Long Beach because of the its eagerness to participate and its experience with magnet programs. Long Beach provides oversight to CAMS and sits on the school's governing board.

Although Long Beach serves as the school's fiscal agent, CAMS gets the same share of money from the state as other schools, based on its average daily attendance about $4,600 per student. In addition, each year the school has been awarded $750,000 from a state program for specialized secondary schools.

CAMS must rely on private funds to help with its capital projects. The school isn't eligible for any local bond money, because it's located on a university campus and outside Long Beach school district boundaries.

Private funds "are absolutely essential,' Clark says. "There would not have been buildings, for sure, without private support.'

Under pressure

Many CAMS students will progress to technical careers but it would be a mistake to assume that they are simple science bookworms always armed with pocket calculators.

The school recently finished a production of "Fiddler on the Roof.'(In fact, self- described bookworm Edirisinghe played Yenta. She also takes ballet.) Last year students did "Les Miserables.' Students participate in mock trial teams, film clubs and the school newspaper. They play in bands and volunteer at hospitals.

CAMS students applied to the high school in part because they didn't feel their middle school peers shared their interests.

"I could relate to (CAMS students) because I was one of the more eccentric types and here everyone is an eccentric type,' said 17-year-old Herbert Icasiano.

Senior Brooke Guerrero said she was having a "middle school identity crisis' before applying to CAMS.

"People weren't really interested in the field of medicine so I couldn't talk with anyone about it,' she said.

But with a college-like atmosphere comes a somewhat college-like lifestyle late nights working on group projects, for high stakes, under tight deadlines.

Students struggle under pressure, some of it applied by themselves but some of it coming from parents.

"You just want to give up,' said Jontae McCoy, a senior from the Inglewood school district. "It's midnight and you haven't slept for two days.'

"Nobody is as tough on me as I am on myself,' she added. Some students can handle the pressure easily. Others have much more trouble.

"Some people scream. Some people cry,' McCoy said.

Rashida Mickens, a 17-year-old senior from the Inglewood school district, says her mom scrutinizes her report card, unlike her sister's, and sometimes doesn't understand that CAMS courses are more difficult that a C at CAMS is different from a C at a normal high school.

"That's when you want to scream and say, 'Please be quiet," she said.

Eventually, Mickens said, she told her mother: "Look, I'm doing this the way I want to do it.'

CAMS students need to talk to their parents about the difficult academic challenges they face at the school, says Helen Monahan, a school counselor.

"They have to make parents understand that a B at CAMS is like an A at a normal high school because of the competitive environment,' she said.

A lot of stress at the school comes from poor time management being unable to effectively juggle the many commitments CAMS students have, she said.

"They have to see that they have to prioritize,' Monahan said.

Students at CAMS feel pressured to excel but not out of a need to compete with one another, several students say.

"Everyone strives for the same goals,' student Encarnacion said. "It's not as though we go after each other and say, 'Hey, what did you get on that test?"

Feeling different

Many CAMS students keep track of their former middle school friends, but sometimes they feel treated differently because of their decision to attend an advanced high school.

"I've seen people take a few steps back when they find out I go to CAMS,' said Jarrid Reed, Lenore Reed's son.

Their classmates at CSUDH also eye them warily.

Aaron Jackson, a 16-year-old junior, recalled that when one college teacher found out that she had CAMS students, she said in front of the class, "Oh, you are going off to a smart school like Harvard or MIT, whereas these people are going to stay here.'

Student Guerrero said she wants people at other schools to know that CAMS students don't look down on them. The school is dedicated to those interested in math and science, which doesn't describe many other students, she said.

"CAMS really isn't for everyone,' she said. "So us being here isn't belittling people who are at other high schools.'