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“It was shocking to walk into my first-year writing class and be the only visibly brown student in a class of 15,” recalls American Dream School College Counselor Anna Martinez of her first semester at Barnard College. Martinez is a member of the first generation of her family to attend college, and, despite Imposter Syndrome that first year, her motivation didn’t waiver. “The women were intelligent. I wanted to hold myself the same way those women held themselves.” On December 15th, Martinez joined one of her students on Zoom as she nervously logged into a college decision portal and learned that she, too, would be attending Barnard College.
“She was in shock,” says Martinez. “She couldn’t even say words, she wasn’t even crying. First-generation in this country and she will graduate in four years from one of the best women’s colleges in the US, a top-20 liberal arts school...This is why I wanted to work at American Dream.”
Martinez grew up mostly in Salem, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dominican and Puerto Rican-Peruvian parents, neither of whom went to college. Her father worked the graveyard shift as an airplane mechanic, so Martinez and her brother saw him primarily on weekends. Her mother simultaneously worked two jobs as a bookkeeper and office administrator. Still, there were years her dad pawned jewelry to afford to buy Christmas gifts. “I understood intuitively that if I go down their path, my options will be far more limited than if I go down the college path,” Martinez says. She saw this firsthand in her older brother, as he graduated college and came away with friendships and opportunities he wouldn’t have otherwise.
Martinez set her sights on attending a nationally prominent college and was accepted early to Barnard College. Four years later, she was unsure what came next. “I had this fancy, Ivy League degree and no idea how to use it to help people,” she recalls. She applied to New York University’s Silverman School of Social Work to become a social worker. To pay for it, she joined the NYU College Advising Corps, and chose to serve with The American Dream School. “It was hard to get through a lesson because the students had so many questions and I loved it because it made me constantly reflect on my background and my journey,” she says.
Now in her fourth year with American Dream, Martinez has helped the 140 members of the first two graduating classes to earn acceptance to more than 800 colleges and universities. Among them, she helped a student who initially swore he wouldn’t even apply to get into and attend college, where he is thriving. She most recently helped an alumnus with instability at home, working to support his family, to find a part-time fit in a trade school program. Under her guidance, the Class of 2023 is applying to more highly selective schools than any class prior.
“There is so much trust required in this role,” she says. “When alumni come back and say they want to see me, it means I did my job.”
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