Perla Alvarado-Rueda, a senior at Exeter Township Senior High School, has earned a full four-year scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania through the prestigious QuestBridge National College Match program.
The scholarship marks a historic achievement for the Exeter student, who ranks at the top of her class with a weighted GPA of 100.318. As one of eight children in a family of immigrants—neither of whom completed school beyond the sixth grade—Alvarado-Rueda’s path to higher education was far from guaranteed.
“My parents weren’t able to pursue an education, so I was determined to take every opportunity I could,” she said.
Alvarado-Rueda’s academic journey began at Owatin Creek Elementary School, where she entered kindergarten without fluency in either English or Spanish. By second grade, she was competing in the school’s spelling bee. That early experience of challenge and growth set the tone for a decade of relentless work, including Advanced Placement courses, extracurricular involvement, and a focus on academic excellence.
When it came time to consider college options, her father gently encouraged her to think practically and stay local due to financial concerns. But Alvarado-Rueda had a different vision.
“I didn’t put myself through all of this hard work during four years of high school just to go to a school that’s not highly selective—that was my goal, and I wouldn’t have been satisfied with myself if I didn’t get into one,” she said.
She soon received an invitation to apply through QuestBridge, a nonprofit organization that connects high-achieving, low-income students with elite colleges offering full scholarships. As part of the application process, she wrote a personal essay exploring the emotional and educational distance between herself and her parents, shaped in part by their limited schooling.
“There was a point in my life where I even resented them for being the way they were,” she wrote. “I felt as if we lived in different timelines within the same home.”
Her candid and deeply personal reflection, combined with her academic record, made a strong impression. Out of more than 25,000 applicants, she was among the 10 percent selected as Match Scholarship recipients this year. QuestBridge reports that 92 percent of those selected are in the top 10 percent of their class, and 83 percent are the first in their families to attend a four-year college in the United States.
Alvarado-Rueda applied to seven schools through the program—Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, and Haverford—all of which required additional essays. In total, she spent over 60 hours writing more than 25 essays to complete the applications.
“It’s a daunting and rigorous application,” said Exeter guidance counselor Nikki Daub. “I’ve had a student or two that started the application during my 13 years of being a counselor, but she’s the first one to complete it.”
The scholarship she received from the University of Pennsylvania covers tuition, housing, food, books, supplies, and travel expenses. It was also the only school she had been able to visit prior to applying.
“A full scholarship to an Ivy has never happened to any student on my caseload,” said Daub.
Selected to speak at her graduation, Alvarado-Rueda plans to use her platform to encourage her classmates to value their education and persevere through challenges.
“Show up,” she writes in her prepared remarks. “Even when it’s hard. Even when it feels pointless. It’s better to be tired from school than to be broken from hardship for the rest of your life.”
She continues: “Education is not promised everywhere in the world. Your worst school day is someone else’s impossible dream. Education is liberation… it allows you to carve a life on your own terms… it breaks the cycle of struggle that so many are born into.”
Alvarado-Rueda plans to study astronomy at Penn.