Making the best college choice

Local nonprofit helps students with their higher education decisions

In Iraq, I would wake up basking in the scent of fresh pita bread and find myself in awe of buildings awash with bright colors as sunlight chased the shadows away. I never saw a dangerous country in turmoil, which is why I did not expect to hear the word directed at me as I sat in my seventh grade class.

Terrorist. My face fell. I never thought I was a terrorist. The terrorists were the ones who killed my cousin while he fought for his country. The terrorists were the ones who took my ability to visit that beautiful country away. The terrorists were the ones who destroyed my family’s homeland, yet I was viewed as one. The boy got but a slap on the wrist. I got a lifelong reminder.

I no longer harbor resentment for that moment of ignorance. I learned from it. My feelings toward my past and my family form the base of my existence like the colors I choose to coat the canvases of my paintings. My decisions in life highlight and create the shadows that add depth to the painting I call my life. My thoughts serve as my brushstrokes and can change direction as I will. The transition from high school to college dictates the landscape and the colors I will use. A painting is only finished when the artist deems it so, but I have only begun to prime the canvas of my life.

Mariam Abdelhalim, FROM HER college application essays

Mariam Abdelhalim, a senior graduating this month from Homewood High School, said she had no idea what to do when it came to applying for financial aid so she could attend college.

A friend told her she should apply to the College Choice Foundation, which is a nonprofit located in Homewood that provides resources for students from disadvantaged, under-resourced backgrounds.

“I applied on a whim and got in,” Abdelhalim said. “It absolutely changed my life.”

Abdelhalim’s mother is from Iraq, and she has visited the country multiple times. This has contributed to her identity, she said.

“I had a lot of misconceptions before I went for the first time,” she said. “Going there and seeing how the people are and their different perspectives, it really opened my worldview. It changed me as a person because now I’m aware of other people and other countries, rather than being restricted to one perspective.”

Her mom has eight sisters and two brothers, which means Abdelhalim has 68 cousins in Iraq. She always learns something new from them, and they never treat her as an outsider, she said.

Abdelhalim loves history class, specifically, learning about the past and learning about people’s mistakes, she said.

She’s on the color guard team, and she said being co-captain has been a big part of her life. She’s also vice president of Arabic Club, which was formed a year ago by one of Abdelhalim’s close friends. She speaks an Iraqi dialect of Arabic, and through the club, she taught club members the alphabet and learned more about the standard version of the language. Some of the club members were immigrants from Yemen, and Abdelhalim said she enjoys talking to them and learning about their experiences.

Since December of last year, she has been looking at applying to Boston College. She hadn’t ever heard of this college before, but she said she realized through the College Choice Foundation how much Boston College had to offer. Originally, she wanted to attend the University of Virginia. But shortly after she received her acceptance letter from Boston College, she found out she was rejected from the University of Virginia.

“It just goes to show that sometimes you have to take a risk, and I’m really happy with my decision,” she said.

If she hadn’t been in the College Choice Foundation, she probably would have been limited to state schools because she would have thought that’s all she could afford, Abdelhalim said. She wanted to graduate college with as little debt as possible. Her mother, who got a degree in peace studies and anthropology, graduated with a debt that “still holds weight over her,” so Abdelhalim said she knew she needed financial aid.

For many high school seniors, though, navigating that process is tricky. Many students end up going to state schools instead of attempting to apply for financial aid for out-of-state schools, said Josephine Lowery, who helped start the College Choice Foundation.

Lowery was driven to start the College Choice Foundation because of her own background: her mother was an alcoholic, her dad didn’t send child support money, her family was on food stamps, and Lowery said she and her brother were the only white students at her school in the free lunch program.

“It was a crazy childhood, and what I could control was my grades,” she said. “I did really well, but I just assumed I would go to the community college or go to Auburn and live at home.”

Then a guidance counselor stopped her and asked why she hadn’t applied for any out-of-state schools. Lowery said she couldn’t afford to go anywhere else — she couldn’t even afford the application fees.

The counselor got the application fees waived, and Lowery ended up getting full-ride scholarships to Vanderbilt University, Sewanee, Emory University and Birmingham-Southern College.

The foundation became a registered nonprofit in 2016 and operates off of donations and grants to provide individual mentoring, standardized test prep, essay writing instruction, financial aid guidance, college site visits and laptops for students who are accepted. It started out just offering assistance to Homewood students but expanded to Birmingham schools in 2018.

“College Choice is a family,” Lowery said. “They all are unique, smart and vulnerable, and they let us see that. They’re such hard workers, and they want this. They have worked their whole lives.

“We are doing nothing other than shepherding them. We’re guiding them in another direction that they never thought possible.”

Abdelhalim will be studying neuroscience when she starts school in the fall. In her first year, she will receive $60,000 in financial aid, which will change annually based on her family’s income. It’s a four-year degree, and after graduation, she hopes to go to medical school, she said.

She is most excited to meet her roommate, who is from Hawaii and promised to take Abdelhalim there someday, she said.

“It’s just so cool to talk to her on FaceTime and knowing that we’re almost the same person but from completely different communities and cultures,” she said.

She also said the Boston College campus is the most beautiful out of the 20 colleges to which she applied.

“I’m super excited to meet new people and start fresh,” she said.

The College Choice Foundation has an annual fundraising event, the Wild West Roundup, which will be June 27 at Good People Brewing Company.

Visit collegechoicefoundation.org for more information.