Just five years ago, Osmany Corteguera moved from Cuba to Miami. Since then, Coreguera has managed to vault to the top one percent of his graduating class at Hialeah Senior High School. His amazing journey may now take him to one of top schools in the nation.
"I came not knowing pretty much any English,” said Osmany Corteguera. “I came not knowing what a university was really."
But the times have certainly changed for Corteguera. Now, he’s very familiar with the term university after applying to 12 of them. Out of the 12 applications, Osmany has been accepted to all 12 schools, including some of the best in the country.
Osmany named off some of the schools including: "MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Yale.”
When it came down to the time to make the final decision, Corteguera waited until the final moment before choosing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I like the culture there,” Coreguera said. “I like that there are number one in computer science in the world."
Osmany’s parents said they are very proud of his accomplishments and that he had been receiving academic awards since kindergarten. However, they were shocked to find out he was able to get into so many schools.
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How good were Corteguera grades? He’s finishing school with a 6.47 grade point average and nearly perfect scores on the SAT. While the grades played a large role in being accepted to so many prominent schools; he said there was still more to it.
"My recipe has been be myself and do what I like,” Osmany said. “And it's worked out."
For Osmany’s parents, one of the best parts of the entire process is their child’s education at MIT won’t cost a penny. Corteguera won the Gates Millennium Scholarship and will also receive financial aid from the university.
Just five years after arriving; in September, the future computer scientist will be on his way to Cambridge.
