On December 17, 1999 my entire family immigrated to the United States. We did so mainly for religious reasons since the people of Uzbekistan, a former part of the Soviet Republic and my country of origin, are much less tolerant of Jews than Americans are. One of the key rationales for our emigration from the relatively new-born "democratic" state was the fact that not that many Jews were able to receive higher education in Uzbekistan.
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Uzbekistan is a country where English is a foreign language spoken only by a small minority of the population. Therefore, unlike many countries that encompass the melting pot of America, within the Republic of Uzbekistan, an English speaking person is a rarity. Consequently, even though I had studied English intensively in my country of origin, it was still extremely hard for me to adjust to the "American" environment during the first couple of months in this country due to this language barrier. Merely one month after I first set my feet on American soil, I was enrolled in a regular public high school. It was very hard for me to understand what people were saying around me. I hoped to assimilate socially with my peers, while not wasting any time with my academic pursuits. I was already in ninth grade during which time period students had to at least start taking the tests that are designed to assess their academic standing. I tried my best to maintain a solid GPA and prepare for different standardized exams, many of which contained formats unfamiliar to me. Although the odds were that I would fail in my academic journey, I knew that I could not let any obstacle block me along the way. My sights were set on college and as long as I remained focused, I knew I would succeed. I had worked too hard to abandon my dreams now.
Succeeding solely in academics was not fully satisfying to me. I found it essential to also give back to the community that had given me the opportunity to reach my goals.
I was going to beat the odds of overcoming ADD one way or another. ... I graduated from high school with a GPA of 3.9875, top five percent of my graduating class, and had many academic and athletic scholarships. ...