Student Stories: Juan

Juan German

Classical High School 2008
Occidental College 2012

Going to college has always been a dream of mine. Never have I questioned myself about going to college and getting an education. I remember as a freshman sitting down in a class at Rhode Island College and seeing the smiles conveyed in the college students' faces. All happy and excited to be in a place where learning is embraced.

Going to college is something I want to do for myself and for my family. My parents emigrated to the United States of America from the Dominican Republic when I was about five years old. They came so that my sister and I could receive a great education and be able to take advantage of all the opportunities this country has to offer. Now, I want to go to college to show my parents how much I appreciate the sacrifice and hard work they have put in to make my sister and I better people. They do not want us to live the current life they are living, waking up at five in the morning and coming back from work at about six in evening. A college education is essential for my success and the happiness of my family.

Now I have come to my senior year in high school. I have worked hard to make my dream of college a reality, but it was not easy and I could have not done it alone. So, I decided to join College Visions because I needed help making myself presentable to colleges. I wanted a guide that I knew was going to push me to write to the best of my ability and help me pick the right colleges for me. Thankfully, College Visions helped me achieve my goal.

The college process was quite hard and annoying at first. Picking the right colleges was by far the hardest part of this process. I remember going to CV and showing Simon my list of the fifty colleges I was planning to apply to. In a matter of days that list went from fifty colleges to just about ten colleges. The ten schools I have picked are all in different categories on my college list. Some are safeties, others are targets, and three or four of them are reaches. But I feel confident that at whichever school I'm accepted, I will do a great job and work hard to achieve my goals and make my parents proud. Along with acceptances come rejections, and I know that not every school is going to accept me. So, I am ready to face rejection as well. Hopefully, my top schools--Occidental and Pitzer--will accept me, but April is a long time from now, and I am still waiting to hear a reply. I cannot wait to embark on a new journey that is going to change the rest of my life forever and prepare me to face the challenges of the world around me.