Dan Martinez
Like most seniors moving on to college, I had a lot of stress building up by the end of this year from scholarships and how I am going to afford college, especially as a very poor student. I already won the MVP award from Iowa State, paying for all my tuition for four years, but there were still other finances that I had to take care of. In late December, I overheard a conversation about the Gates Millennium Scholarship and I decided to look it up. I saw that I was highly qualified for the scholarship and worked my way through the application process. The application process alone was very long, since it needed all my student information over my years in high school. After that, I needed to complete eight essays and set up a recommender and nominator to fill in information about my roles in high school. All my work was done on the computer and since I don’t have one, I spent many hours at my good friend’s house, completing the application process. I received lots of help from my friend and her family, since I’ve even spent nights at their house completing my essays. Throughout the process I worked and prayed that everything would be efficient and I would receive the financial aid that I need for college. After submitting my application and essays, I received an email mentioning that I made the finals and they needed some more information from me to continue my evaluation. My counselor and I sent in the information needed, but things didn’t seem to work out. The scholarship committee kept saying that they were missing things and when we resent them in, they were missing something else. We went through a lot of hard work, up to the deadline, to make sure they received everything they needed and worried if I would even be considered. A couple weeks later, I received a folder in the mail congratulating me on my award and being a Gates Millennium Scholar. I was a bit shocked and silent, because I had no belief that I would win, and I had doubts that it was the actual award that I won. I went on to show Mrs. Sullivan, my counselor, and she was really excited and gave me a big hug. Then it started to hit me. Word began to spread throughout the school and many teachers began congratulating me on my success. I was on channel 5 news and am now going to be in the Quad City Times. Through a lot of hard work and prayer, God has blessed with one of the most prestigious awards in our nation for a high school student going off to college. The award covers up to eight years of college with all expenses paid for to any college I’m accepted to and I was chosen out of 11,000 applicants. This has opened many doors to my future and now I’ll have the support needed to be the first representative of my family to go off to college.