At least, according to Aneta, it's Polish tradition that has spurred her to the upper echelons of Fremont High School. One of the school's valedictorians this year, Aneta, 17, is graduating with multiple honors and nearly a full ride to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, thanks to financial aid and scholarships.

But it was a path that wasn't always easy.

"Working hard is my nature. Polish people are very determined, so it was just a matter of self-motivation," Aneta says. "I didn't care about failing if I learned from it."

This attitude kept Aneta at the top of her class, from Lakewood Elementary through her high school years. But once college loomed on the horizon, that same determination pushed her through a number of obstacles.

First was a difficult divorce that left Aneta and her younger brother, Mark, in the care of their mother. The family moved a number of times within Sunnyvale. The single income also proved tricky, especially when the 45-minute bus ride from the family home to Fremont High wasn't enough for Aneta's many activities, so the family scrimped to purchase a car.

But what was even harder was the lack of guidance Aneta had for the often-confusing world of college admissions. "My mom had never been in the American educational system. I had to do it all myself," she says. That process involved calling colleges, some on the East Coast, with questions and having to turn around a stack of applications in a matter of weeks—problems that seem like second nature to solve for those with parents in the know. "My mom would come to me, asking why I was calling New York, and I had to push her to do financial aid stuff," she says. "Not knowing the system, it's harder than you think to set yourself apart."

What helped were not only Aneta's stellar grades in advanced-placement classes, but her many outside activities. She played volleyball and basketball, worked as a ropes course leader and has volunteered for such groups as Sunnyvale's Teen Advisory Council to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. In fact, her mother intervened when she thought Aneta was stretching herself too thin.

"She told me not to play basketball," Aneta says. "I knew others who were getting to go to the movies, so I wasn't having the experiences that my friends were having. But my mom just wanted me to be happy."

After receiving rejections from Harvard and Princeton universities, her acceptance to Penn definitely put a smile on her face. Aneta plans to major in biology and Spanish and take Polish classes to brush up on the proper grammar of her parents' native language. After graduation, she hopes to attend UCSF for medical school and then work someplace like Valley Med. "They accept patients even if they can't pay," Aneta says.

In the meantime, she's handing down her newfound knowledge to her brother, who will be a junior at Fremont in the fall and has become interested in looking at colleges while watching his sister from the sidelines. Aneta has the perfect way to reach out to the basketball fan with her own version of March Madness, the nationwide college basketball tournament.

"He's going to start out with tournaments brackets and go from 64 schools to the final two," she says.