They Did It!
Eight 2007 high school graduates reveal the highs and lows of getting into college—and the lessons they learned
Believe in Yourself Zaira Gonzalez
The odds were against Zaira: Only 11 percent of seniors at Southwest High School in El Centro, Calif., on the Mexican border, go on to four-year colleges. A first-generation American, Zaira got little family help-her parents, separated and living in Mexico, knew nothing about U.S. higher ed. She applied to 10 schools and was accepted by five. Living with an aunt and straddling two cultures, Gonzalez is plunging into the Midwest, heading to the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., to study biology or chemistry. She wants to be a physician.
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College at His Fingertips Daniel Crowley
A jazz pianist and composer, Daniel wants to be a sound recording engineer and producer, figuring that's more likely to mean a steady income. A public high school student from Northbridge, Mass., he's following his passion to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Daniel applied to 11 university music schools. He got into nine.
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The In-State Advantage Maroulla Plangetis
Money was the defining factor for Maroulla, class president at Annapolis (Md.) Senior High School: "When I heard about a school, I would go online to the College Board and look at the price." She applied and got into eight colleges, all but one within a half day's drive of home. The benchmark became University of Maryland-College Park, where she was looking at tuition costs of about $8,000. Other schools offered money, but in the end, Maryland was the most affordable. The second-oldest of four children, Maroulla will study business in an honors progam.
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Define Your Goals Early Harris Eppsteiner
Valedictorian of his Atlanta prep school class, Harris applied to some of America's most elite schools, getting into Harvard, Yale, Penn, and three others. He chose Yale but is taking a gap year to live on a kibbutz in Israel. Harris started with a list of 15 schools but narrowed them to just six. How did he rule out so many upfront? "A lot of it was asking myself what did I want to get out of [college]," he says. His goals: schools where he could study international relations or economics, in places where he could "broaden my comfort zone" beyond Atlanta.
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Blazing a New Trail JeeHyun 'Jen' Song
Jen never thought about attending high school in the United States until the restrictive South Korean education system stuck her in a school that was not a good match. Although she knew little English, her parents packed her off to relatives outside Seattle, where she enrolled in a small Lutheran high school. With the help of an educational consultant, Jen applied to 15 schools and heads to Washington University in St. Louis to study comparative literature.
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A Disciplined Approach Karlton Lattimore
A Milwaukee resident, Karlton is on his way to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to become an architect. His short commute belies the work behind his feat: staying focused on college at a high school that prizes sports over academics and where a third of the seniors don't graduate. After a cousin made a connection for him with a faculty member at UW-Milwaukee, Karlton was asked to design a house and attended a summer architecture program on scholarship before his senior year.
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If at First You Don't Succeed...Ben Harounian
March 29 was a bad day for Beverly Hills (Calif.) High School senior Ben Harounian: UCLA and UC-Berkeley both rejected him. UCLA was his top choice. Rejecting the rejection, Harounian appealed—to the university's band director. Ben is passionate about drum line, and he figured his passion must not have leapt off his application. In late April, UCLA changed its mind, his GPA nudging him ahead of other appeal candidates, he says. Ben plans to study computer engineering.
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An Honest Assessment Sophie Rubin
Sophie trades the West Coast (Menlo Park, Calif.) for the East, heading to Smith College in Northampton, Mass. After her sophomore year, she also traded her public high school for a private Jewish school to get "an upper hand getting into colleges." Looking back, she doubts the move boosted her chances, saying: "You learn more from the everyday life around you and the adventures you create than you do in the classroom." Her self-assessment: "I'm not exactly a weak student; I'm just not perfect. Smith has enough room and few enough applicants to be lenient with a student who is less than perfect in terms of numbers."
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