PHILADELPHIA — Christopher Thomas still has the recruitment letter the University of Pennsylvania sent him when he was a senior at Philadelphia’s Central High School in 1993.

But Thomas would not actually get to the Ivy League campus for 19 more years — three children, several jobs, and a lot of life filled the interim. He finally arrived through a route some might find unusual — the local community college.

Thomas, 37, graduated from the Community College of Philadelphia last year and entered Penn in the fall with the goal of becoming a teacher.