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Diffi culty completing familiar tasks
RITA SAUCEDA is heading to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana after earning a full-ride scholarship from national nonprofit QuestBridge. Courtesy photo
Prestigious scholarship sends Del Lago grad to Notre Dame
By Samantha Nelson
ESCONDIDO — In just a few weeks’ time, recent Del Lago Academy graduate and small-business owner Rita Sauceda will travel across the country to begin college after earning a prestigious scholarship to pay for it all.
Sauceda learned about the QuestBridge National College Match scholarship last summer before her senior year of high school. Her school counselor, Jose Ramirez, encouraged her to apply.
QuestBridge is a national nonprofit organization that connects low-income students with some of the top colleges and universities in the country. For recipients like Sauceda, the scholarship covers a full, four years of paid tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies and travel expenses — a scholarship worth over $200,000.
Sauceda applied for the scholarship despite being nervous about some of those top colleges being so far from home. She had been looking at colleges that were closer and more affordable for her family.
“I knew my family was going to do everything possible to see me go to college, but I didn’t want to burden them,” she said.
As a student at Del Lago Academy, Escondido’s public magnet school, Sauceda was highly involved and active in several extracurricular groups. She was president of the MEChA Club (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), a student organization that promotes higher education and appreciation for Chicano/Latino culture and history. She was also involved in the Associated Student Body (ASB) and was a member of the Random Acts of Kindness Club.
Sauceda dances with two ballet folklorico groups outside of school, Ballet Folklorico Caliztlan in Escondido and Wa-Kushma Folk Production in Chula Vista.
As a young entrepreneur who wanted to help out her family during the pandemic, Sauceda ran a toy shop with her aunt out of Mexicali as well as her own screen-printing business in her home in Escondido.
Not long after applying, Sauceda found out she was a finalist for the scholarship, at which point she was asked to rank her top school choices.
By December, she was matched to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Notre Dame is a private, Catholic university that is ranked 19th among National Universities , according to U.S. News & World Report.
Sauceda didn’t think she would end up getting a full ride. Even after learning that she was a recipient, the reality didn’t really set in until the scholarship paid for her and her mother to visit the university in February.
Sauceda was impressed by what she saw.
“When I first saw the school, it kind of gave me Harry Potter vibes,” she said. “It was really fancy.”
She also liked the people she met along the way, many of them fellow scholarship recipients, and others from the university who warmly welcomed Sauceda and the other students to
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