Sofia Vergara

I’m a senior at Dedham High School who can get genuinely excited about things most people probably would not consider exciting, especially government, the Constitution, the American Revolution, and figuring out why systems work the way they do. An eighth-grade civics class started what has become a years-long habit of going down research rabbit holes, making connections between history and current government, and finding some way to bring Hamilton into the conversation.

I am also a competitive dancer, choreographer, gymnastics coach, older sister, and bilingual English-Spanish speaker with strong ties to my Colombian heritage. Dance has been part of my life for years and has taught me persistence in a very literal way: sometimes you repeat the same eight counts until they finally work. Choreography has given me a completely different challenge with creating something myself and then figuring out how to teach it to other people.

I tend to push myself toward opportunities where I can take an idea and actually do something with it. That might mean proposing a student choreographer role that had never existed at my school, helping evaluate educational grants in my town, returning to a youth leadership conference as a facilitator, or helping build The Sueños Project to connect donors in the United States with children in rural Colombia.

I hope to study government, political science, or public policy in college and eventually attend law school. More than anything, I want a career that keeps me learning, lets me argue from evidence and logic, and gives me the opportunity to make decisions that matter to real people.