How I Got to College: Josephine Camacho
This past spring, U.S. News visited La Jolla High School in the San Diego Unified School District to ask several seniors who had recently gone through the college application process and were then weighing their options for lessons learned along the way -- and their best tips for high school students just getting started.
Set in a postcard-perfect seaside community, La Jolla High is a comprehensive high school serving about 1,650 students. Because of the district's emphasis on school choice, students from an array of San Diego neighborhoods attend La Jolla.
The school provides Advanced Placement courses in 21 curricular areas; 98 percent of students graduate, on average, and 70 percent go on to four-year colleges (about 22 percent go to a two-year school). White students comprise 56 percent of the student body, with Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans accounting for most of the rest.
Josephine Camacho grew up in "the projects of San Diego," she says, a 40-minute bus ride and a world away from La Jolla. A part of the history she shared with colleges was that she'd grown up in a community no stranger to "drugs, gangs and violence."
Camacho wants to combine her love of working with older people and an interest in business. Determined to take advantage of all La Jolla had to offer, she pushed herself academically, concentrating on mastering English, Spanish and French and striving for good grades. And she resisted the temptation to transfer to a less rigorous school closer to home, as some kids who are bused in from afar opt to do after a year or so.
For financial reasons, she applied to only California public universities -- eight California State campuses and the University of California schools at Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. She got into seven and chose the University of California--Santa Cruz.
GPA: 3.4 unweighted
SAT scores: 450 math; 400 critical reading; 410 writing
Extracurriculars: Cheerleading; hostess and cashier at two restaurants; volunteer as a companion with the elderly; youth group leader; and member of her church choir
Essay: "I put my story out there" about growing up in a tough neighborhood.
Incentive: She wants to finish what her mother, a Mexican university-trained accountant, had hoped to do -- move out of the barrio and "achieve the American Dream."
Regret: Not studying for the SAT. "My classmates all had tutors and paid consultants," she says. She didn't have the money or time.
The finances: The $34,000 in total costs will be covered by her father's unused GI Bill benefits and grants, some help from her parents and private scholarships.
Advice: She said it helped to keep separate folders on her laptop for each application, plus one quick-reference folder for PINs, passwords and usernames.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Colleges 2015" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
