School: Florida State University
House: Smith-Tyner Scholarship House
Year: Fall 2015 – Present
It is kind of weird to think about how I came across SSF. Hearing about SSF really wasn’t the most exciting story and it wasn’t the biggest part of my day. Back then, I had absolutely no idea how much of my life would be impacted from SSF.
I’m from a town called Wellington, Florida. At the time, I was still in high school and I was recently accepted to FSU through the CARE program. Most people, at this time, are trying to find as many scholarships as possible in order to pay for college. I was no exception to this.
I actually filled out probably around twenty scholarship applications that year.
Eventually, most of the scholarship application started to blur together and even now I only remember a couple of the applications. It wasn’t until I received an email from CARE about SSF that I thought “A housing scholarship… This is pretty rare. I probably should apply for this.” The application wasn’t too bad from what I remember, just basic information and possibly an essay.
Some time after I turned in my application, I was in my AP Stats class when I received an email from SSF. It basically said that I had been selected to have an interview for the scholarship. I read that and was overcome with happiness and accidentally shouted “yes” in my class. After my teacher told me to be quiet, I contemplated what the interview would be like.
There was so many things that they could ask that I became pretty nervous about it.
The interview wasn’t too bad. I remember the person interviewing me, Barby Moro, being really friendly and just asking things about myself and questions that, thinking back on, were just to see if I would be a good fit for SSF. Throughout the interview, I made one or two light-hearted jokes just to calm myself down. The interview ended and I thought it went really well.
Once again, I received an email in my AP Stats class and it wasn’t as happy this time. The email said I wasn’t chosen to be as a first round winner, but there were a two more rounds to be chosen from. Filled with disappointment, I remember that day going really slowly. A day or two after that, I got an email from Barby. My first thought was “Am I really about to get rejected again?” I thought this because it was nowhere near the release of next round acceptances, so I wasn’t expecting anything from SSF. I read the email and felt a little better because it said that I was a strong candidate and to not lose hope because I was that much more likely to make it in the next round of acceptances.
About halfway in between the time the first round acceptances were announced and the time for the second round, I, yet again, received another email. If I’m remembering this right, it said something about someone declining the scholarship and I was now being offered a spot. I was so happy after reading that. Up until then, I didn’t realize at the time how invested I was in getting this scholarship. On my way home from school that day, I called my mom and told her the good news. She was so happy for me that she went into this weird laugh/cry that’s pretty hard to describe.
My memories of the interview process aren’t the best. The only reason for this is that, while the interview process was hard, it is such a small portion of the memories I have of SSF. There’s so many good memories of laughs, mid-night Taco Bell runs, ping-pong, movies and late-night studying with my housemates that I honestly can’t remember everything. Being at SSF has definitely brought out the best parts of me and I wish I could remember better how I got here,
but honestly I’d much rather remember all the memories that I have made and the memories to come.
