Sister’s stroke leads student to his calling, and to a scholarship

Rodrick Edwards found out he had won a full scholarship to Wesleyan University at exactly 1:12 p.m. on Dec. 1.

The senior ran down the hall of Costa Mesa High School to tell his counselor, all the while dialing his mom.

Edwards got a leg up on his application thanks to QuestBridge, a Palo Alto-based nonprofit that matches low-income students to elite universities that provide full scholarships.

Edwards was among the 501 high school seniors nationwide selected by QuestBridge as 2014 National College Match Scholarship recipients. For more than a decade, the program has sought to remove the income barriers that prevent academically talented students from attending premier colleges, according to a program spokeswoman.

Recipients are guaranteed a full, four-year scholarship at the university that selects them. The average grade point average of students picked last year was 3.91 unweighted — meaning no special consideration for advanced placement or honors classes. Edwards’ weighted GPA is 3.94.

Edwards is the second student in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to win a full-ride scholarship during the 2014-15 school year through QuestBridge, according to a QuestBridge spokeswoman. Mariam Elmalh, an Estancia High School senior, also won a full scholarship in 2014-15, hers to the University of Chicago.

Last year, Costa Mesa High’s Loralee Sepsey received a full ride to Stanford. Only a few Newport-Mesa students have taken part in the scholarship program over the last two years.

As part of QuestBridge, Edwards attended a daylong seminar at Stanford University in May. He learned strategies to apply to top colleges and attended a college fair representing 35 schools. He applied to seven, including Vassar, Northwestern and Wesleyan.

At Wesleyan, a private college in Connecticut, Edwards thinks he’ll double-major in theater and creative writing. He said he is thrilled to attend the same university where a sophomore drafted “In the Heights,” a Tony Award-winning musical.

The performing arts have been something of a refuge in recent years for Edwards. His world was upended when he was 10, when his sister, Robyn, suffered a massive stroke. She was 13 at the time. Doctors had declared her brain dead.

The sight of his sister on life support was a lot for the boy to take in. He wrote her a song and a poem in the hopes that she would recover. His mother pinned the words next to his sister’s hospital bed.

“I had no clue what was happening,” Edwards, 18, said recently. “I was lost basically.”

In the days that followed, doctors urged the family to remove Robyn from life support. By then the teen had been airlifted from Idaho Falls, where the family lived, to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. On the day doctor’s were set to perform a series of final tests, Robyn jerked her leg.

From that sign of life, she continued to recover, slowly.

Rodrick and Robyn’s mother, Veverly, said she never gave up on her daughter. More than two years ago, she moved the family to Orange County for the brain injury program at Coastline Community College.

The move wasn’t easy. The family lived with relatives for a time and in motels and shelters. Edwards helped out by cooking and cleaning. His growing responsibilities meant that many after-school activities fell by the wayside. Even so, he found time to perform in five school plays and play the violin.

Sitting at a coffee shop on Monday with his mother and sister, Edwards said his extra responsibilities and limited free time forced him to focus on what he really loves — performing arts.

As for Robyn, now 20, the brain injury program has helped her to compensate for the deficiencies left by the injury. The school’s one-year program teaches students the verbal, cognitive, memory and social skills necessary to secure jobs and live independently. A long scar in her close-cropped hair is one of the few signs of her horrific experience.

Edwards wrote about his sister’s injury in his college essay: “Throughout this terrifying ordeal I did grow stronger. Watching my sister as she fought past every obstacle encouraged me.”

“I wouldn’t have found my love for performing,” he said Monday. “At the end, I found something I love doing.”