I was a kid from the barrio who loved reading and attended a middle class High School in another area.
We had a phenomenal counseling team. Each of us was assigned to a team of six counselors based on last name. So I was assigned to two counselors. Mrs. G dealt with high school issues.
They also had a counselor designated as the college and university counselor. He only dealt with college application deadlines, college visits and tests requirements.
Mrs G was the one who told me that I needed to take a foreign language that was not my Home language in order to be admitted to the UCs. I had no idea she had already plotted my future and that I would be taking French.
My counselor figured out that I qualified for a number of AP classes. She plotted my classes for the next couple of years, and then she walked me across the offices to the college counselor. He was an older gentleman and I was shocked at how enthusiastic he was about my being referred to him.
She introduced me to him while handing him my future schedule and said “she’s going to be one of your university kids.” I wasn’t aware there was a difference.
He started pulling out college catalogs for Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and the UCs. I didn’t know anything about those schools.
He explained that I needed to sign up for the college visit tours that were conducted by the high school to visit in-state Universities.
I didn’t know anything about this world of universities, applications, test scores etc. I was called in weekly to see him because he would check on my progress and referred me for every scholarship available.
Back then, there was a lot of money for a person of color. There were about 700 kids in my class and the diversity was there, but not in the AP level classes. I stuck out like a sore thumb and I felt very uncomfortable.
These kids were very sharp and did attend places like Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard. Turns out that the middle class high school was in an area where the college professors lived.
I owe this counselor my firstborn because he achieved phenomenal success on finding scholarships and funds for me to get full rides everywhere I applied.
We had a road block when my parents refused to sign any college paperwork. The counselor had to call my priest to get the priest to talk to my parents.
My mother refused to sign the paperwork and I didn’t know it until later, that my father had eventually signed. I will say, without admitting guilt, that I may have signed some forms with an uncanny similar signature to my Mom, since my name/signature was similar to my mom’s.
I attended a private Catholic University in town that had a lot of students with fancy cars and moneyand although I had a room, my mother would not allow me to stay there. She had a warped sense of what a university represented and said that only “women of the night” went away to college.
That college was too small and uncomfortable for me. I transferred to the big, huge CSU in town and was very successful there.
