When Promise Kiara Molina stood at the White House podium to introduce President Barack Obama in 2014, she had no doubt where she would be after graduating from Promise Academy High School.
“I used to want to be a veterinarian. But now I’m thinking, maybe I’ll be a lawyer, because I love ‘Law and Order,’” she said at the event celebrating the president’s Promise Zones initiative. “But either way, I am going to college.”
Though her quip got a laugh from the president, Kiara wasn’t joking about her plans: After graduating from Promise Academy, she went on to attend and receive her diploma from the prestigious Newhouse School at Syracuse University.