Arlington ISD’s Class of 2025 is rolling in millions. Millions in scholarship dollars, that is.
The more than 4,100 Arlington ISD seniors who walked across the stage this month are officially done with high school and on to the next stage of their lives. For many, that means college, and this group is well-prepared. In fact, the Class of 2025 has earned more than $60.9 million in college scholarships so far. 
That number speaks to how impressive these students are.
Like the district’s Gates Scholars: John Nguyen and Evelyn Rosales from Arlington Collegiate High School and Abner Mejia-Lopez from Sam Houston High School.
“Our district has three students who received the highly selective Gates Scholarship,” said Meggan Horne, Arlington ISD guidance and counseling specialist. “Less than 1% of applicants actually win this scholarship.”
Or the 15 other Sam Houston grads who earned full scholarships to Texas Christian University.
Or Venture High School’s Aaron Gray with nearly $50,000 to go to Texas State.
Then there’s Lamar grad Jovani Sanchez who pulled in over $1 million in scholarships by himself.
And he wasn’t the only one. Martin High School’s Bryan Chan did that, too. Plus, he picked up the Amazon Future Engineers scholarship to go along with his full ride to Duke University.
There are also 92 student athletes who netted $5.6 million in scholarships to 70 different colleges.
And that’s just a few examples. 
But one thing all of these scholarship winners had in common was significant support from their school counselors.
“Our counselors work tirelessly every year to help our students gain the financial means to pursue their post-secondary dreams,” said Meggan Horne.
Thanks to those counselors and the students’ hard work, those post-secondary dreams are now real life.
As they head off into that life, Traci Thomas-Bragg, Arlington ISD’s director of postsecondary partnerships, wants to give the graduates one last reminder. Thomas-Bragg led the team that coordinated Arlington ISD’s graduation ceremonies.
“I would admonish graduates to remember, ‘Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead.’”
Congrats Class of 2025!