Graduation season brings celebrations of achievement and perseverance. It also brings the burden of student loans and paying for higher education.
Montgomery County Public Schools students are cashing in on scholarships to help dull that pain. The Class of 2011, with 10,500 students expected to graduate, was awarded $232.8 million in scholarships as of Tuesday, said school system spokeswoman Kate Harrison.
That number is expected to increase. The Class of 2010 set a record, raking in $231.9 million in awarded scholarships. The school system does not keep track of the number of students to who receive scholarships, Harrison said.
“We want schools to not only encourage students to set college as their goal, but also it’s very important for counselors and students to be aware of the many opportunities for financial aid that do exist,” Harrison said.
But for some students, recognition for talent and hard work means more than the money.
“I want to prove that hard work can get you somewhere,” said Mariel Berlin-Fischler, 18, who received a scholarship for musical theater and graduated from Walter Johnson High School. “I’d be just as honored it hadn’t come with a check.”
Public four-year colleges charge an average of $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students, according to the College Board, an organization that helps students prepare for, enroll in, and graduate from college. The average charge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $11,990.
Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $27,293 per year in tuition and fees. And public two-year colleges charge, on average, $2,713 per year in tuition and fees.
The Gazette took a look at some students who won scholarships for unique talents and overcoming difficulties.
@GZ_CopySubheads:Germantown grad honored for being tobacco-free
Jessie Nolasco-Sardino, who graduated from Northwest High School on Tuesday, has spent her life telling people about the dangers of smoking tobacco.
Finally, someone is listening.
Nolasco-Sardino, 18, of Germantown was awarded the Elizabeth Ann “Libby” Frist Memorial Scholarship by Gram’s Promise, an organization that promotes tobacco-free lifestyles, primarily among children.
She was one of six recipients out of about 35 applicants.
The scholarship is awarded to students who demonstrate an understanding of the dangerous consequences of using tobacco and who actively have set a positive example for others.
Growing up in a household of smokers, Nolasco-Sardino said she has seen first-hand the effects of second-hand smoke.
“I get dizzy, and I get stomach aches,” she said. “It’s just something that I really don’t like.”
Her mother, stepfather and most male members of her family smoke.
She has encouraged her mother to stop smoking. Her mother has tried to quit, but has not been able to kick the habit, Nolasco-Sardino said.
“I guess that is where the addiction comes in,” she said.
Her grandfather died of lung cancer when she was 7.
She hopes she can help people understand that smoking has negative social effects, as well as detrimental health effects.
In eighth grade, she spoke to elementary school classes with D.A.R.E. volunteers.
When big events approached in high school, such as dances or vacations, she got a group of friends together and they handed out brochures on tobacco awareness and made posters.
Gram’s Promise wants to recognize young people like Nolasco-Sardino who spread the message of not smoking.
The Frist scholarship carries on a message from Libby Frist, who died of lung cancer and wanted others to know of the dangers of smoking, said Frist’s sister, Mary Votta, a board member for Gram’s Promise.
“My sister’s wish to encourage anti-tobacco lifestyles lives on through the scholarship and lives on through young people like Jessie,” Votta said.
Nolasco-Sardino said she wanted to try to help her peers realize there are many positive ways they can spend their time.
“If you are smoking and doing drugs you aren’t taking care of yourself and your health,” she said. “ If you are healthy, you can go far you can achieve your dreams.”
Nolasco-Sardino will attend St. Mary’s College of Maryland in the fall. She plans to study psychology.
@GZ_CopySubheads:Scholarships will help legally blind grad pay for learning technologies
Emma Liu is a kayaker. A rock climber. A unicyclist.
And legally blind.
“Being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t do something,” Liu said. “It just means you have to find another way to do it.”
Liu, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State.
Liu, 18, has Stargardt disease, an inherited condition that causes gradual degeneration in the middle of the retina. People with Stargardt’s tend to lose central vision. Liu, who found out about her disability in the eighth grade, cannot drive and has difficulty reading.
“I have to find different ways of learning stuff because a lot of learning is visual, and clearly that’s not the easiest thing for me to do,” Liu said. “I’ve gotten really good at listening and taking a lot of notes.”
