By Edgar Omar Arteaga
Dana Hills High School, Stanford University
I had the privilege of being born in the United States. And I believe I had the privilege of growing up in an immigrant, low-income household. Adversity builds character—and in my case, it edified my resilience and passion.
My father’s fatigue, from excruciating labor as a newly arrived American, sparked an interest in higher education—so I would be able to provide for my family, and he would never have to work again. My mother’s tears, from sacrificing her friends, family, and the country she called home to offer her children a better quality of life, fueled my drive to break the generational cycle of poverty in my family—so I could provide my own future children the financial stability their father never had, and inspire them that their impossible does not exist.
My parents gifted me the opportunity to succeed. They provided me with a chance—maybe not a fair chance, but nevertheless a chance. An opportunity. And that was all I needed. While born in the US, I lived in Mexico until I was 5 years old. Upon my return, I was tasked with learning English on my own. I spent all of my lunches surrounded by tall library shelves that held the keys to knowledge. Dedicating countless hours to reading, alongside my mother, I saw letters turn into words, words into phrases, and phrases into sentences. In the matter of a few months, I felt confident with my English and became the class translator for other foreign students.
My time at R.H. Dana Elementary School was one marked by many successes thereafter. I fell in love with the pressure to excel, and with this came many accolades—most notably an “Excellence is Elementary” award presented by Dana Point City Councilman Scott Schoefield in the 2nd grade. I attended John S. Malcolm in the fifth grade, taking home an abundant amount of school awards. It was at Malcom where I really began to grow academically; I won the Southern California Science Olympiad.
Marco Forster Middle School changed my life. I was involved with every single inch of that school. I was a Roadrunner Ambassador, putting on school events. I was a peer mediator, trained to resolve conflicts and worked with the school psychologists. I was in a variety of clubs, from Book Club to National Junior Honor Society. I was President of the MFMS Music Council, and sat second chair in the symphony orchestra. Learning to play the violin, receiving instruction from Dr. Perez, and having peers who were as passionate as I was about something was something that truly marked me. I was a prominent member of the AVID program, led by Mr. Kevin Gerow.
In AVID I learned many valuable lessons about college. Most importantly, I remember a lesson about the disproportionate amount of Latino students at the nation’s top universities. The makeup of schools like Stanford, Harvard, and Yale were predominantly white and asian populations. Schools that developed the ‘future leaders of tomorrow’ lacked Latino representation. Mr. Gerow repeated one thing: “Fight for your spot, and never give it up.” I understood. I had to be in the top slots in my graduating high school class to gain acceptance from a top ten school, challenge statistics, and continue the fight for my people. I was the strongest student in the MarcoAVID program, but I was left empty handed in one of our awards ceremonies. While I earned ten eighth grade
awards and competed for Student of the Year at Marco Forster, not receiving AVID Student of the Year sent me off to high school desiring to prove four years later, when college decisions came out, that I was in fact the ‘Student of the Year.’
While I considered attending either JSerra or St. Margarets, I ultimately decided to continue in the public school system at Dana Hills High School, because as I saw it, if you are a good student, you will be a good student anywhere.
At Dana Hills, I was greeted with the most amazing student body, faculty, and staff. I joined the Health and Medical Occupations Academy, where I received insightful information on the medical field and participated in internship opportunities. On one occasion, I was even featured on ‘Voices of America’ US Congressional Radio to speak on my work with Global Brigades, an humanitarian organization that provides healthcare and infrastructure to many places across the world. At school, I am co-president of the Medicine Club, Vice President of National Honor Society, Vice President of California Scholarship Federation, Treasurer of the Chamber Orchestra, as well as a member of Student Senate and Boys Varsity Soccer. I am also the President of Interact Rotary Club Monarch Beach, where I have arranged various service projects aimed at children and senior citizens.
I am involved in a variety of activities in and out of school, never because they would ‘look good on college applications’ but because I am genuinely passionate about everything that I do. I am the Chairman of the City of Dana Point Youth Advisory board where I run various service projects and most notably organized a food pantry drive through for low-income families—marketing the event, directing operations, and translating between recipients and city staff members. I serve as shift manager for the Auxiliary of Mission Hospital where I am responsible for hospital management and patient discharges. I am a member and peer tutor of Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano, a local non-profit that provides first generation students with academic enrichment opportunities to support the goal of breaking the generational cycle of poverty in their families. I have had the opportunity of planning and teaching a diverse STEM curriculum to middle-school peers to inspire them to pursue a career in Biology or Chemistry.
