Guest post contributed by Zara Araki (’18)
Shania Bravo is a senior at ISLAND PACIFIC ACADEMY (IPA). She scored a 1520 out of 1600 on her Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), maintains a 4.17 grade point average (GPA), and is currently the President of her graduating class. All of this led to her acceptance to her dream school, Cornell University, the fifth ranked Ivy League research university in the United States, located in Ithaca, New York.
Bravo was born and raised on the island of Oʻahu. She is seventeen years old, has a sister named Rylyne, and is an outstanding role model to her community.
Bravo began her journey at IPA in kindergarten. In high school, she became part of the National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta, helped tutor math to middle school students, coordinated class bondings, and is currently taking the full International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. Being a student at IPA opened her eyes to many great opportunities.
“The small community allows me to participate in a lot of different things. Doing all of that helped me because I got to take a little bit from everything. Like teamwork from sports and leadership from joining student government,” said Bravo.
Although she dedicates most of her time to extracurricular activities for IPA, Bravo believes that she must have an equal amount of work and play in her life. She enjoys going to the beach and capturing photos with the people that make her happy.
“Outside of school I try to spend time with family and friends. I feel like that kind of contributes to where I am today because I found that balance. Success is limited if you don’t enjoy it. So I feel like I’d never be able to be successful if I stressed myself out too much. I try to put school aside sometimes and do what I like to do,” said Bravo.
Although Bravo will soon be starting classes at Cornell, she didn’t always know where she wanted to go to college until Rylyne introduced her to the school.
“Originally in eighth grade, my sister discovered a summer program at Cornell [because] she wanted to go to Cornell. So I was like Hey, I’ll look into that school, too because I’m really tight with my sister,” said Bravo.
During the summer of 2017, Bravo decided to join Cornell’s summer architecture program. This gave her the opportunity to check out the campus and gain a better idea of what Cornell is all about.
“I kind of wanted to experience a summer program there because I always knew they had a good architecture program. But because I was used to Hawaii weather, I always had this stereotype of people in the East Coast being mean and grumpy all the time. But then I got there and that’s when I decided this is the school I want to go to. There were a lot of nice people there. I got to experience it and I was comfortable there,” said Bravo.
Studying for the SAT was one of the most stressful requirements she had to accomplish before applying to Cornell. She thinks having a strong support system with her every step of the way is what got her into that school.
“I had a lot of support from family members and friends. There were a lot of times where I wanted to give up. I hate the SAT so much, but it was something that’s just required so [even though] I just always wanted to give up studying, my family helped me through it and even my friends,” said Bravo.
Not only did she have to study hard for the SAT, but she also decided to apply for the Early Decision deadline, which made things even more challenging. With schoolwork and college on her mind, Bravo struggled but she realized that being confident in herself was a very important quality to have.
“Fake it till you make it. And also it helps when other people are confident in you. It helps a lot. Then you’re not so down on yourself,” said Bravo.
At one point, she felt as though her application was becoming too difficult. She wanted to give up on finishing it.
“I wasn’t going to apply Early Decision. I was going to just stop my application and just do regular. But people were like No, you can do it and so they were really pushing me. I feel like I just needed that push,” said Bravo.
Bravo is excited to start her journey this upcoming fall at Cornell University.
“I think I’m excited for the real world opportunities that Cornell can connect me to. I know that when you join architecture, they’re all about internships and getting out there. So I’m excited to do that kind of thing,” said Bravo.
