SUCCESS STORIES

Robin Posey is a 2005 graduate of St. Paul’s Humboldt Senior High.  Robin was a  GEAR UP program participant since 9th grade.  Throughout her time in GEAR UP, Robin had attended many college visits, volunteered during the MLK Celebration Day of Service, the Cinco de Mayo parade, and had attended the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth (MITY) summer academic enrichment camp at Macalester College during the past three summers.  Before GEAR UP she had not even thought about college, and now it is part of her daily life.

During her senior year at Humboldt, Robin was proactively involved in the college application process, financial aid process, and applying for scholarships.  Her hard work paid off and she is enrolled at the College of Saint Benedict’s.  She was awarded the following scholarships: a $4,000 Presidential scholarship that is renewable for four years; a $ 7,500 I Lead scholarship that is renewable for four year; a $1,000 Ecolab scholarship that is renewable for two years. Robin is currently in her first year at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN.

Robin Posey in her own words:

One thing that I’ve overcome is getting into a position to be the first person in my family to go to college.  To be the first in my family to go to a four-year college puts a lot of pressure on me because of all the people who are expecting me to succeed.  Not only my parents, but me too.  I want to look back and say, ‘Yeah, I was the first person to make it through.  I want to be able to look back and know that I paved the way for my siblings.'"

“School is not one of my favorite things in the world to do so I had to keep myself motivated to do a good job with my schoolwork.  I had to work hard to keep my grades up because I would rather have been doing anything than going to school and doing homework.  That was the biggest challenge I had because I had to work hard to be organized.  It wasn’t been an easy road until the end of my freshman year when I started visiting colleges with GEAR UP.  That’s when I started to think about my class rank and getting into college.  When visiting the colleges, they always talked about how class rank is important when looking for financial aid.”

“At the beginning of my junior year, I set a goal for myself to make it into the top 20 of my class.  Not only did my hard work help me achieve that goal but I also made it into the top 10.  My goal for senior year was going to be to stay in the top 10 and work my way towards the top 5.  I’m glad I took the challenge of getting into a position to go to college because I’ve gotten rewarded for my hard work by being inducted into the National Honor Society and receive scholarships for college.”

“Working hard definitely helped me overcome putting myself in a position to succeed in going to college.  It was a challenging road that I look forward to going down again and again in until I graduate from college. I’m in it for the long haul.”

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