After a month of waiting, it was the day senior Darlene Gonzaga would find out if she was a Dell finalist. She and her mother were getting ready for church when Gonzaga received the e-mail that she had won the $20,000 scholarship and a laptop. She wanted to cry, but she could not, because it was almost time for church.

“I ran to my mom, and I hugged her,” Gonzaga said. “She was really proud of me, and she almost started crying too.”

Along with senior Shawn ‘Gage’ Whittington, Gonzaga was the one of 300 finalists nationwide to receive the title. The qualification process includes being involved with an approved college readiness program, such as AVID, and answering a series of questions in time.

“You just have to really be honest with yourself and just put it on there,” Gonzaga said. “Not everyone goes through the same thing. And not everyone leads the same life.”

Questions such as personal obstacles, family situations and economic struggles were asked on the online application. Gonzaga found as she was applying that she had to really look back at herself to answer the questions honestly.

“I used to be like a little bubble, and then I realized that I have to get out of my bubble and start talking to other people and be different,” Gonzaga said. “I was always a follower, never a leader. I’m improving though. But it took me time to realize I had to change, and it wasn’t easy. It took time, but I’m glad to say I’ve gotten out of that.”

Both Whittington and Gonzaga chose AVID counselor Christine Johnson to recommend them after they found out that they were semifinalists.

“We’ve cried together,” Gonzaga said. “She’s like the person that I go to for almost everything. I’m very thankful for her, because she’s helped me out a lot through this year. I’ve been building up so much all these years, and I’ve needed someone to talk to. I’m just glad she was there.”

The title comes with a mentoring program that checks in on finalists’ progress throughout college and works to help students overcome their struggles, something Gonzaga compares to the AVID program she is currently active in.

“They want to see documentation of all the things that you’re doing in school,” Gonzaga said. “They want to see how you’re doing, if you’re struggling, if you drop requirements. They won’t take the money from you, but they want to know what’s going on and to help too. It’s kind of like AVID all over again, so I won’t be so scared to go to college because they’ll be helping me through the whole process. So I’m glad, because I really enjoyed AVID. It’s helped me a lot all these years.”

Gonzaga said that without AVID, she would not know about applying for universities, for FASFA or for scholarships like this one on her own. It is given her the opportunity to become the first student in her family to finish college. She plans to major in business administration at UTD with hopes of being a social and community service manager.

“It hasn’t hit me the amount [I won],” Gonzaga said. “Like you can write it. You can see it. But it’ll take a while [to understand] what big impact this scholarship has or will make in my life.”

When five students at the school were named semifinalists, Gage Whittington had no idea how difficult the scholarship was to win until he was named a finalist. For Whittington, this scholarship will help him with his goal to pay for college himself.

“I’m not just going to rely on everyone else to pay for my college,” Whittington said. “I’ve been trying to get as many scholarships as I can, but I’m not going to ask people for money.”

A specific part of the application asked him what was holding him back from reaching his goals and going to college.

“I was curious about a lot of things, and I guess I wasn’t really thinking about focusing and any of that,” Whittington said. “I was just a lot of not believing in myself, and then I felt like other people weren’t believing in me. I thought to myself, why should I care what other people think? I should care what I think and what I feel.”

Some of Whittington’s answers discussed how he was bullied at school as a freshman.

“I wasn’t the person that everyone else wanted me to be, and I wasn’t myself yet,” Whittington said. “I became a different person. I guess it just helped me block it out eventually. No one bullies me anymore. No one talks down to me anymore. I wasn’t as open with myself and didn’t really put myself out there until, like I was bullied so much that eventually I was just like, ‘you know what, forget it.’ I guess I just became more mature. High school allows you to do this magical transformation.”

Whittington plans on going to TWU to become a neonatal nurse practitioner, a career that involves the care of babies during the first 26 days after birth.

“I love babies,” Whittington said. “I mean, if you can save the life of a baby, you could save many lives, because they can grow up to do something great. Who knows? They could be a doctor and save someone else’s life.”

Whittington’s grandmother, whom he was close with, had to have multiple surgeries for cancer and was on hospice for months, which made him unsure about his career path.

“I remember one time after she had surgery, she told me to lie beside her, and she told me to be the best nurse that I could be,” Whittington said. “It was Valentine’s Day when she passed away. And I missed her a lot, but I felt like this burden was gone. And that’s what was holding me back.”

Whittington said he wishes he had known more about ways to get ahead and challenge himself in high school, but also points out AVID can be beneficial to anyone who takes it seriously. There are still those who question his career choice, because they think he should just go to medical school instead of being a nurse.

“I think you can do it if you go about it with the right mindset,” Whittington said. “You have to have the drive to want to do something. You can’t just go into something. I realized that when I was in honors classes for the first time. I was like, no I don’t want one, I want three [honors classes]. So I went ahead and did that, and my grades weren’t that good. And then I realized I can’t just go into it. I have to think first. I have to be ready.”

Although he says that telling the truth in his answers helped him stand out, Whittington said he doesn’t know why he was picked out of everyone else to receive the title. But he said the scholarship will help him out a lot financially in his future.

“I feel like I’ve changed a lot, but I don’t see it,” Whittington said. “You live with yourself every day, and you don’t see yourself change at all. You look back at the person you were before and you realize, ‘wow I’ve changed.’”