A Lakeland teen who didn’t learn English until elementary school has received a four-year scholarship to Duke University through Questbridge, which connects high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds with top colleges.
Alexander Andrade, an 18-year-old senior at the International Baccalaureate School at Bartow High School, is also one of two students who will represent Polk County Public Schools as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, and he is one of the county’s five National Merit semifinalists.
Early years: Andrade, who was born in Pembroke Pines, moved with his mother to Argentina to live with family when he was three months old.
He recalled a good life in a close-knit area of Rosario, where he attended a private Italian school. But the decline of the Argentine economy prompted his and his mother’s return to the U.S. in 2014.
Andrade enrolled in the second grade, where he struggled with English and found math a relief. By the third grade, his English was becoming natural, thanks in part to watching YouTube videos.
When the family moved to the Combee Road area of Lakeland in 2016, Andrade enrolled in fifth grade at the Combee Academy of Design and Engineering in its first year as a stem-focused magnet school. He then attended Lawton Chiles Middle Academy, which has an international baccalaureate curriculum, and then the International Baccalaureate School at Bartow High School.
Academic success: Andrade said he has a 4.714 grade point average. He’s already taken 10 Advanced Placement exams, he said, and scored the highest score, a ,5, on seven of them, including U.S. history, literature and statistics. He took the SAT three times and scored a 1530 out of 1600 the final time.
Challenges: Andrade said uprooting their lives to move from Argentina to the United States was difficult but he persevered.
“If I would’ve stayed in my mindset of wanting to go back to Argentina and never picked up English, I don’t think I would’ve succeeded as much,” he said.
A year ago, his grandmother and stepfather died. He said practicing his mother’s Jewish faith and praying nightly has helped.
To alleviate some of the stress on his mother, he works 20 hours a week as a stocker and trainer at Harveys Supermarket. He said he enjoys the work. “It’s actually really fun. It keeps you engaged and I get along well with my managers there.”
When he’s not working, he’s keeping stats about the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team, playing tennis, and teaching kids how to play chess.
Andrade is the co-founder of the Chess Club at Scott Lake Elementary School. “We have a motto. It says: ‘We don’t lose, we learn.’ We want to turn their thinking around a little bit,” Andrade explained.
Strategies for success: With his busy schedule, Andrade said sticking to a routine and using the spaced repetition time management technique has helped him manage his commitments. He studies more on the nights he’s not working. Andrade also takes naps on the bus and completes some of his homework while on break at work.
Why Duke University: Andrade said he’s wanted to go to Duke for years. He got involved in Duke’s Talent Identification Program in the seventh grade after learning about it in an internet search.
His love of math drew him to engineering. He decided to pursue electrical engineering after conversations with a few engineers in his family.
The QuestBridge Program: Andrade learned about QuestBridge after a guidance counselor told him he was qualified. It connects high-achieving high school seniors from low-income backgrounds with full four-year scholarships to 52 of the country’s top universities.
Andrade was one of the 2,627 recipients selected this year. More than 25,500 students applied nationwide.
One other Polk student – Eshan Alam from Lake Wales – also received the scholarship; the IB Bartow student will get a full ride to Brown University.
Many of the scholarship recipients are first-generation college students and in the top 10% of their graduating classes.
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