By Valeria Bula

Miami Lakes Educational Center is home to students who are amongst the most exceptional, hardworking, and talented individuals nationwide. Every year, Jaguars leave the familiar teal walls of MLEC to pursue their dreams all around the world. The sky’s the limit when it comes to MLEC’s students, as many go off to places such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and acquire jobs almost immediately after graduation. Some see the world, travelling to from Italy to Spain to Peru.

This year, the Class of 2018 is no exception in having their own prodigies, as MLEC celebrates three Posse scholars this year: Brianna Foster, Alexandra Reboredo, and Dawun Smith.

Since 1989, the Posse Foundation has recruited over 8,000 extraordinary public high school students, granting four-year full tuition leadership scholarships to prestigious partner colleges and universities. This year, this dream has come true for these three Jaguars.

“I applied to Posse because I always wanted to attend an out-of-state school for college, but I never knew how I was going to be able to afford going,” said Dawun, who was accepted to Hamilton College.

“When I went to the University of Miami High School Careers in Medicine Workshop over the summer, one of the teacher assistants was a Posse Scholar and she’s the one who convinced me to do it. She inspired me to apply,” said Brianna, who will be attending Davidson College.

The application process for Posse provides a very unique, yet rigorous, experience for its applicants as they go through three rounds, known as the Dynamic Assessment Process, before reaching the final interview. Because of this, even those most exceptional candidates faced difficulties along the way.

“One of the biggest challenges for me was what they called, ‘trusting the process,’ and that was because when we were there they had us to odd things during the Dynamic Assessment Process, such as walk around the room, and pretend you’re one of Beyonce’s backup dancers,” said Alexandra Reboredo, who will be attending Hamilton College in the fall.

“They also had us do many team building activities that you wouldn’t really expect. It was more fun than an actual interview. That was hard for me because a lot of the things we did I wondered how they learned about me through it.”

“You have to connect with the other applicants and be a team player,” said Dawun. “The most difficult part was me going up to random people, and introducing myself, and starting conversation.”

But behind these hardships—both in high school and throughout the application process—was years of personal motivation for each of our scholars, which allowed them to find the inspiration to apply.

“My grandmother was my inspiration for applying. She was fully blind and yet she was able to raise my mom and uncle, come here to the U.S., and get a master’s degree. Now, she’s a social worker for the county,” said Brianna.

“The fact that no one in my family has done this or knows of the opportunities you can get here and being first generation, makes this almost a way of giving thanks to my parents for the journey they have been through so I can have my future,” said Alexandra.

Unlike any other scholarship program, applicants explained they selected to apply to Posse because of the unique support system the program provides each Posse scholar, before, during, and after college.

“They provide you with information on internships and fellowship programs. They even have a Posse representative that comes visit you at the school each month to check up on how you are. They really care about you,” said Brianna.  

The sense of community is most essential, Alexandra explains, as “[Posse] is an opportunity to go away to college with a group of people who are also from here. I’ve never been really independent, so I’ve been scared of moving away, and being by myself. I feel like having a ‘posse’ is like being part of a close-knit community.”

Jaguars all aspire to reach great heights: Brianna plans to become a trauma surgeon, Dawun a pediatric surgeon, and Alexandra a lawyer. These students find themselves amongst the network of thousands of Posse scholars nationwide, but will always be Jaguars, no matter how far they go.