ECHS senior Emily Araujo earns highly-competitive Gates Foundation scholarship to attend UT

Del Valle Early College High School senior Emily Araujo was recently chosen as one of the recipients of The Gates Scholarship. This highly-selective scholarship covers the entire cost of attending college after graduating high school.

Emily is one of just 300 high school seniors selected from thousands of students for the scholarship. She made it through the three phases of the application process to receive the award in April. 

“Well, I was very excited,” she said about receiving the scholarship. “I was eating dinner with my family. I kind of just turned the phone to them because I was reading it, and they were reading at the same time, and they all came and gave me a hug.” 

As a first-generation college student, Emily said she’s relieved that finances won’t be a piece of the college puzzle she has to worry about. The Gates Scholarship is a last-dollar scholarship, meaning that it will fund the total cost of attendance not covered by other financial aid. 

In addition to the full scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Emily also received a $20,000 Dell scholarship from the University of Texas and a $7,500 annual scholarship from the St. David’s Foundation. She’s also received several smaller awards and is waiting to hear back from others.

With graduation just weeks away now, Emily is setting her sights on attending UT to study biology. 

“I want to become a reconstructive plastic surgeon, which helps someone after a car crash or someone born with a cleft lip. So, I want to go into medical school,” she said. 

Emily, who began with DVISD in elementary school, will graduate later this month with her associate’s degree from Austin Community College through the DV ECHS and a medical assistant certification earned through the district's Career Technical Education (CTE) health science pathway. 

“It's phenomenal that you're going to have the opportunity to go to such a great school and study biology and continue going into what you want to do as a plastic surgery to help people,” DV ECHS Counselor Nicole Archambault told Emily. “That's just who you are at the core. You want to help people, and that's where your career is leading, and it's terrific.”

Nicole helps ECHS students, like Emily, throughout the educational journey of navigating high school while simultaneously taking college classes. In addition to the educational component, she works with high school's social and emotional aspects. She said Emily was one of the first students whose name she learned because she would stop by the office on a mission and with a sense of urgency regarding her applications. 

Even with the sense of urgency, Nicole said Emily has always been cool, calm, and collected. 

“You can’t really tell when you're stressed. It's hard to tell because she's just happy to be here and bouncing around,” she said. “I remember the first time I looked at your transcript. I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ She is so just down to earth, nice to everybody, very level-headed, and very focused on what she wants to do. I was in awe of her.”

“She's very self-sufficient. I'm here to help all the students, but she's so independent and confident in her work that I was not worried about her at all,” added DVHS College and Career Counselor Ricky Perez. 

Emily’s advice to students exemplifies the importance she places on her studies and the goal of securing college scholarships. 

“One big piece of advice that I would give to younger students is that they should not be playing games during study hall. They should not be wasting it on social media. They should finish their work there so they never have to do homework at home because you get enough time to finish all your work and even some time to do extra scholarships,” she stated.

Even then, she has made time to participate in extracurricular activities. She has been involved in dance, Red Cross, Anime Club, UIL academics, and she played tennis for the first time as a senior. That led to her second piece of advice for students. 

“Even if you're at the bottom right now, it's never too late to start.”