Lindsay High senior earns Harvard admission
Girl is tops in her class
Attending Harvard is a dream for many, but for others it is a dream that might just come true if you just remember to apply.
Karina Gonzalez, a Lindsay High School senior, had no intention of applying to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., but as last-minute college applications go, she thought why not? Her impressively high SAT and ACT scores, 2,220 and 34, respectively, as well as all the Advance Placement classes she is taking, and the clubs she is the president and member of helped earn her an admissions letter to the private Ivy League research university. Gonzalez is not only the president of the Future Business Leaders of America, but is also the vice president of the Drama Club.
“I applied, really last minute, because for the application there really wasn’t much work, so I was done with the ones I had already decided to apply to and thought well I can just throw it in just so you know maybe it could happen, and it did,” said Gonzalez.
Margarita Gonzalez, Karina’s mom, soon began to realize how smart Karina was after wanting to read all the time, and winning awards by the time she was in kindergarten.
“She would pick up books to read, and buy whole book collections that she would finish in a week,” said Margarita.
Both of Karina’s parents could not hide the excitement they felt as they learned of her acceptance to Harvard.
Rosalio Gonzalez, who is Karina’s dad, knows very little English, and yet it was because of him that he started her on a path of wanting to learn and read.
“I taught her her very first words,” says Rosalio. Karina jokes that it is was simple words like ‘balloon’ that got her started.
Apart from acceptance letters from Harvard, Karina has already been accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern University. She is contemplating on attending UC Berkeley after already visiting the campus, and dorms, but is heavily considering all her other options.
“Harvard seems really unknown, I know about them, I’ve read about them, but I’ve visited Berkeley. I’ve seen the rooms where I would be studying, I know some of the clubs that I’d like to join,” said Karina. “It feels a lot more real to think, oh I’ll go to Berkeley then.”
However, Karina isn’t counting out Harvard just yet, after all it is a school she has long thought about.
“When I was little I didn’t really understand a lot about college, I was just like Harvard’s the best college so I want to go to that one,” said Karina.
Karina is still unsure about what exactly she would like to study, but is leaning towards psychology, educational policies, or immigration law. Immigration is an issue Karina has been closely following after explaining that her parents immigrated from Mexico.
Karina is ranked number one in her class with a 4.2 GPA, and following in her footsteps is her 16-year-old younger brother ranked number two in his class.
According to Harvard’s admission statistics, only 12.6 percent of Latinos get in and Karina would be one of the lucky few attending who get admitted each year. But perhaps her biggest feat in her admittance is the fact that many students who live in the Central Valley, and rural country towns like Lindsay, don’t bother to apply because they think they have no shot of getting in.
“I would hope that other students from here would try to apply, because obviously everybody’s like ‘oh you’re the first one in a long time,’ but I’m also the first one to apply in a very long time,” said Karina. “Because no one from here actually thinks, like I didn’t think that I was going to get in at first, when I made my list and started applying. So I’m like what are the chances? There still is a chance.”
Karina is the second in her class to reach loafty goals. Earlier this month, the school announced that Madison Caesar, another member of the Lindsay Class of 2017, had been offered a prestigious Smittcamp Scholarship to Fresno State University.