Although I am a first-generation college student, I never questioned whether college was an option for me. From a very young age, my mother made sure my brother and I knew that we had to go to college after high school.
Even though I became anxious during senior year thinking about how expensive it might be for my family to support me going away for college, my mother reassured me that she would do anything she could to help put me through college.
I went into the application process blindly, looking at “top” schools because of my grades and applying to schools my guidance counselor told me were “safety” schools because of my GPA. Despite my mother’s relentless reassurance that she would take out loans if she needed to, I hoped for generous financial aid packages and scholarships to not burden the household.
I was confident. As part of the top 10% of my high school class, I anticipated getting many acceptances and scholarships. Although I was nervous about the Ivy League schools I applied to, I knew that I would end up somewhere, and wholeheartedly believed that I would get scholarships based on my grades.
However, that confidence in my academic ability and worthiness to get accepted into college quickly vanished during the transition to college. Having received a conditional acceptance to Cornell University through the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), a state grant program for low-income families that provides additional financial and academic support to students, I was required to complete a summer bridge program to enroll in the fall.
Despite being accepted into many other schools with generous financial aid packages and scholarships, Cornell was the most competitive school I was accepted into and offered a full-ride because of their financial aid packages and my acceptance through the HEOP program. Unaccustomed to having to do summer school or having a “conditional” acceptance, I remember doing research online where I saw that the program helped support students who did not necessarily have a college-preparatory curriculum in high school. Although my excitement about Cornell did not diminish, I do remember beginning to question my academic ability.
The Pre-freshman Summer Program (PSP) at Cornell acclimated me well to the resources on campus. I was required to meet with my academic adviser, my HEOP counselor and a peer mentor on a weekly basis to talk about my transition and academic success at Cornell. I made friends with a lot of students like me who were either in HEOP or required to attend the summer program for similar reasons.
