--- title: The New Path to College Admission description: One first-generation college student's inspiring story canonical: https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/ author: TIME Video article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-21T12:00:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:26:45.511Z article:section: Politics og:title: The New Path to College Admission og:description: One first-generation college student's inspiring story og:url: https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9bb86aae31e160c/69877ae806f2c1a4f933381a/screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The New Path to College Admission twitter:description: One first-generation college student's inspiring story twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9bb86aae31e160c/69877ae806f2c1a4f933381a/screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The New Path to College Admission by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) ## TIME Video Jan 21, 2015 12:00 PM UTC  by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) ## TIME Video Jan 21, 2015 12:00 PM UTC On Tuesday night, Michelle Obama was joined by a handful of people to watch the President’s State of the Union address in person. From astronaut [Scott Kelly](http://time.com/meet-the-twins-unlocking-the-secrets-of-space/) to Alan Gross, the foreign aid worker who was recently released after five years of imprisonment in Cuba, each of the White House’s guests personifies a story the President would like to tell about America. In 2014, Estiven Rodriguez was the author of one of those stories. Then a high-school senior from New York City, Rodriguez was recognized by Obama in the State of the Union address for arriving in United States, the son of a Dominican factory worker, unable to speak a word of English and going on to become a first-generation college student. “Imagine not being able to speak up for yourself, communicate and truly make the right choices,” Rodriguez wrote in an essay that helped him earn a spot at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “I was that middle-schooler who easily could have fallen into the wrong path.” In the video above, TIME followed Rodriguez on his journey to the State of the Union. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/"},"headline":"The New Path to College Admission","datePublished":"2015-01-21T12:00:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:26:45.511Z","description":"One first-generation college student's inspiring story","url":"https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/","keywords":["Barack Obama","Michelle Obama","state of the union","SOTU"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9bb86aae31e160c/69877ae806f2c1a4f933381a/screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Video","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-video/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9bb86aae31e160c/69877ae806f2c1a4f933381a/screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"screen-shot-2015-01-20-at-11-34-24-pm.png","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3661720/how-a-high-schooler-made-it-to-the-state-of-the-union/","name":"The New Path to College Admission"}}]}] ```