With college admissions rolling in for the class of 2025, students are discovering where they will be spending the next four years– and potentially what they will be doing with the rest of their lives. For Senior Victoria Garcia de Leaniz Hernandez, this likely means Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at MIT.
What are some of the extracurriculars you participated in throughout high school?
“I do a lot with the band: I’ve been in jazz band all four years, I’ve been a part of the BLT (Band Leadership Team) since sophomore year, and I’ve participated in extraneous bands outside of school as well, so that’s kind of music. I’ve been in the robotics classes all four years and the robotics club all four years, and then last year I started an underwater subsect of the robotics team… I’m also the president of Young Idea, which is the school’s art and literature magazine.”
What was it like to get into your dream school?
“I guess, I don’t know, I just think everyones going to end up where they belong. I just think I did my best to be able to have a chance to get in, and then I got lucky in that I actually got in (to MIT). Because there’s so many competitive applicants at some point it is just the lottery.”
How did you decide what you want to study?
“I’ve known I wanted to go into STEM, pretty much, but then I didn’t know what subsect I wanted to go into. Freshman and Sophomore year I was very adamant about how I never wanted to do engineering in my life. Then, Sophomore year I skipped Robotics 2 with Physics and I went to Robotics 3 Honors because of an issue with my schedule, and I got to work on the underwater robots that the robotics 2 kids work on. I really liked that, and I realized, this engineering thing isn’t that bad. So that’s what made me realize I wanted to go into engineering.”
When did you know you wanted to attend MIT?
“I think last year specifically I really was like, ‘I want to do marine engineering so bad’, and only two of the schools I applied to actually offer it: UMich offers Naval architecture marine engineering and MIT offers mechanical engineering with ocean engineering which is what I applied for. So MIT is not only super good for engineering but it also offers the major I want to take. Then I went to a summer program there, and it’s a completely different type of person and I felt like I really connected with some of them, and I also just in general really love Boston.”
How was the application process for you?
“It was a little bit stressful, I don’t think any senior will tell you that it wasn’t, I mean maybe some, but it was stressful… What my mom would say is ‘This is life, you only apply once, you know? You might as well do your best and go all in. I think it could’ve been way worse, and I’m really lucky in that I have my decision already so I had a winter break, so it wasn’t that bad. I mean I like writing so it’s not horrible either.”
What advice would you give to juniors currently looking at colleges?
“Keep going. You just gotta keep working hard. If a school rejects you it doesnt define who you are, it just means you weren’t the right fit for that school and that’s okay. I’d also say do what interests you; people online say that you need to win and do everything, and I don’t think that’s super true, I think it’s a little over hyped if that makes sense. I think mostly what colleges are probably looking for is diverse interests but also having the aptitude to do well, and then after that it’s kind of just luck, because there’s so many qualified applicants.”
