LYNN — Two seniors at KIPP Academy, Katrina Fortes and Darren Ath-Ly, have been accepted to Ivy League universities. While they have different goals, they both emphasized that it was their passion that helped them reach this point.
Katrina Fortes
Fortes has been accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University. While she isn’t sure which school she will attend yet, she knows that she will use her education to help children struggling with mental-health problems.
Fortes, who plans to major in biology on a pre-med track and minor in psychology, said she’d always known she wanted to be in the health field and help children, which made her want to become a pediatrician.
She said when the time came to write her college-admission essays, everything seemed to stem back to mental health. That’s when she realized she should go into psychiatry.
“I cared more about the mental health and mental standards of kids,” Fortes said. “I knew that’s what I should do.”
Fortes said that as a woman of color, her parents didn’t have access to the tools and resources to be more aware of mental health and mental-health treatment.
“This is something that stops many people from not only speaking out, but getting help with things,” Fortes said.
For a long time, Fortes said she experienced mental-health problems without understanding why they weren’t going away. She said that one day, she finally started to ask herself what she could do to feel better, which led to her asking what she could do to make people who feel like her feel better as well.
Fortes also said that during the college-admission process, she was in a state of pressure and fear for a while, as she was getting waitlisted by almost all of the schools she had applied to.
However, she found solace through her understanding that she would still be able to pursue her dream.
“No matter what, I still want to be able to do what I want,” Fortes said. “No matter what school I go to, my passions will shine through, and I’m still going to be able to do what I do and make a difference when I’m older through medicine.”
She said getting into Penn and Duke helped reinforce her belief that her passion is strong enough to accomplish her goals.
She said that students in Lynn who want get into similar colleges should look for that passion in themselves.
“I didn’t have a perfect 4.0 GPA, I didn’t get all 5s on my APs,” Fortes said. “If you show you have a passion for something and show you want to make a change in the world, in a way that overshines your scores.”
Fortes also said that she hopes to work to raise awareness around mental health once she gets her diploma, so that more children can get the help they need and feel less alone in the process.
“I just hope to destigmatize it, especially in communities of color,” Fortes said. “I’ve seen how accessibility, belief, and that type of stuff act as a barrier to welcoming and acknowledging people’s feelings.”
“It’s also been so normal to feel terrible and think, ‘That’s fine, I’ll get over it,’ and I’ve realized you won’t really get over it without help,” she added.
Darren Ath-Ly
Ath-Ly is Harvard-bound, and plans on studying computer science there.
He said that going to an Ivy wasn’t always his dream and he had imagined himself studying out of state. After getting accepted, though, he knew Harvard was the right decision for him.
His first dream was to become a professional gamer. After he gets his computer-science degree, he hopes to create video games one day.
When dealing with the pressure that came with all the work required to get into schools like Harvard, Ath-Ly said that he made sure to reach out to others.
“Really, I talked to friends, and that’s what really helped me,” Ath-Ly said.
“More than that, I know that many students here had immigrant parents,” he added. “If they were able to survive through a war for me, I could be able to study for them and be happy and do what I want to do while being successful for them.”
He mentioned that his parents have always been there for him, which has helped him be the best person he can.
He also thanked Kari Awai, his guidance counselor, for helping him get to where he wanted.
“The support system at KIPP is really amazing,” he said.
Ath-Ly showed a video of his reaction to getting into Harvard, which showed him clicking on the decision results in front of his volleyball team. His teammates at KIPP cheered and screamed, even running around the court.
He said his friend, who helped him through the admission process, was even on the floor at the end of it in disbelief.
Ath-Ly also discussed the work he’s been doing for the city and his school, which he said helped his application stand out.
“As the president of my school’s Asian Student Union, I advocated for Southeast Asian representation in school,” Ath-Ly said.
He explained that one way he and his club did this was by bringing back a piece of Cambodian literature into the curriculum after it had been removed for a year.
Ath-Ly also gave some advice for students who have similar aspirations.
“I really think they need to be passionate about things and make an impact with the things they do,” Ath-Ly said.
He explained that he was able to make an impact with his club due to his passion. He wrote his college essay about one of his passions, gaming.
“I can’t be a professional gamer, but I can create games,” Ath-Ly said. “What helped me become the person I am today and made me more efficient was playing games… I know playing games can help a lot of people.”
