St. Joan Antida High School seniors Nury Plascencia (left) and Darneisha Virginia (Photo by Sue Vliet) This is the first in a Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service series about four college-bound high school seniors who are participating in College Possible, a program that provides students from low-income families with coaching and support to get into college and earn a degree. NNS will check in with these students during their transition into college and throughout their freshman year. St. Joan Antida High School senior Darneisha Virginia, 19, has received acceptance letters from four of the seven colleges to which she applied. She’s still waiting for the results of her applications for financial aid. Those results, and the location of the colleges she’s admitted to, will determine which college she chooses to enter this fall. Virginia leads a busy life. In addition to high school, where she plays on the volleyball team, she holds two part-time jobs. She works as a caregiver in an assisted-living facility for seniors in Glendale and as a youth leader in an after-school program at Cass Street School, 1647 N. Cass St. Admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Plattville, UW-Waukesha, Milwaukee Area Technical College and Mount Mary College, she is waiting to hear from Alverno College, Concordia University-Wisconsin and Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa. Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing! imported stylesheet imported stylesheet Sidebar article image (automatically sized to fit Sidebar article Header and Link More than 150 high school seniors from seven Milwaukee Public Schools recently celebrated their graduation and admission to college with College Possible program staff and coaches. Read More A Milwaukee native who lives with her mother in Washington Park, Virginia wants to go to a small school and would like to stay in the Milwaukee area. “I like my environment and I like to stay with the things I know. Also, I applied here because it will be cheaper in state,” she said. An honor-roll student, Virginia is leaning toward social work in a medical environment, but she said, “Honestly, I’m not very sure because every other week I change what I want to be.” Virginia said her teachers encouraged her to aim for college. “I pretty much always wanted to go to college because I wanted to be a role model for my younger niece. Also, I always wanted to be the first person to go to college in my family.” Her mother, a high school graduate who last worked as a school bus driver, was laid off from her job. Nury Plascencia, a classmate of Virginia’s at St. Joan Antida, would like to major in business and interior design. The second in her family to participate in the College Possible program, Plascencia plans to join her older sister at Mount Mary College this fall. Plascencia, 18, and her 20-year-old sister were born in Mexico before their parents immigrated to the U.S. She lives in the Silver City neighborhood with her parents and two younger sisters, who were born in Milwaukee. Plascencia works for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee after school three days each week and volunteers at school and in the community with the National Honor Society. She played volleyball and soccer throughout high school. She applied to Mount Mary, Marian University, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Lakeland College. She has decided to attend Mount Mary, which has offered her financial aid covering tuition, room and board for four years. Unlike sister Daesy who lives at home, Plascencia plans to live on campus. Her parents, who are unemployed but who recently earned their GEDs, never stopped encouraging her to further her education, Plascencia said. “I want to go to college so I have options … so I can do something I love and to better myself in general,” she said. Milwaukee School of Languages senior Pa Nou Xiong (Photo by Sue Vliet) Pa Nou Xiong aspires to become a physician’s assistant and hopes to go to Marquette University. A senior at Milwaukee School of Languages, 8400 W. Burleigh St., Xiong has focused on becoming fluent in Spanish since middle school. She is a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society. The youngest of 10 children, she was born in Milwaukee to Hmong parents who emigrated from Laos. Xiong’s parents were raised in a traditional agricultural society with no formal education. In Milwaukee, they work as farmers and the family lives together in the Sherman Park neighborhood. Four of Xiong’s siblings graduated from college and two others attended college.