EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) \u2014 Loretto Academy senior Valeria Arellano continues to celebrate after learning she matched to Stanford University through the 2025 QuestBridge Scholarship.<\/p>\n
“I’ve gotten a lot of congratulations, and I’ve, you know, I’ve just really thought of how blessed I am to actually get it. And, yeah, I’m really happy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The highly competitive award places her among the 2,550 students nationwide selected through the QuestBridge National College Match. Arellano will receive a full scholarship that covers housing, meals, tuition, books, supplies and even travel.<\/p>\n
“I feel great. Yes. Well, first of all, I really wanted to focus on not having to pay for stuff in college, so that was my main priority, but to match to a really good university, I mean, that’s the dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the application process, she decided to write about personal obstacles she faced as a child, including her father\u2019s murder in Juarez and her brother\u2019s sudden disappearance. Arellano said she got to witness much of the trial.<\/p>\n
Following that process, Arellano was able to intern at a local law firm, which she also penned in her personal statement for the scholarship application.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to use that to make sure that they actually understood what was lost, you know? What was missing from the dining table. What I had gone through and what the family that lost their father had gone through. And so, yeah, that was what my personal story was on,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Arellano said her family felt a sense of pride after learning she had received the highly competitive award.<\/p>\n
She has been a student at Loretto Academy since 6th grade. The principal of Loretto Academy’s middle and high schools, Nancy Tovar, said Arellano is a role model to other girls in her class.<\/p>\n
The senior explained she grew up in low-income housing, but opportunities at Loretto Academy have placed her on the right path.<\/p>\n
“All the hard work that, you know, I, I did in middle school and in high school, you know, has actually paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arellano is one of two students at Loretto Academy who earned the QuestBridge Scholarship. Tovar said they feel proud that their students reached this accomplishment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, personally, it’s a lot of fulfillment in what we believe in, in education, which is it’s life-changing and life-changing opportunities. And it’s really just an amazing experience to see these two young ladies, you know, really reach their dreams,\u201d Tovar added.<\/p>\n
Arellano told ABC-7 she\u2019s eager to start her education at Stanford University. <\/p>\n
She plans on double-majoring in political science and neuroscience. She wants to study the neurological impacts immigration has on brain development, specifically on children. She hopes to become a civil rights lawyer and later become involved with politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) \u2014 Loretto Academy senior Valeria Arellano continues to celebrate after learning she matched to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-85756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}