BY LANNING TALIAFERRO The Journal News POssining High School students have four ways to earn college credit in English before they ever set foot on a college campus. Besides traditional Advanced Placement classes in composition and literature, Ossining also offers freshman composition through Syracuse University and Westchester Community College in Valhalla. In all, one-third of the senior class is taking college-level English. "There was a whole group of students we wanted to be successful at upper-level study who weren't taking the APs," says Assistant Superintendent Phyllis Glassman. "Some weren't sure about college as their next step. "We added Syracuse and WCC (in order) to offer rigorous courses that would let the youngsters raise their own expectations. They see they can master college-level work, and it gives them the impetus to go on." Ossining is at the vanguard of a growing trend: high schools teaming up with colleges to give students a head start on higher education. It offers 22 college-level courses in history, science, languages, business, the arts and mathematics not only through Syracuse, WCC and the College Board, which sponsors the AP program, but also in partnership with Iona College in New Rochelle and Berkeley College in White Plains. College courses can keep senior year from becoming an academic bust for the brightest students, proponents say. They offer timid teen-agers a taste of college in a comfortable and familiar environment. They also help cut tuition costs and, experts say, increase students' chance of success in college. "Colleges have a growing commitment to secondary schools at two different levels: to the highly talented student who needs to be continually challenged and to disadvantaged students who need encouragement and training to be successful in college," says Jim Ross of the state Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 107 colleges. "More and more, we're all looking at education as a continuum: kindergarten through grade 16," he says. Ross foresees the new partnerships paralleling the explosive growth of the Advanced Placement program, which has offered courses since 1957 that award college credits to students who score high enough on a year-end examination. In that first year, 2,068 students took 3,772 AP tests at 204 schools. Last year, 12,229 high schools offered AP courses, and 635,168 students took 1.2 million AP tests. "But AP isn't enough any more," says Tere Wisell, admissions director at WCC. "Students are looking for alternative ways to distinguish themselves. They're also looking for something different from the standard advanced course in biology or American history." WCC offers an array of courses, including accounting, criminal justice, international marketing and foods and nutrition, to high school students in Ossining, Valhalla and New Rochelle.This fall, WCC even sent a professor to Valhalla High School to teach an introductory criminal justice seminar after school. That experiment was a success for 17-year-old senior Michael Gammarati. "I was a little scared at first, but it wasn't bad," he says. "It was a different kind of learning." The course was an eye-opener about college expectations. Instead of nightly homework, the professor provided students in September with a syllabus and outline of the material they would be responsible for over the semester. In New Rochelle, teacher Tina Amato paired up with WCC to supplement the high school's business curriculum by offering college Accounting 101. "I wanted to create something new that was academically challenging and that would attract a diverse type of class," she says. "Business classes in college are not easy. Yet a high-schooler who has already taken basic accounting has the background to keep up with honors-track kids." In the past two years, 50 students have parlayed grades of B or better from her class into credits at colleges nationwide, including American and Howard universities in Washington, D.C., Emory University in Atlanta, Boston College, Hofstra University on Long Island, the State University of New York, Iona and Pace University in Manhattan and Pleasantville, she said. Those credits can reduce tuition costs by giving students a head start on the number of credits they need to earn a degree. The granddaddy of the partnership movement is Syracuse University's 27-year-old Project Advance, which offers freshman-level courses in 120 high schools in five states; 18 of those schools are in Putnam, Rockland or Westchester. The courses span 13 subjects, from biology to psychology. Teachers accepted into Project Advance train at the Syracuse campus and become adjunct professors. The aims are to offer advanced study and to make high school students more aware of college expectations and potential majors, says spokesman Gerald Edmonds. "That's the hidden agenda of Project Advance," he says. "Students are held to our standards in a highly supportive environment where they know everyone around them and have a teacher who's highly invested in the program. "That experience is invaluable when they make the transition to the more independent environment of the college campus." Many students reaching junior and senior year are ready for such challenges, says Joanne Marien, assistant superintendent of Somers schools, a perennial participant in Project Advance. "In many cases they have already met the requirements for a diploma," she said. "Advanced opportunities are invigorating." The courses may also improve students chances for admission to the colleges of their choice. When Pearl River schools surveyed colleges last year, admissions officers said success in college-level courses is a strong sign that students will do well on campus, says spokeswoman Sandy Cokely Pedersen. The district has increased its offerings to 14 college-level courses this year, up from three a decade ago, Pedersen says. But Bruce Johnstone, former chancellor of the State University of New York, fears that kind of rapid growth could erode standards. Johnstone, now a professor at SUNY Buffalo and head of the Learning Productivity Network, is afraid AP classes will become less rigorous as they become more widespread. And he worries that colleges trying to increase their partnerships will bestow "adjunct professor" status on high-school teachers who don't deserve it. "These things clearly have a potential, realized in many cases, of enriching the high-school curriculum," he says. "The question is substantive academic supervision. This is not only growing very fast, but nobody is keeping track of it who is not also trying to sell it."