She will use the scholarship to pay for technologies that make learning a bit easier. Liu is looking into software that takes a photo of a printed page and reformats it so a computer can read it aloud. Now, Liu said she uses different magnifying devices and large-print text books to read. Her Kindle, a wireless reading device, reads to her, too, which speeds up the learning process.
Starting college will give Liu the opportunity to decide when to tell others about her disability on her own terms, she said.
“I don’t really look like I’m visually impaired,” she said. “So sometimes it’s hard for people to understand why I can’t read the menu or whatever it is. I think it’s important for people to know that just because you’re disabled doesn’t mean you’re any less capable of anything.”
Liu said she plans to study physical therapy. She even said she’s looking into various types of technology that will make a required cadaver dissection possible.
“I got into college,” Liu said. “I’m going off to live my own life. And I think it’s great that there are organizations like the Jewish Guild that are out there and recognize the struggles that I’ve been through and recognize the hard work that I put in just to go to school.”
@GZ_CopySubheads:BCC grad designs toward a degree
Daniel Herbick, 18, designed and made one friend’s prom dress and another friend’s graduation dress.
He also made four dresses and two jackets that landed him a $500 scholarship from the Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce, an organization that promotes business interests of those in the fashion and design industry.
“I make a lot of clothes for my friends,” Herbick said. “And I guess I love the feeling when I make something for them and they love it and wear it all the time.”
Herbick will use the $500 for sewing materials and supplies he will need at Syracuse University, where he applied to an introduction to fashion design program, said his mother, Tanya Herbick.
“Everything’s so expensive these days,” Tanya Herbick said. “Especially as a fashion design major, you have a lot of extra expenses ... that’s how it helps him; just to be able to afford [supplies].”
Herbick did not apply for other scholarships, but did receive a Chancellor’s Scholarship, an academic award, from Syracuse University to the tune of $8,000 per year, Tanya Herbick said.
The Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduate wrote an essay about his point of view on fashion and mailed a garment to the judges. This earned Herbick one of four slots in a runway show at the Warner Theater in November, he said. About 60 people applied.
The dresses and jackets worn on the runway were off-white, with the exception of one purple item, he said.
“Normally I get inspired by colors and then I tend to think of what shapes a garment would be or what the garment would be,” Herbick said.
Herbick began sewing in ninth grade, he said, when a friend told him to take a class. Now, he plans to pursue his talent through college.
“[My inspiration] comes from a lot of random places, like people that I see or just objects that I see that are really fascinating,” Herbick said.
He mainly designs women’s clothing, but has created a few men’s items as well.
“When my friends want things, I just make them,” he said.
@GZ_CopySubheads:Musical theater scholarship validates Walter Johnson grad’s career goals
For Mariel Berlin-Fischler, earning a scholarship for musical theater is not about the money; it’s about the recognition for her hard work.
She received $200 when awarded the Polly Dawson Serpan Award for Achievement in Musical Theater at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda.
“It’s not going to pay for anything right now,” said Berlin-Fischler, 18. “But just the fact that my directors still see what I’ve been putting in; that’s what’s really important to me.”
Active in performing is an understatement when it comes to the recent high school graduate. Berlin-Fischler is a choreographer, dancer and singer. She’s had roles in 10 plays and performed in nine dance productions. The soprano sings in choral groups and jumps at the opportunity to train her vocal chords.
“I basically do everything there is to do,” Berlin-Fischler said of performing. “I love stage. It’s pretty much my life.”
Headed to the University of Maryland in the fall, Berlin-Fischler said she plans to major in theater and possibly take on an education major her sophomore year. Price played a role when it came to selecting an institution of higher education, she said.
“Maryland was such a break for us financially, I’ll just do what I can with it,” she said.
Berlin-Fischler can use the scholarship any way she wants.
The school accepted the thespian into College Park Scholars, a community of interdisciplinary living-learning programs for academically talented first- and second-year students.
Berlin-Fischler said she will use her time at UM to build up her resume so that she can break into bigger gigs.
And for her, acting offers a release.
“Once you really get into a character, once you create all the tiny little facets your character is made up of, you can set it free,” she said. “Your sense of being just flies away. It’s the closest thing in the entire world for me for just getting away from yourself. And I know a lot of people look for that in the things they love.”
abryant@gazette.net; jbondeson@gazette.net
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