DORAL – Senior Amanda Fernandez walks the halls of Doral Academy Prep in Miami in her neatly tucked red Doral polo, her long, wavy brown hair and tortoise shell glasses doing their best to hide her shy smile.
But there is no hiding – even in a school of 1,700 overachievers – when everyone knows who you are.
She’s a brain.
She’s a beast.
Amanda’s fellow students revere her. Top athletes are intimidated by her. Everyone can recite her accomplishments. 4.0 GPA. Perfect score on the ACT. And they all know the four colleges she was accepted by – Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Princeton.
“She’s the Michael Jordan of Doral,” said principal Carlos Ferralls, who made a bigger deal of each acceptance letter than any sports standout at his school.
The star treatment took some getting used to, but Amanda has always been easy to approach and humble.
“Juniors especially will come up and ask me for tips on how to get into their dream school,” she said. “They see it as more attainable, I guess, because they see me. It’s not that far out of reach.”
The second and youngest child of Cuban immigrants, Amanda grew up knowing how much her parents sacrificed to move to the U.S. before she was born.
“They started from zero twice,” she said.
Mom Francisca Alonso worked hard to become an accountant. Dad Jose Fernandez is an ultra-supportive homemaker.
“We always had great food, we always drove a really bad car,” Amanda recollected. “There were times in my life when we were pretty low-income, like when my mom lost her job in 2012. We were no-income at that point.”
“It pushes me. I really want to give back to my parents, because this wouldn’t have been possible without their hard work.
Amanda did well at the district elementary school that was a block from their apartment, but it was Doral Academy, a charter school, that recognized and cultivated her rare talents, especially in math.
Francisca and Jose heard about Doral from other neighborhood parents and were impressed when they visited the modern 10-acre campus. It’s part of the family of schools run by Academica.
“We were mostly drawn by the academic reputation, strong discipline, and security,” Jose said with Amanda translating. “When we visited we were amazed by how well-behaved the students were, the small classroom sizes, and the wide variety of clubs offered. We could only hope the lottery worked in our favor.”
It did. Amanda entered the school in sixth grade, while brother Luis started ninth. Her entrance test showed high aptitude for math, so she started Algebra 1. It didn’t take long for teachers to urge her to join the Math Club, where she would be further challenged in national competitions.
Amanda resisted until ninth grade, admitting she was scared.
It’s easy to see why. The best minds at Doral push each other hard in Math Club, and everyone treats it as seriously as a pro sport.
“They don’t play around,” said assistant principal Daniel Gonzalez. “They practice here all year, even in the summer. It’s a big commitment.”
Amanda found her inspiration and her people. She felt behind at first, but that spurred her to learn. The other students became role models and best friends.
“They taught me so much,” she said. “I started liking math way more.”
It’s a feeling Amanda looks forward to having again in college, where she’s leaning towards computer science.
Throughout April, Amanda visited her four schools, as anticipation built back at Doral. Everyone wanted to know where she would go.
At each visit, she walked the campus, envisioned herself there, and talked to random students.
Princeton was nice, but never quite clicked.
MIT was always a frontrunner, because Amanda spent six weeks there last summer in a highly selective program called MITES (Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science). On her second visit, she saw snow for the first time, and the girl who had never felt a chill below 50 degrees started to like it.
Her last two visits – to Harvard and Stanford – were amazing. The best part was sharing the experience with her parents.
“They were like little kids in Disney, looking around in awe of everything,” Amanda said.
When the whirlwind month was over, she had two days to make up her mind. But it was already clear.
Harvard was perfect – the city with its energy, the campus with seemingly every building drenched in history, the computer science program with a massive new engineering complex under construction.
Better yet, the students “all had this innate quality of being a leader,” Amanda said. “That’s something I really want in my career, and that really changed my mind.”
Word spread fast at Doral, as Amanda texted her friends and told her teachers.
Ferralls couldn’t be more proud. As principal since 2008, he has raised Doral’s profile to that of an elite prep school, earning National Blue Ribbon honors from the U.S. Department of Education in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Doral is one of seven schools in Florida to receive the award last year – three of them charter schools.
Last year, Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes released a study showing Doral Academy and its feeder schools comprise one of Florida’s most academically effective charter school organizations. Its students perform significantly better than demographically matched peers in district-run public schools in both reading and math.
To Ferralls, Amanda Fernandez represents everything he wants Doral Academy to be known for.
“This is a nerd school, and we’re proud of it,” he said. “We push. We make sure that students are not comfortable in a position where they’re just getting by.”
“It is a culture that was created in this school. That’s what it’s all about. Being a high-achieving student here is the thing. It’s being the LeBron James of this school.”
Next up for Amanda is her valedictorian speech at graduation on June 2. She’s nervous about it. But no one else has any doubts.
“Just like LeBron James,” Gonzalez said, “she’s going to perform.”
About Florida’s charter schools
Florida is home to more than 650 public charter schools that enroll 296,000 students. Sixty-two percent are black or Hispanic. More than half qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches. As of September 2017, the state classified 171 charter schools as academically high-performing.
Amanderz, you are leaving a legacy like no other. Best of luck in your future endeavors.