Guadalupe Marino Garcia is a junior at Fargo South High. Recently, she qualified for a variety of some of the most difficult-to-get scholarships in America, including the Jeff Bezos scholarship.

How did she get accepted into one of the hardest to get scholarships in the United States?

Garcia has maintained a high GPA of 4.3 and she’s also heavily involved in the community. When someone applies to the Bezos scholarship they have a less than 3% shot at getting accepted. Only roughly 13 scholars are accepted in the nation. Letters of recommendation can help tremendously. It’s hard to believe someone in our school has had the potential to receive such a scholarship but turned it down.

Other difficult scholarships she got accepted into

(Some of these scholarships are also programs if an applicant doesn’t want to be a part of the program they can’t be a part of the scholarship.)

Hamilton Scholars: Things that are required for this scholarship include a high GPA, a heavy class load, AP classes, letters of recommendation, and plenty of essays. Only 35 people in the United States can get accepted.

Joyce Ivy Scholars: Around 83 girls from the Midwest can be selected. Some other girls besides Guadalupe from our school that also received the scholarship include Amy Hong and Gabby McGarvey.

LEDA (Leaders of Diverse America) Scholars:  Only 100 people are selected in the nation with a 5% acceptance rate. Guadalupe had to prove she has a high work ethic, had to be heavily involved in the community, had to be a part of many AP classes, take a heavy coarse load in school, receive many letters of recommendations, and write big essays (that mimicked a college application process).

Why?

Knowing what scholarships are available to apply to can be life-changing. They have the potential to help guide you down the road to success (especially these ones). Getting into these programs/scholarships can give you connections to higher institutions and powerful people.

Decision

If you get accepted into all of these programs, you can only choose one. For example, LEDA only lets you be part of LEDA and won’t let you choose any other scholarship/program mentioned on the list.

“In the end, I had to choose the program that was the best fit for me and would help me the most with my goals for the future. I ended up choosing LEDA,” Guadalupe says.