Graciana Doster, a senior at Enterprise High School, has been selected as a Gates Scholar and member of The Gates Scholarship Class of 2022. Doster is one of 300 scholars chosen from a pool of over 37,000 applicants from across the nation. She will be attending Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in the fall of 2022. Her plans are to major in ethics, politics and economics and attend law school after receiving her bachelor’s degree.
Doster is the first student at EHS to receive this four-year full scholarship. The universities she applied to and was accepted were Harvard, Georgetown and Yale.
“I visited Harvard and Yale in the same weekend and at Harvard you could tell people didn’t just love it, they loved the name and there wasn’t a real sense of community,” Doster said. “But at Yale, you could tell every student loved it, they were having a good time, they enjoyed their lifestyle. It was a better quality of life.”
Doster will graduate fourth in her class at EHS out of 450 and has a 4.47 GPA.
She was the runner-up in the 2022 Distinguished Young Woman event and has been a member of Encores, served as SGA president at EHS, vice president of Student-2-Student, a Wildcat Rep, Anchor Club, Junior Civitan and Enterprise Juniorettes.
This prestigious scholarship program is based on evidence that by eliminating the financial barriers to college, a last-dollar scholarship can enable high potential, low-income minority students to excel in their course work, graduate college, and continue to be leaders throughout their lives.
Scholars will receive funding for the full cost of attendance that is not already covered by other financial aid and the expected family contribution, as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), or the methodology used by a scholar’s college or university. Cost of attendance includes tuition, fees, room, board, books and transportation, and may include other personal costs.
In addition to funding, The Gates Scholarship provides further support to scholars by engaging with them and their institutions in a variety of ways, to ensure they have access to the resources and services they need, from their first to last day of classes, through graduation and the transition to their chosen careers.
Doster will also attend The Gates Scholarship Summer Institute in Los Angeles, Calif., in June to meet with other Gates Scholars to start and expand her professional network by participating in workshops and social activities.
The scholarship was on a list of national scholarships given to her by the counselors at EHS and she decided to apply for it. She said there were a lot of levels to go through and she made the final round. She was notified the first week of May that she was chosen to receive the scholarship.
“I want to thank Bill and Melinda Gates but also all my counselors and teachers. Without them I wouldn’t be getting this scholarship,” Doster said.
She is the daughter of Kellie Narron and Jeremy Doster, both of Enterprise.
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