When Elizabeth Murray joined the Harvard class of 2003, her story
became a national sensation. She lived on the New York City streets for
years after being born to drug-addicted parents and eventually found
inspiration in education after her mother's AIDS-related death - a
story that was turned into the Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie, Homeless
to Harvard.
Ultimately
though, Murray ended up dropping out of Harvard after just one
semester, returning and then leaving again - a path that incoming
freshman Steven-Vaughn Lewis hopes to avoid.
Vaughn-Lewis, whose
story recently captured the attention of many across the nation after
an early July feature in The Philadelphia Inquirer, grew up in and out
of foster care, which was punctured by a short stint of homelessness.
"My childhood was very different from most," he said. "It was completely unstable."
Although Vaughn-Lewis wasn't always enrolled in elementary schools,
after attending public school near his grandmother's house he
transferred in the sixth grade to Julia R. Masterman Middle School,
which Newsweek rated the 74th best public school in the nation in 2006
- the highest rank of any public school in Pennsylvania.
At
Masterman, Vaughn-Lewis was inspired by his biology and chemistry
teachers. He went on to conduct research at Penn on the relationship
between smell and memories during his sophomore year of high school.
The research won him a gold medal in the George Washington Carver
Science Fair and inspired him to apply to Penn.
"I didn't realize that it was an Ivy League or selective [at the time]," said Vaughn-Lewis. "But it was a college in Philadelphia, and I wanted to go."