>> So, the first thing's first, scholarships, and
I just wanted to stress that scholarships are really, really important.
And finding any scholarship that you can apply to, whatever the amount may be,
it's just going to help you so much during college.
With that being said,
I did have difficulty getting scholarships because I'm an undocumented student.
But luckily, applying to Penn's financial aid process was really a big help for
me in order to get the financial aid that I needed.
>> Yeah, speaking about Penn.
As someone who applied early decision to Penn, I got accepted early and
then luckily, or fortunately, I got accepted early.
And Penn gave me a really generous financial aid.
And with that being said I decided to apply for the mayor's scholarship, and
in addition to that I received practically a full ride to Penn.
And so I didn't really necessarily have to apply for outside scholarships but
I know that a lot of my friends after they received their aid they also
decided to apply for programs like the Gates of Millenium for example.
And I think you also mentioned that you are also in Mayor's scholarship as well.
Do you want to talk about that as well?
>> Sure, so I'm a Mayor's scholar.
A Mayor's scholar is basically, how do I say this?
It's an organization in Philadelphia or
a scholarship organization run by the Mayor's office of Philadelphia.
And it's for approximately 125 Philadelphia students a year.
To attend Penn they basically emplaced a what is called the Penn grant.
A grant is an amount of money that you don't have to pay back in your financial
aid process.
In place of what would be an institutional grant the city gives us a grant in
order to go to school.
In addition to the mayor scholar, I applied to the mayor's scholarship I also
applied to more local scholarships so I was a bit wary of the national scholarship
process so I tended to apply to Philadelphia student only scholarships.
Like the Ronald McDonald Scholarship actually gave me about $5,000 and
then I applied to a local sorority scholarship and
they gave me $1,000 which was really helpful in financing
costs that often aren't accounted for in the expected cost.
So things like a laptop and yeah.
>> You did mention something about expenses and
I do want to emphasize that working during college,
specifically work-study if it is in your financial aid package.
It was really helpful with allowing me to get books and living expenses just like
your basic utilities day to day especially meals during the week.
>> Yeah.
So you spoke about work-study earlier.
And I just want to say I 'm also a work-study student And at first like
coming into freshman year I really was like nervous about taking on a job and
attending an Ivy League institution.
And like learning how to bounce between extracurriculars, studying, my classes.
But now I was told that I also should work and at first, I was kind of of weary.
But as a pre-medical student,
I realized that I could tackle two birds with one stone.
So with that being said, I found my position in a lab, in a biomedical lab.
And they pay me to do research.
But at the same time, I'm also building my resume.
I'm learning outside of the classroom.
And that's something that I never had.
In high school or growing up so
I think like having a work study job can be extremely beneficial in this sense.