MVLA Community Scholars
May 2012
Greetings from MVLA Community Scholars! We are having a very successful year thanks to your generous support. In this
newsletter we introduce you to one of our star college scholars, Alejandro Aguilar, and introduce you to our class of 2012 scholars.
We hope you enjoy this update!
Dee Gibson, president
Top News
Meet A Scholar: Alejandro Aguilar
The long leap from special-ed courses early on in high school to a four-year program at
UC Santa Cruz in Game Design, may seem like a daunting challenge for anyone. But
Alejandro loves leaping into challenges figuratively and literally in his academic and
extracurricular life. In high school, where he first became interested in the math and
science courses, Alejandro challenged himself by taking difficult AP classes, some as
early as in sophomore year. With lots of initiative, he took on the heavier course load in
the joint program of Freestyle and Mountain View High Schools, where he had an
opportunity to explore subjects like Art and Technology. This naturally led to an interest
of Game Design as a career direction.
Alejandro entered UC Santa Cruz as a freshman in the fall of 2011, with plans to major
in Computer Game Design. He brought with him to UCSC the same kind of standards
for hard work that he developed in high school. His beautiful smile, quiet and easy going
personality belies the determination with which he was able to achieve a 3.26 GPA in
his very first semester at UCSC. He attributes his success to good study habits such as
finding the best and most quiet places to work and staying focused on his schoolwork.
He is determined to get through the reputed killer computer programming courses that are requirements for his intended major. But
he is pleased that he has done so well already in the first semester in his writing and calculus.
He has also integrated extremely well into the campus life through his extracurricular activities. Within the first semester he has
become team captain of the ninjutsu training group, and has become passionately involved with the Parkour club. What's Parkour?
His face lights up as he describes the athletic vaulting, rolling and jumping feats that are part of this physical discipline, first
developed in France. While extremely fun, Parkour requires a lot of dedicated training, courage, and physical ability. Alejandra's
jujitsu experience serves him well for that. During breaks and vacations from school, Alejandro works hard with his father's
gardening company to earn money for his room and board at school. He is forever grateful to his mentor, Katie McCormick who has
helped him navigate the college financing maze and for the financial support from the MVLA scholars.
It is quite obvious to all that this young man can leap into achieving all of his goals and dreams and maybe even beyond.
Announcing the MVLA Community Scholars Class of 2012
On Friday, May 3rd a reception was held at the Neutra House for the newly chosen
MVLA Scholars Class of 2012. With many of them cheering for each other, and others
wearing their college sweatshirts, the students introduced themselves and their chosen
colleges. Beaming parents and mentors were on hand to show their support to these
bright, talented, and motivated young people.
This year's scholarship committee had the challenging, but rewarding task of selecting 16
recipients out of a pool of 52 very strong applications. The demographic breakdown of
the group was: 10 women and 6 men; 10 from Mountain View High school; 5 from Los
Altos High; one from Alta Vista High. The students come from a broad range of
ethnicities, possibly the broadest range yet; Hispanic, Asian, African American, Indian,
Sri-Lankan and Caucasian. As a result of the program's strong commitment to awarding
students of need, 82% of the students will be the first in their families to go to college with
all of them demonstrating substantial financial need. Significantly, these students as a
whole are strong academically, with an academic average of 3.5. This group has a broad
range of leadership, athletic, and artistic capabilities which includes everything from yearbook and school paper editors, to water
polo, softball, and baseball captains, football players, cheerleaders, singers, marching band players and volunteers for several
school organizations.
The scholarship funding ranges from $1,000 to $4,000 per year, renewable for four years, to the students who will be attending 4
private colleges, 2UC's, 8 CSU's, and 2 to Foothill. They are listed here below:
Valeria Dominguez
Melissa Gomez
Heidi Hernandez Montes
Rashmeen Kaur
Aaron Lim
Gabriela Maas
Benjamin Macedo
Cassandra Magana Garcia
Carlos Marquez
Bryan Medina
Katherine Pantangco
Nova Rivera
Gen Thenuwara
Catherine Witcher
Tiffany Wooten
Season Yang
Sonoma State
Chapman
Foothill
San Jose State
USC
SF State
San Jose State
Cal Poly Pomona
Cal Poly Pomona
San Diego State
USF
Santa Clara
Foothill
UC Merced
San Jose State
UC Davis
We look forward to hearing more about their academic and personal accomplishments in the next few years and we wish them lots
of success.