SEED Students Go to College (but do they stay?)

Last blog post for Education Policy and Politics? That's a lot of pressure to really make this one count.
After reading the post by Dr. Powell on the presentations, I found an interesting point that I failed to notice over the course of our research for the SEED School. Dr. Powell points out that while the SEED School tries to stimulate the college life for at-risk students with college banners and school spirited paraphernalia literally EVERYWHERE, a "No Trespassing" sign is posted outside of the gated community -- creating a stark contrast between what the SEED school wants its students to experience, and what they actually experience. Instead of immersing these students in a "college-like" environment to prepare them for a higher education, they are instead doing them a disservice by creating a restrictive environment.
After our research on the SEED model, we focused almost entirely on the contrast between the school environment and the home/community environment. Now that I think about it, the students who attend SEED are probably thinking that that is what college is like -- test oriented, rigorous coursework, minimal contact with the outside world, very little socialization time, and an emphasis on constantly being engaged in schoolwork during allotted times and abiding by curfew.
The unfortunate thing is, college is nothing like that at all and the SEED students are likely to have a difficult time adjusting to life in college. Granted there are similarities -- such as rigorous coursework and maybe testing -- college is the milestone in life during which you actually become more socialized, have more freedom, and are not held back by anything. College is the place where students learn and grow (whether or not this is a result of good or poor decisions). Students learn how to manage time and make good use of free time to study. They meet new people and establish friendships by opening themselves up to new experiences and trying new things. Even the academic culture exposes students to more than just testing -- challenging students to think critically and learn to analyze and assimilate material and convey it through an articulate paper.
Although I can understand why the administration at SEED might be weary of allowing students the freedom that is given in college due to the instability of their home environment, I also think that they are also creating future problems for them. In some ways, students from SEED will have more freedom than they can handle in college which can result in them engaging in risky behavior -- precisely one of the things SEED tries to reduce by limiting their time at home. It would be interesting to research how many SEED students graduate and move on to college, and how many SEED students graduate from college.
This idea of structure and lack thereof posed by Dr. Powell got me thinking about the complexities of school reform. How do these reform models provide an environment that shelters at-risk students from the one that holds them back, but also prepares them for the reality ahead of them? How do they prepare students for the real world when preparing them for the real world involves exposure to risk factors that trigger their home experiences?