It would have been a success story if Fullerton High School senior Fernando Rojas, the son of Mexican immigrants whose schooling stopped in the eighth grade, was accepted to college. But the 17-year-old achieved a surprising clean sweep — he was accepted to every Ivy League school.
"I didn't think I would get into any," Rojas said on Saturday. "When I got all eight, it was a blessing and surprising joy.” The first call came from Yale University in February. Within weeks calls, emails and letters followed from Dartmouth College, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Columbia University, Harvard University and Princeton University. Rojas also was accepted by Stanford University and two nearby schools, the University of California, Irvine, and California State University, Fullerton.
He is one of four children of Raul Rojas, 59, and wife, Maria, 56, who moved to Fullerton from Jalisco, Mexico, in the early 1980s. Raul is a machine operator, and Maria is a seamstress. A national speech champion, Rojas thought that if he applied to the eight Ivy League schools, he might get into one. Sal Tinajero, Rojas' speech coach at Fullerton, said "His biggest motivation was his parents to know that their hard work meant something."
After visiting several campuses, he settled on Yale, which costs $64,000 a year with room and board. He is responsible for $6,000; Yale scholarships and federal grant money cover the rest. "I loved Princeton," Rojas said. "It was a beautiful campus, but it felt very stressful. Stanford was too big and overwhelming."
Rojas attributes his academic success to hard work and the guidance of his older brothers. "I went into high school knowing what I was supposed to do," he said. He'll mostly take it easy during the summer before heading to Yale in late August. He's considering majoring in Latin American studies and perhaps a career as a lawyer or in international affairs.
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