Senior Nadia Urrea Follows College Dreams
Nadia Urrea hopes to attend Duke University.
October 2, 2012
Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, teachers and parents have asked students: When you’re older, what do you want to do and where do you want to go to college? Senior Nadia Urrea has an answer.
“My number one is Duke. I’d love to go to Duke, but I’m still waiting to see,” Nadia said.
Duke University is in a small city called Durham, North Carolina. It is a private college currently attended by 6,697 students, and has 400 registered organizations. There are 85 possible majors, one of which includes Nadia’s hoped for degree.
“I want to go into marine biology and their marine biology, just biology program in general, is really good,” Nadia said. “I’ve always been interested in the sea and the animals.”
Out of 30,000 applications, only 4,203 are accepted (14.01%). That small amount of accepted applications means high standards, so it’s best to have a back-up plan.
“As of right now, I’m applying to eight different schools, so there are definitely other schools I’m interested in. I’m interested in some in-state schools such as UT and Galveston that I’m going to apply to, and then there’s several others outside of the state of course,” Nadia said.
Applying to colleges can be difficult. Some colleges require teacher recommendation letters, SAT and/or ACT scores, essays, interviews, campus visits, and the Common Application. Not only that, but there’s an application fee as well. There are deadlines for the applications; some schools require the application during junior year of high school. In times of need, some students turn to their guidance counselors. There is a College Resource Center across the hall from the guidance counselor’s office where you can research on the computers about the college(s) you want to go to.
“You should definitely start filling out the applications beforehand; you can always go back and fix them. Procrastination will beat you,” Nadia said.
As she waits for her letter from Duke, Nadia does her best to make sure she remains in the top two percent and stays hopeful that she’ll be accepted into her number one college.
dianna arellano • Oct 5, 2012 at 8:01 am
I hope you make it into Duke!(:
alexandria f. • Oct 5, 2012 at 7:56 am
i kinda know nadia, she seems like a really nice person and considering shes in the top two percent of her class she definitely deservives to be able to go to duke university!!:)
Jack Densmore • Oct 5, 2012 at 7:52 am
I think it’s great that she is following her dream. Hopefully she’ll get accepted.
Autumn C • Oct 4, 2012 at 10:05 pm
If duke accepts anyone at all this year, Nadia should be number 1. He works harder every day than most students work in a year and all while maintaining sincere modesty. She’s an inspiration to every other high school senior out there.
Mr. Mansfield • Oct 4, 2012 at 2:02 pm
What a great article! Well done Siandhara.