Ever since Ariana Campos was a little girl she knew that she wanted to spend her time helping animals. What she didn't know was that Gateway would set her on the road to college as an aspiring Zoologist with dreams of traveling to Africa and the Galápagos Islands to help exotic animals.
This Fall, Ariana will be the first in her family to attend college. She will make a big move and travel from the West Coast to the East Coast to attend Ohio Wesleyan University, a small national liberal arts school with a challenging curriculum that connects classroom theory with real-world experience. She will be studying Zoology with the hopes of working at an animal conservation center.
"Much like Gateway, the classes are small at Ohio Wesleyan and you get a lot of attention," said Ariana. "That's why I was really drawn to this particular school and feel confident that I'll be successful there."
In addition to a rigorous course load, Ariana will be playing on Ohio Wesleyan's Division 3 soccer team. Ariana met her new teammates recently and described them as "instant friends."
Ariana asserts that the partnership between Gateway and First Graduate, a San Francisco-based college success program that helps students finish high school and college, has given her the tools and resources to be college-ready.
"The college process was really stressful," said Ariana. "Writing my personal statement was probably the worst thing I had to do. It was really time-consuming and made me not want to go to college. But college counseling at Gateway provided me with the time to work on my college application so it didn't take away from the time I needed to practice soccer or work at my part-time job."
One of the most persistent issues facing students in San Francisco public schools is the opportunity gap: differences between the types of academic and enrichment opportunities afforded to low-income students compared with their more privileged peers. At Gateway, closing this gap is a priority each and every day.