The objective at Gary Lighthouse College Prep Campus is to prepare students to apply for college.
They’ve never had a student however, like Araceli Cuevas, who was accepted at 126 colleges and received offers of $9 million in scholarships
Cuevas says she’s focused on finishing her senior year strong. She has a perfect 4.0 grade point average and is ranked second in her class.
“I just wanted to push myself and do more and just see how many I could get into,” Cuevas said.
She said she focused on schools that accepted CommonApp.org, which makes it easy to apply and share your information with schools.
She also focused on schools with no application fee, or were able to waive the fee.
The scholarship money is also a huge help for her family. She will have to pay very little at whatever school she ends up choosing.
“With having one already in college, having two, it’s definitely going to be a big help,” mother Patricia Gonzalez said.
Her teachers and counselors say Araceli serves as an example to many of the other students in this underserved community.
“She could’ve made excuses, but what Araceli did was she was just determined, and did what she needed to do,” lead counsellor Jesenia Ryan said.
Araceli did have to write about 30 essays to go with some of the applications. But she says it was worth it. She says she’s leaning toward schools in the state of Indiana. She plans to study psychology, and has big goals.
She still has a little bit of time before deciding which school she’s ultimately going to choose. Decision day around the country for students is May 1.
