Redwood City high schools celebrate graduates

Two Redwood City high schools, Summit Prep and Summit Everest, recently celebrated that nearly every graduating senior was accepted to college.

This year, 100 percent of students at Summit Prep, in Redwood City were accepted to a university. Ninety-eight percent of graduates at Summit Everest, also in Redwood City, were accepted to college.

“At Summit, we believe in self-directed learning and empowering students to learn through exploring their passion and building skills needed for purposeful lives,” said Summit Public Schools Chief of Schools Andrew Goldin. “My faculty colleagues and I are proud of them and are excited for what they will accomplish in college, where they will further continue to grow as scholars and citizens.”

Summit Public Schools (Summit) seniors have been accepted to some of the most prestigious s institutions of higher learning in the country, including Princeton University, Columbia University, Tufts University, Baylor University, Amherst College, University of Southern California, Virginia Tech, New York University, UCLA and UC Berkeley.

Summit’s innovative personalized learning model allows students to engage in deeper learning projects and become self-directed learners, helping them to develop the habits and skills that lead to academic and personal success, including college acceptance. Since 2007, more than 1,800 students have graduated from a Summit school. Summit alumni are twice as likely to complete college than their peers.

Thirty-one percent of Summit’s graduating seniors will be the first in their family to attend college. Among them is Magali Pineda, a Summit Everest graduate from Redwood City who will attend UC Riverside in the fall.

“Summit Everest helped me advocate for myself in and outside of school. Whether that was asking for help at school and going to office hours or looking for resources in the community, I know advocating for myself will be useful in life especially in college because I will ask for help,” said Pineda, who is one of four Peninsula teens to be honored by Golden State Warriors player Kevin Durant with a college scholarship.

Jesus Mancilla, who is also graduating from Summit Everest, will attend Columbia University on a full scholarship through the Questbridge program in the fall. He plans to study computer science after a successful internship at Facebook.

To learn more about Summit Prep, please visit http://summitprep.summitps.org/. To learn more about Summit Everest, please visit http://everest.summitps.org/.