I am also tied to my Catholic faith, as I have served as an Altar Server at St. Edwards The Confessor and I am now the ministry leader and was recently appointed as the lead of the Social Justice Ministry. I served as a phone-banking intern for Sergio Contreras, a County Board of Supervisors candidate. I learned the importance of civic engagement and ethics in fighting for progress as helped propel his political campaign and served over 100 hours in calls. I also served as a research intern at UCI and presented extensive Hemorrhagic Stroke research to the UCI Medical Committee. I play club soccer as well, for Mission Viejo Football Club. And on the weekends, I am the lead youth referee for Mission San Juan Capistrano Soccer League. I truly love my job. While I juggle many extracurriculars, I handle each one of them with care—and still find a way to remain in the Top 5% of my graduating class.
Growing up in a low-income household, I saw the disparities in the healthcare system and on one occasion my mother neared death because of our socioeconomic status. I pushed for health equity in my community and won a $5,000 grant to execute a service project. I established a pop-up clinic for low income uninsured residents in my community, more specifically: Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, and Laguna Niguel. I worked with my sister, Dania Arteaga (St. Margaret’s Episcopal School ‘24), for over 400 hours to execute the nation’s first high-school-student run pop-up medical clinic. In the process, I cold called over 50 doctors’ offices, met with representatives from malpractice insurance companies, partnered with Savon Pharmacy—negotiating lower prescription prices, as well as other tasks. On August 7th, 2021, Bridges Clinic treated 54 patients with 2 physicians in only 6 hours.
Bridges Clinic was completely free for patients, and prescriptions were completely covered through the grant. 50% of the women who attended Bridges Clinic had their first women’s health consultation ever. 37% of patients who had their glucose levels examined demonstrated early signs of diabetes, but received medication to treat this. The average patient had last seen a doctor 7 years ago, and many had never visited one. Additionally, we reported instances of domestic abuse to the authorities. I received abundant support from the City of Dana Point, most notably Mayor Jamey Federico as well as from the House of Representatives in Washington D.C, with a signed letter on behalf of Congressman Mike Levin. Now, thanks to an anonymous donor, Bridges Clinic will host another event at the end of April—we are only in search of a local-non profit to receive these funds.
I have been passionate about medicine my whole life—my fifth word was doctor. And in the second grade I decided that I wanted to become a Cardiologist after attending Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. Throughout high school, I also became interested in engineering concepts. My love for medicine and curiosity for engineering created a Biomedical Engineering major. Stanford University brought to the table the Marsden Lab where I could study cardiovascular disease progression as well as bioengineered blood vessels, among many others. Stanford’s strong pre-med opportunities, engineering program, prestige, entrepreneurship environment, and a collaborative student population led me to apply Restrictive Early Action.
On December 15, 2022, I was accepted to my dream school since the second grade, Stanford University, as Biomedical Engineering major on the Pre-Med Track with a Full Ride Scholarship. Stanford University has an acceptance rate of 3.6%. Just recently, I received the title of Coca-Cola Scholar (Coke Scholar) issued by The Coca-Cola Foundation which is one of the most prestigious college scholarships in the country for students who exemplify superior leadership, service,
and academics. With national, semifinalist, and finalist rounds—and several essays and interviews, 150 Coca-Cola Scholars were selected out of a pool of 68,000 applicants (and the eventual 1,600 semifinalists and 250 finalists). This is a 0.2% acceptance rate for a $20,000 scholarship.
While I have begun to see the fruits of my success, the work has only begun. I am beyond humbled to attend Stanford University as a Coca-Cola Scholar on a Full Ride to study Biomedical Engineering and Pre-Med. I hope to be accepted at Harvard Medical School in four years by doing everything in my power to ‘fight for my spot, and never give it up.’
None of this could be possible without my parents’ sacrifices, and my work is a homage to them.