Faria (Psychology & Women's and Gender Studies, Columbia)

At the Young Women’s Leadership School of Queens, Faria is known both as a leader and a top student who, her college advisor wrote, “always puts in 110 percent.” “I cannot control the cards I am dealt,” Faria wrote in her essay, “but I am controlling how I play my hand.” This has included working two jobs to help her family — immigrants from Bangladesh — through an especially rough economic time. Faria writes movingly about making tea for her father when he comes home from overnight work shifts. Her father’s sleeping difficulties have inspired her interest in becoming a scientist and researching neurological conditions. “I aspire to rekindle the dreams my father once dreamt,” Faria writes, “and build a brighter future for my family.” Faria will attend Columbia.