Sonya Chaudhry is defying the odds.
This fall, the San Mateo foster youth will start classes at Stanford University with a full scholarship.
Gaining acceptance to the prestigious school would be a feat for any high school senior. Students in foster care, however, work toward higher education with the added disadvantage of an unstable home life, according to Patricia Maljanich of the San Mateo nonprofit Advocates for Children.
About 30 percent of foster teens nationally perform below grade level and 46 percent do not complete high school. Only 3 percent complete a four-year degree, she said.
“The statistics are really bleak,” Maljanich said. “Most simply can’t manage it all.”
Chaudhry, 18, who graduated Friday from Summit Preparatory Charter School in Redwood City, went into foster care two years ago. She said her mother was both physically and psychologically abusive.
“If I got anything lower than an ‘A’ I got beaten up,” the teen said, under her breath. “But I guess it just gave me more motivation to do well.”
Chaudhry was initially placed in a group home with other foster youths, but now lives on her own in an apartment.
She has not spoken to her mother in years, but does visit her younger sister.
In California, roughly 90,000 youths are in foster care, according to counties’ data. Maljanich estimates 600 are in San Mateo County.
Chaudhry was initially discouraged after hearing about the low success rate for foster youths. But she did not let what was going on in her personal life affect her performance at school, or extracurricular activities.
She became president of the San Mateo Youth Commission and was inducted into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame last year.
Chaudhry said she plans to take social sciences and international studies courses at Stanford.
