Harvard sounds very, very far away for a lot of high school students. It certainly did for Betty Lulseged. “I didn’t want to apply, because I thought there was no way. I thought I was throwing away my application fee.” With a little encouragement from dad, the Northwest Guilford student applied to Harvard and was accepted in Spring of 2016. “It completely blew my mind,” she remembers.
She also remembers the worry. As the daughter of a UNCG accounting professor and an NC A&T accountant, Betty understood the value of a dollar. “I was nervous because it’s an out of state school and a private school, and it’s pretty expensive.” Harvard offered her financial aid, and the Say Yes Guilford Choice Grant helped to fill in the gaps. “It made going to Harvard very doable.”
There was never any doubt in Betty’s mind that she would go to college. She saw how an education had impacted her parents’ lives. “They are from Ethiopia, and through their education were able live comfortably in the US. They always told me to value my education because it would open so many doors for me. I think that’s definitely true.”
Betty fell in love with Harvard and spent the next three and half years studying biology and health policy. She will graduate this spring and will spend a year teaching middle school at Success Academy in New York. She wants to go to medical school; she wants to change the world. “Anything is possible,” she says. “Dream big and go for it.”