She Has Conquered Lakes; Next Stop, Ivy Leagues

Chanel Washington is a bit unconventional.

Sure, she’s the kind of teenage girl who loves “Grey’s Anatomy,” and hanging out with her friends in Seattle, and asked for an iPhone for her 18th birthday.

But she’s also the girl who could have used her wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation to go to Disneyland or meet her favorite band – and instead opted to visit Cambridge, Mass.

In the middle of winter, no less.

Washington admits that she was a little underdressed during her January trip – but it didn’t matter. She was there with a single-minded goal: to see Harvard University.

And, just as she set out to do four years ago, she will return in the fall.

“I have a competitive edge,” she said. “I want the best for myself and I want to do everything I can to make sure this wheelchair is not going to be a problem for me, and I said this is what I’m going to do – get an Ivy League education.”

Beating the odds is nothing new to Washington.

At age 2, she was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular disease that prevents her from walking or picking up heavy things. Three years later, she was in a wheelchair.

“I don’t ever let it stop me from doing anything,” she said. “My mom raised me to be that way – it wasn’t going to prevent me from being a normal kid and having a normal life.”

And to Washington, normal means straight A’s, being class president her first three years at Lakes and state DECA president as a junior, and being involved with myriad groups including the Legislative Youth Advisory Council of Washington and the Lakewood Youth Council.

“Chanel has entirely blown my perception of the drive and determination of young people and what they are able to accomplish,” said Dennis Higashiyama, who advises the the youth council. “She will always be an inspiration to me personally.”

Washington, who has a 4.0 grade-point average and a class load that includes Advanced Placement English, government, calculus and chemistry, knew she had to take advantage of every academic opportunity at Lakes.

“I said ‘OK, I have to do this, coming from a more lower-end school,’ ” she said. “I wanted to make sure that I could compete with the kids at schools like (the private) Lakeside School in Seattle. They have like four kids a year accepted to Harvard, so I knew I had to get a 4.0.

"It was hard, but I pushed through.”

Her efforts were rewarded by acceptance to a quintet of Ivy League colleges: Harvard, Georgetown, Princeton, Columbia and Brown, as well as Duke, Pomona and the University of Washington.

She finally decided on Harvard after cashing in on her Make-A-Wish opportunity, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening conditions.

“I needed to see Harvard,” she said emphatically. “Because it was just this kind of fictional thing in my mind and I realized I could do all this work and it not be right for me at all, but I loved it.”

So why January?

“I knew that I needed to be there in the dead of winter and experience that snow and make sure I could actually survive.”

Washington plans to study public-health policy and eventually start a program to encourage wheelchair-bound teens to go to college – specifically, Ivy Leagues.

Her quest was borne by seeing a Harvard banner in her freshman-year leadership class. She had the grades – now she had to convince her parents, who were fully aware of the cost of such a prestigious education, to the tune of $56,000 a year.

Enter the university’s “ridiculously insane” financial-aid offer, coupled with a $10,000-a-year scholarship from the Ron Brown Scholar Program, which provides promising African-American students with the financial resources to attend some of the finest colleges in the country.

Washington ended up with a full ride to Harvard.

“She has set quite a standard for all of us, adults and students alike,” said Lakes principal Kären Mauer-Smith. “She just doesn’t see obstacles; she just pushes right past them. We will miss her horribly, but you also can’t help but be excited about what she’s going to do.”

Washington was born in Georgia, and the family moved around frequently due to her father being in the military. Their final stop before his retirement was Fort Lewis, when Washington was in eighth grade, and they decided to settle down in Lakewood. Her parents, who divorced a few years ago, both work on base; Roy in emergency operations, and Andrea on the night shift at the commissary.

Now Washington will learn to navigate a new life without their help. She initially worried about procuring a special van, but now plans to take a campus shuttle as well as the subway, which, she added with a small smile, will get her into Boston in about five minutes.

“It’s going to be interesting,” she said, adding that her mother is considering moving to the East Coast with her brother, Chase, 4. “It’s kind of scary – I have always depended on her.”

Washington’s hereditary disease is progressive – her parents initially were told that she would not live past age 10 – so her doctors are baffled that since middle school, her muscles and lung function have not deteriorated.

“I definitely attribute that to being so active and doing things all the time,” she said. “I have other things to focus on than being in a wheelchair.”

Still, Washington admits that it isn’t always easy. She can’t just hop in a friend’s car to go to the movies, and school dances are a challenge. Her friends occasionally forget that she is in a wheelchair, which can be both beneficial and detrimental – especially when it comes to holding doors – but she never does.

All she can do is adapt to the circumstances, she said.

“You have to get over it, because it’s not going to change,” she said. “You can choose to live your life angry, or make use of what you have.

“And I’m pretty happy with where I am right now.”