Contextualizing

It all started when I heard the news that some private schools in my hometown were offering scholarships to high school students who couldn’t afford it. That caught my attention immediately. Admission to universities in Brazil requires students to sit a very competitive entrance exam known as vestibular. Private high school students have a great advantage due to the high-quality education they receive. Besides, they can afford extra classes or preparatory courses for the entrance exam. At that time, all my studies had been completed in public school. Furthermore, financing a preparatory course was out of the question. The news really put me back on track to pursue higher education.

Pinning all my hopes

Ambitiously, I aimed my efforts at the best private high school1 in the city. It held first place in the college admissions ranking for consecutive years.

After a social-economic interview, I was able to take the scholarship test. I was very confident on the day of the exam, but I must confess that when I saw hundreds of students in the gymnasium, my legs trembled. During the test, my pencil broke and I lost my eraser, which made me quite nervous. However, I returned home with a sense of accomplishment.

I did it

Weeks later, I was about to turn off my computer at my workstation when I decided to look up my name on the approved list. I remember this moment so vividly! When I scrolled a bit and found my name, I could barely believe it. I wanted to shout of joy, but I couldn’t because I was in the office. I felt so proud of myself. I was one of the twelve students who passed among the more than five hundred candidates.

I grasped an opportunity to study for two years at the best private school in the city as a way to prepare for the vestibular, increasing my chances of competing for a place in college.



1 Colégio Santo Antônio (CSA) is a Brazilian Franciscan school that has been in operation for more than 100 years. In 2008, the educational institution won fourth place in Brazil in the High School Nacional Exam (ENEM). Ten years later, in 2018, the school became a member of the UNESCO Associated Schools Program Network (PEA / Unesco).