SUCCESS STORIES

Mong Vang is an 11th grade student at St. Paul’s Harding High School.  Mong is currently enrolled in all IB classes at Harding High School. Mong has been a GEAR UP program participant since 7th grade beginning at Hazel Park Academy.  Throughout his time in GEAR UP, Mong has been a very active member.  He has attended many college visits, volunteered during service learning opportunities, and attended the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth (MITY) summer enrichment camp at Macalester College during the summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Mong received scholarships to attend MITY because of his academic success.  He has taken “Seeing Things Through Video”, “Trigonometry” and “Math and Programming” classes during MITY.

Mong is the youngest of six children.  He wants to go to college to be successful, so that he can do more things with his life and help out the Hmong community. Mong hopes to major in Engineering or pre-Med when he is in college.

Not only is Mong involved with GEAR UP, he is also involved in tennis, Hmong Club, Earth Club and NHS at Harding. In addition, Mong has been chosen to be a member of GEAR UP’s Student Leadership Council. He really enjoys being able to lead students and get to know new students, while learning how to be a better leader. Mong has learned many things from GEAR UP, including how to pay for college tuition and the different types of colleges. In the end, he knows that GEAR UP is important to him because it has helped him a lot - from summer enrichment opportunities and visiting colleges to giving his parents the opportunity to know about more college.

Stephanie Pinal is an 11th grade student at St. Paul’s Humboldt Secondary School. This year she is enrolled in many advanced courses, and she is maintaining a very strong grade point average.

Since Stephanie has become involved with GEAR UP, she has been a very active participant. She attends GEAR UP sponsored college visits, is a member of the GEAR UP Student Leadership Council (SLC), and also attended the GEAR UP summer camp hosted at St. Olaf College. In addition to her heavy schoolwork load, and extracurricular activities, Stephanie is also active in the Boys and Girls Club. Furthermore, this year Stephanie plans to help at a landscaping firm.

Stephanie also enjoys learning about college essays. This year she learned that essays aren’t just papers you need to write, but instead they are a way of expression. Stephanie explains, “A college essay is a way that the admissions counselor can look in to you, they can learn something about you that they normally wouldn’t.”

When asked to sum up the things she has learned from being involved with GEAR UP, Stephanie said, “GEAR UP has opened my eyes to something I didn’t know much about before—careers and majors. GEAR UP has also taught me that there is a WAY for me to go to college. They stress that there is a way to PAY for college. I am not as worried now that I am a part of GEAR UP. I know that nothing is impossible and that regardless I will go to college.”

Stephanie plans on attending a four-year college and strives to obtain a degree in psychology. Her ultimate goal is to become a psychologist. Her goals for this year are to get more involved in school and community activities, and continue to visit colleges. Stephanie looks ahead to a great year!

Cortez Adams is a 11th grade student at St. Paul’s Humboldt Secondary School. He is enrolled in many advanced courses this year and is maintaining a very strong 4.0 grade point average.

Cortez has been a GEAR UP program participant since his 7th grade year at Humboldt. Since becoming involved with GEAR UP, Cortez has been a very active participant. He has joined us for college visits, been a part of our mentoring program, and attended a summer enrichment program called the Minnesota Institute for
Talented Youth (MITY). Since entering high school, Cortez has become an even more involved student in both his school and community. He plays football and basketball, and is involved in the year-round football Pass to Play program.

Because of his success in class, his strong GPA, and his involvement in extracurricular activities, Cortez received a scholarship to attend MITY last summer. At MITY, Cortez took a video production class called “Seeing Things with Video,” and also lived on a college campus for two-weeks. About MITY, Cortez says, “The coolest thing about MITY was being able to see how a college student would feel: living in the dorm, getting up in the morning, and balancing their schedule.”

When GEAR UP asked Cortez to sum up the things he has learned from being involved with GEAR UP, Cortez said, “Getting involved in the community is a big thing. As we get older, we have more freedom in what we do, so we have to stay responsible.” Cortez plans on attending a four-year college and playing football.

Robin Posey is a 2005 graduate of St. Paul’s Humboldt Secondary School.  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 fourth 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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