Gabe Wants To Go To Yale

#GFMScholarship

Thanks to the genoristy of my community and the greater GoFundMe community, I was able to meet my goal to attend my first year at Yale!

As I stated during my campaign, I am currently in the process of applying for the Navy scholarship, but this is not a guarantee, and in addition to the Navy scholarship, I am pursuing other forms of aid to ensure my continued enrollment here at Yale. 

I have absolutely fallen in love with the university. I find myself being challenged every day by the material I learn in class and by the conversations I have with my peers. The people here have such interesting and different backgrounds from my own, so whether it be sitting in the courtyard of my residential college, in my living room with my suitmate, or in the dining hall, I find myself engaged in perspective-changing conversation that has already pushed me to grow. I feel truly at home here and especially empowered to give back to this community, which has welcomed me with open arms over the last four weeks, and strive to look beyond the campus grounds to do even more with my time here.


I have been in school for about a month now.  I was elected as one of two representatives to Yale's Freshman College Council (FCC) for my residential college, which is a subsidiary body to the university-wide Yale College Council (YCC) responsible for planning Freshman Events and serving as policy liasons between freshmen and administration/YCC. I was recently just elected Chair to the FCC by other members of the council, meaning I will now be responsible for all FCC events organization and running multiple weekly meetings.

Furthermore, I am a part of Yale's only undergraduate public policy think tank, the Yale Roosevelt Institute. I am a part of the Institute's International Development center, where I will be conducting research on Youth Radicalization (particularly in the West) and writing a report that will be sponsored by a reputable think tank in the field to present and implement our findings (the partner think tank has yet to be decided). The aim of the report is to review the different types of counter-radicalization policies that have been put in place in each country, searching for inconsistencies between existing policies and the root causes of radicalization so that policy recommendations can be made that address the underlying causes.

Outside of extracurriculars, I have been applying for on-campus jobs. Many of the jobs have been taken due to priority being given to those on financial aid (Yale has a Student Income Contribution that requires all financial aid students to pay a portion of their tuition, so they are given preference when it comes to on-campus jobs), but I am currently waiting to hear back from a hiring manager regarding a Research Assistant job on Political Violence in Afghanistan/Insurgency for the Macmillan Center at Yale. As my original campaign stated, I was not granted financial aid, so my job search has been hindered.

As I mentioned earlier, this school year so far has been incredible and I am extremely happy where I am. GoFundMe was the platform I needed to get here considering the small time frame I had to raise the money and the urgency of the situation. Although I met my initial goal, my struggle to attend Yale is not over, and I am doing everything in my power to raise the money while being sure to stay involved outside of class and focused in class. The #GFMScholarship would help me significantly in my goal to stay at Yale, especially if I do not receive any scholarships I am currently applying for.

Thank you GFM for providing this service. It has helped me and countless others. Thank you for your consideration for the #GFMScholarship.

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Hello to all my friends and family and any strangers that find themselves reading this!

My name is Gabriel Perez. I'm an 18-year-old, high school senior at an American school in the UK with hopes of attending the school of my dreams: Yale University. Here's a bit about my situation.

Because of my dad's job, my family and I live in London, where his company helps to pay for things like our house and my school. On top of this, they pay all the foreign taxes that he is obligated to pay as a result of working overseas. Consequentially, all of these expenses are included in his tax returns, and the number he makes on paper is much much higher than what he actually makes in disposable income. Herein lies the problem.

I was accepted into Yale University on March 31; however, my decision came with a financial aid award letter of 0 aid. The moment was bittersweet, but the next day, I began the appeal process. I sent in numerous tax documents and letters of explanation. After about two weeks of sending in documents and trying to speak to people on the phone about my situation, I called and found out that many of the documents I sent in hadn't even been added to my file like many of the confirmation emails and people I called in the office had told me. It was very frustrating, but earlier this week, I was told I would finally receive a decision on my appeal. That decision came last night, where yet again, it was determined that I demonstrate no financial need (if that were true, you wouldn't be reading my story on GoFundMe like you are now). 

At this point in time, I've received merit awards from other schools but not enough to be able to attend them, so my only other option would be to attend the University of Florida (in-state tuition). UF is by no means a bad school, but as someone who is a part of the first generation of my family to go to university, and the first kid of my family to be accepted to an Ivy-League school, this would be a dream come true for my family. Both my grandparents immigrated to the US from Chile and the Philippines. My dad joined the Navy before he even finished high school and with no higher education has gotten me to the position I am in today. My goal is to go into government after graduating university, and for this reason, Yale would be the best option in helping me achieve that goal. It's hard not to look at the growing wealth inequality in the US and the fading opportunities for low-income to middle-class people (amongst other things) and not want to do something about it. As both my family and I know, opportunity is everything, and I want to be someone that can grant opportunity to those who deserve it. 

I've worked hard in school to get into Yale, and it was hard to put aside my pride and make this page, but I appreciate you taking the time to read this. $30,000 is the minimum amount of financial aid I would need to attend Yale next year (total cost of attendance is $65,000). I would still need to take out a few loans but these would be small in comparison. If I reached my goal around May 1--or at least came close to it, I would have the opportunity to attend Yale. As I said before, that would mean the world to my family and me. 

Thank you so much for your time, and it would mean just as much to me if you could share this page with those you know.