RHS Students Accepted to Brown University for Leadership Program
Reporter: Brian Mejorado
Three junior Richmond High students; Lucero Perez, Guadalupe Morales, and Selene Calderón were accepted at Brown University for a summer program on Women and Leadership through the Ivy League Connection (ILC). Brown University is located in Providence, Rhode Island and was founded in 1764. Brown is well known to be the first college to accept students of different religious beliefs and affiliations. According to the Brown University website, since 2002 the school has been following a plan designed to help the school “achieve new levels of excellence in research, education, and public leadership.”
Moreover, this year is the fifth year of the ILC which for the most part is a privately financed scholarship program that was founded and is mostly run by West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) School Board Members, Charles Ramsey and Madeline Kronenberg. The program aims to provide the students of the WCCUSD with opportunities to attend summer programs at Ivy League Schools in the East Coast. It also provides those students who are selected with several opportunities other than attending an Ivy League school for the summer, among them are meeting with college counselors, local alumni, Ivy League admission staff, and attending college fairs.
Students are selected for the ILC based on specific criteria among them being an essay, transcript, PSAT scores, and an interview. The essay that Lucero, Guadalupe, and Selene wrote was on the topic of whether or not it is alright and to the benefit of students to be advanced to the next grade level in elementary school even if they have not learned the necessary material. Adding to this they were instructed to connect it to women as well. Furthermore, their transcripts were looked at to see what classes they had taken and how much effort they had given in each of these. Their PSAT scores were reviewed to see the kind of students that were attempting to apply for the program. The most essential part of the application process was the interview that they had to go through individually. In these interviews there was a panel of judges. For the three RHS students this year one of the judges was Antonio Medrado, a WCCUSD School Board Member. The ILC interviews its applicants in order to test them on their critical thinking and to see more of who each student is. Therefore, the interview is a chance for students, who passed the first round which consists of the essay, transcript, and PSAT score, to demonstrate their potential and the reasons why they should be picked for the program.
After being accepted into the ILC the students had to apply to the summer program at Brown. Luckily, all three students were accepted and are now confirmed to be going on the trip this summer. The program starts on July 9, 2010 and continues through July 23, 2010. At brown the students will be taking a class called Women and Leadership as mentioned before. According to the course description at http://brown.edu/ce/pre-college/catalog/, the class is designed to allow students to “learn about the status and role of women in the world today, [by] exploring both opportunities and barriers for women in educational settings, the workplace, and the political arena. Students will [also] examine how gender and other factors influence women’s leadership styles and their ability to affect positive change.”
Now that the girls are getting ever so close to the date of their trip, Lucero says “I’m looking forward to meeting new people.” She also stated that “being away from her family for the first time,” will be the hardest part of the experience. “Other than culture shock, to know what it really means to live on a college campus” are Selene Calderón’s expectations of the program. All three of the girls are ever so grateful for this grand opportunity that they are being allowed to have. Their progression through this journey though still a couple of months away will be featured at http://2010-ilc-at-brown.blogspot.com/ along with that of the other ILC students attending Brown this summer.
