Wharton Valedictorian Living The American Dream

When Sarrah Abdulali moved to New Tampa from Georgia her freshman year of high school, she thought for sure her dream of becoming the valedictorian of he her graduating class was out of reach.

Wharton, her new high school, was much bigger than her previous one, and there was a crowd of students ahead of her.

“I lost that dream,” she says. “I finished my freshman year ranked 50th.”

With valedictorian honors seemingly no longer in her future, Sarrah worked hard anyway, making straight As in every class she took at Wharton.

Because she was determined to take advantage of every opportunity available to her, she signed up for dual enrollment classes, too, taking the maximum of 10 credit hours every semester online.

She made straight As in all of those classes, too, and her weighted GPA continued to rise. Sarrah’s dream of being class valedictorian did become a reality.

“She’s an amazing girl,” says Magda Rodriguez, Wharton’s career counselor.

* * * 

The daughter of immigrants, Sarrah’s mom is from India while her dad is from rival Pakistan. The two met in the U.S. and married, with Sarrah’s mom converting from Hindu to Muslim.

Sarrah, 17, lives in a crowded house — her aunt and cousins live with them. Of all the kids in the house, she is the only girl, and a big sister to four “brothers.” Sarrah has two biological brothers, one who is 12 and deaf, and the other who is a sophomore at Wharton. Her two cousins,  or “brother-cousins,” as she calls them, are eight and 12.

She shares a bedroom with both of her biological brothers.

“I’ve grown a lot closer to them from sharing a room,” Sarrah says, without complaint. “I’m so engrossed in my work all the time, and I think it’s motivation for my brothers to see me working so hard. When I’m in college, I’ll have a roommate anyway.”

In addition to her schoolwork, Sarrah works to help pay the bills at home. At one point, she worked two different tutoring jobs, plus tutoring privately as well as doing henna art tattoos.

All these experiences have shaped her into a fiercely determined person, ready to jump at every opportunity presented to her.

* * *

When Sarrah heard of a program called QuestBridge, she recognized it could mean the opportunity for her to go to college without the financial burdens usually associated with higher education.

QuestBridge is a national nonprofit organization that matches high-achieving, low-income students with prestigious universities across the nation.

 As a junior, she was chosen as one of QuestBridge’s 3,000 “College Prep Scholars.” She received a travel grant to attend a college admissions conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.

“It was a guide to how QuestBridge works and what the opportunities are,” explains Sarrah. “I took it all in. I realized this was the most important summer for me. There was no time to just hang out.” 

She dove into volunteer work, racking up 800 hours over her four years of high school. Most of those hours were part of the volunteer program at the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa.

Sarrah also did an internship with the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, which is headquartered in Tampa, for about a month.

Separate from QuestBridge, she also participated in numerous fly-ins, which are programs where colleges pay for low-income students to participate in on-campus visits, often at no expense.

“I want people to know that fly-ins are available,” Sarrah says. “Low-income students can visit colleges and universities for free.”

All that hard work paid off.

Sarrah ranked the top five QuestBridge universities that she wanted to attend and one of her choices, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, chose her to receive a full scholarship, including her room and board, and covered all costs to attend.

“UVA is perfectly suited for me,” Sarrah says. “It’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

She is excited about being at a rigorous, prestigious public university. While some QuestBridge universities expect students to cover a small portion of their cost to attend, Sarrah’s expenses will be paid in full. 

“There’s no parent contribution, no loans, no work study,” she explains. “It’s a perfect full ride.”

She says UVA even provides a laptop, and will pay for her to visit the university before she begins attending, where she will meet the other class of 2020 QuestBridge National College Match Students.

“There are 15 of us who matched to UVA,” explains Sarrah, “and (the university) invests completely in us.”

She has been accepted to the college of arts and sciences and plans to major in math.

“I don’t know exactly where my interests lie, but I’m good at math,” she says. “And I plan to minor in Arabic.”

* * *

While pursuing her college dreams and working hard academically, an interesting thing happened.

Sarrah’s class rank kept improving. During her junior year, when she reached number five, she realized that becoming her class valedictorian might not be out of reach.

She kept her straight As in the most rigorous classes offered at Wharton.

While some fellow students leave campus early to drive to dual enrollment classes, Sarrah never did. Instead, she took the maximum credits allowed in dual enrollment classes online, all of which she completed from home.

“I think it’s a waste of time to leave school early when there are so many classes here,” she says. Classes like Advanced Placement psychology are her favorites, where she says she can “walk into class and not have to stress.”

She says that while students need 24 credits to graduate high school, she currently has about 48. 

Excelling in those rigorous classes allowed her to continue to improve her weighted GPA to 8.88, which has earned her the coveted title of valedictorian. 

Sarrah says that one of the highlights of being valedictorian is giving the graduation speech.

“I feel like everyone has a story to tell, but mine is different from everyone else’s,” she says. “I’ve grown up in conditions that separate me from everyone else.”

Sarrah lives in a home that is both Muslim and Hindu, under one roof with nine people from two families. Her parents are immigrants. She’s taken an incredible rigor of classes while also working two jobs.

This is the American dream for which so many immigrants strive. 

Sarrah hopes she gets the chance to share that dream in her valedictorian speech. “I have no money, no means of transportation and I don’t make excuses,” she says, “so I hope to inspire others to have no excuses. What I’ve done is because of my determination. If you have that, no one can stop you.”

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