Helen De La Rosa is a senior at Loretto who has just received the Questbridge scholarship for her academic excellence.  

The Questbridge scholarship is when a student gets a full 4-year scholarship to a Questbridge scholarship partner. 

This match scholarship includes tuition fees, housing and food, books and supplies, and travel expenses. 

Overall it’s an incredible achievement and De La Rosa has been given this huge recognition for her dedication and hard work. 

With this scholarship, it makes it definitive that she will be leaving El Paso behind, with so much to do and so little time De La Rosa said “I’m winging it, as the day when I leave gets closer I’m gonna hang out with family more but for now I’m taking it slow” 

“I’m gonna miss the food here in El Paso and living in a border city. 

I also have family in Juarez and I go there often. 

I’m also going to miss the people, El Paso is very nice.”

Out of all the schools she could choose from, Columbia is De La Rosa’s favorite, she said “ I was first introduced to Columbia because of their law school, and my absolute dream has always been to go to law school. 

And of course, New York plays a big part in it, I love New York! 

It’s also super diverse, that really resonates with me because I didn’t want to stray away from my culture.” 

Loretto is always advertised as a college prep school and De La Rosa proved that this is true, she said “ It has helped me, it has been hard but how hard they push us has always pushed me to do better work and turn in better stuff.” 

Motivation is something that a lot of students struggle with and it takes them a while to prioritize their lives. 

 De La Rosa said “My biggest motivation is my family. 

My mom didn’t go to college so I’m first-generation, and my sister did go to college but she never had the opportunity to go outside of El Paso. 

So I think that their not having that opportunity made me wanna work harder for it.” 

As seniors, sometimes we look back at and realize how much we have changed. 

This is a very surreal and often scary experience for our seniors 

De La Rosa said “If younger Helen could see me now she would not believe it. 

She’d be like ‘What do you mean?’

 She would be in shock of everything.” 

The Questbridge scholarship is a huge opportunity that should not be taken for granted! 

De La Rosa said “I would definitely recommend because of the outcome. 

But the Questbridge application itself is super overwhelming. 

It was a lot of writing and they asked for your income and stuff like that, it’s very tedious. 

You have to really take your time with it but I definitely recommend it, it’s life-changing.” 

“I found out about it because I’m a part of the challenge program, Mrs. Chavarria my mentor, recommended me for the application.” 

De La Rosas finally said “I’m super excited and I know I’m  gonna end up when I’m supposed to go”  

As college acceptance letters start coming in, we’ll see where De La Rosa will thrive in college.