Absegami Valedictorian Off to See New Challenges, Familiar Faces

When begins taking classes at the University of Pennsylvania this fall, she’ll see two familiar faces on campus: her brother Dylan and her friend Selena Sudol.

However, her two best friends since the seventh grade will be attending schools in Boston and New York. As Petro says, they “have all the major cities covered.”

Although she’s sure they’ll always be best friends, it will be different from seeing each other walk down the halls of every day.

They’ll all be together in the same school setting for the final time tonight, when Absegami holds its graduation ceremonies on the football field at 6 p.m.

Petro will be one of the final voices her classmates hear before they leave the school, as she is the Class of 2012’s Valedictorian.

“My speech won’t be long,” Petro said. “People don’t want to hear me talk, they want to see their kids graduate.”

Petro has been No. 1 in the class for all but one portion of her high school career. She slipped to No. 2 after the first half of her junior year, but was back up to the top by the end of it. The subject giving the soon-to-be communications major the toughest time was math.

“My eighth grade teacher told me I should take Honors Geometry and Honors Algebra (as a freshman) and I took her word for it,” Petro said.

Those weren’t the subjects that she struggled with, though. It was Honors Pre-Calculus that resulted in long days and nights of studying for Petro.

“Good grades always came easily for me,” Petro said. “I would work on Calulus all Study Hall, when I got home, when I got up. Once you’re in the top 10, the difference is .001 between 1 and 2.”

When she slipped to No. 2, Petro’s immediate thought was, “I’ll just have to work harder.”

That was no problem for Petro, who describes herself as being “self-motivated.”

“When you’re self-motivated, you enjoy doing all the work,” Petro said. “The success is worth it. It’s nice to know the hard work pays off. I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have if I didn’t work as hard as I did.”

Petro’s preferred subjects are English and Spanish, and it’s reflected in her career aspirations. She says she’s undecided as to what she wants to do, but she’s interested in writing and foreign languages. One of the interesting things to her about Penn is that is has a fashion magazine, “The Walk,” and a fashion week.

“UPenn is big on building around what you want to do and your interests,” Petro said. “ … When you step on a college campus, you get a feeling, and UPenn has the best of both worlds. It has a college campus feeling and it’s in a city.”

While Penn is one of an elite group of colleges classified as “Ivy League,” Petro believes Absegami is a school to be held in the highest regard, as well.

“When my brother and I were going into high school, people were asking my parents if they were going to send him to a private school, and they said, ‘Why? We have Absegami,’” Petro said. “Absegami is the best school you could go to and the past four years have been great. If you have something you’re interested in, Absegami most likely has a club or class that will help you explore your interest.”

Petro participated in Drama, Peer Mediation, was a Guidance Aide for the last three years and was a member of the Lead for Diversity Club, which promotes acceptance among high school students.

The Lead for Diversity Club held a “Be the Change Day,” where between 70 and 90 students got together for an entire day and discussed controversial topics such as race, gender, religion and sexual orientation, and held a series of activities designed to help the students get to know each other better.

“Ninety-eight percent of the students who participated said it was awesome,” Petro said.

Petro was also part of the team that finished second in the state in 2011. As a senior, she and were the two senior members of the team. The duo finished first in the state in the Improv Pairs category, and Petro finished first in Persuasive Speaking.

Petro has one more speech to give tonight, and then she and her classmates embark on the rest of their lives. It’s a challenging time in the lives of many young people, but Petro won’t be doing it alone.

“I’ve heard the first year of college can be kind of hard,” Petro said. “It’ll be nice to have someone to get coffee with and to tell you what classes to take and who are the best teachers.”

It also presents a new challenge to the self-motivator who likes to keep herself challenged.