Atlanta students meet challenge issued years ago

ATLANTA - In 1988, brokerage Merrill Lynch & Company guaranteed 25 Atlanta first-graders a college scholarship if they graduated from high school. <br> <br> But the challenge was complicated. They were inner-city children who faced years of obstacles, including parents who were drug addicts, homelessness and the lure of gangs. <br> <br> Nearly three-fourths of the students, picked at random from Capitol View Elementary School in Atlanta, met the challenge -- graduating on time in 2000 and moving on to college or technical school. <br> <br> ``Defying the Odds,&#39;&#39; a new documentary produced by Georgia Public Television, tells the story of five of those students. It is premiering Tuesday night and is scheduled to be rebroadcast in coming weeks <br> <br> The Atlanta students were among 250 selected in 1988 from ten cities nationwide for Merrill Lynch&#39;s Scholarship Builder program. So far, 195 have graduated high school or obtained high-school credentials.