Only 3.4 percent of applicants got accepted to Harvard this year, the most competitive year in the university’s history. And Yahir Santillan-Guzman of The Dalles High School is still in shock that he’s one of them.

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Yahir Santillan-Guzman is The Dalles High School’s first male Latino student to be valedictorian, and the first graduate in 37 years to be accepted to Harvard University. 

Santillan-Guzman is not only the first male Latino student to be named valedictorian of The Dalles High School, he’s the first The Dalles student in nearly 40 years to receive what is one of the most coveted college acceptances in the world.

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A screenshot of the acceptance notice Yahir Santillan-Guzman received from Harvard. Bill Noonan, Santillan-Guzman’s ASPIRE mentor, recounted what a friend of his once told him regarding what Harvard is looking for in an applicant: “’You’ve got to climb Mt. Everest backwards in a wheelchair, and get your face on Time Magazine, but don’t mention it to anybody.’ They don’t want anybody who is full of themselves.”