Miami Lakes Educational Center (MLEC) is home to students who are among 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, and the sky is the limit.
This year, the Class of 2018 celebrates three Posse scholars: Brianna Foster, Alexandra Reboredo, and Dawun Smith. Since 1989, the Posse Foundation has recruited over 8,000 extraordinary public high school students, granting fouryear 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 outof- state school for college, but I never knew how I was going to be able to afford going,” said Smith, who was accepted to Hamilton College.
Hamilton was Smith’s first choice and now he has the opportunity to attend his dream school on a full scholarship. Not only does Posse award scholarships, but they offer students support throughout their studies. It’s a “posse” because students become members of a small network of students, a network and support group that is also linked to Posse alumni.
“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 Foster, 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 (DAP), 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 do odd things during the DAP, such as walk around the room and pretend you’re one of Beyonce’s backup dancers,” said 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 it made me wonder how they learned about me through the things we did,” explained Reboredo.
“You have to connect with the other applicants and be a team player,” said Smith. “The most difficult part was me going up to random people and introducing myself and starting a 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,” said Foster. “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.”
Our Jaguars appreciate these opportunities, particularly and perhaps more poignantly, because of all of the sacrifices their families have made to help them each achieve their dreams.
“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 Reboredo.
Our Jaguars all aspire to reach great heights: Foster plans to become a trauma surgeon, Smith a pediatric surgeon and Reboredo a lawyer.
These students find themselves among the network of thousands of Posse scholars nationwide, but will always be Jaguars, no matter how far they go.