After hearing the news, he said he and his wife Charissa worked hard to try and ensure she would be able to join him.<\/p>\n
Their dream came true and she was awarded a scholarship worth around $500,000 to study theatre, at the same university.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt honestly doesn\u2019t feel real yet, I am still in shock,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Charissa on a visit to Duke campus, Durham.<\/p>\n
The former Kerikeri High student said she had dreamed of studying at Duke since childhood. Born in the US, she moved to New Zealand as a toddler and said some of her family members also attended the prestigious university.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister-in-law studied there and we visited a couple of times when I was little. I just fell in love with the school spirit. Everyone was so excited about everything that was happening on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said applying in the American university system was different to New Zealand and more intense than she expected. It involved multiple rounds, extensive essays and a separate needs-based scholarship process.<\/p>\n
But after the daunting process, she is now one of 25 international students to be awarded the scholarship.<\/p>\n
The scholarship covers tuition, accommodation and some meal costs for her four-year course.<\/p>\n
She said the scholarship will ease the pressure of studying in the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a relief knowing I can actually focus on my studies and not constantly worry about the costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple will begin their studies together in August after M\u2019lago took a gap year to increase the chance they could attend the same university.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got in last year it was already such a big change for our lives. I decided to take a leap of faith and wait, knowing the chances were really small. Duke\u2019s acceptance rate is around 4.8%, so it felt like a long shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said having both of them accepted, with no student debt felt like everything they had worked for had paid off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get to go together, live the same dream and graduate at the same time. It feels very rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
They are set to be part of the 2030 graduating class, but they said they would come back to New Zealand once their studies are complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really care about New Zealand and want to bring our stories and take it to a bigger stage. There is so much talent here that deserves to be seen,\u201d Charissa said.<\/p>\n
They will leave for Duke in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After hearing the news, he said he and his wife Charissa worked hard to try and ensure she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[152096,56717,8615,8414,299,85585,7643,296,19720,103051,111,43,139,1067,69,90,8205,28244,3168,11555,223,28066,19054,1528,810,6923,19985,4741],"class_list":["post-267318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-125m","tag-combined","tag-come","tag-couple","tag-dream","tag-duke","tag-faith","tag-into","tag-land","tag-leap","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-rare","tag-scholarships","tag-shared","tag-started","tag-the","tag-true","tag-turned","tag-university","tag-up","tag-what","tag-worth","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}