Alma Alvarado was home alone when she found out she got into UCLA.
She was living in a small apartment in Planada, California, just outside Merced. She was often there by herself, because her older brother, the only other member of her household, worked long hours. On this day, she sat alone at home again, and opened her laptop with her heart in her throat.
It was a moment that could have made her feel completely and strikingly alone. She was about to read news that could determine the course of her future, and the most important people in her life weren’t there to see it.
But Alvarado pushed those thoughts out of her head and opened the email. She had endured a long string of challenges to bring herself there, to that apartment, reading the news that she had been accepted to one of the best public schools in the country.