This story is adapted from remarks written by EMERGE scholar Ambriel Jones as part of EMERGE’s year-end appeal.
The first time Ambriel Jones ever felt crisp air in the summer, she was standing on a college campus in Connecticut — a sixteen-year-old from Houston who had never been to New England in her life.
“Something about that moment — the stone buildings, the stillness, the sheer difference of it all — made me feel like the world was bigger than I had let myself believe,” Ambriel says.
She was a sophomore at Milby High School when EMERGE took her on a Summer Trip Experience to visit campuses across New England. The architecture was unlike anything she’d grown up around: brick and stone, archways and towers, buildings that felt like they had something to say.
“Walking those campuses in the quiet of summer, I could actually hear myself think,” she recalls. “I remember noticing that the dorms had basements. Something so small, but it made the whole place feel real in a way no brochure ever had.”
She was somewhere completely different from home, standing inside a world she had never pictured for herself. For the first time, she wanted it.
A College List Becomes Real
This fall, Ambriel will enroll at Harvard University. She’ll admit it now: she really loved Yale on that trip.
“As a future Harvard Crimson, I’ll probably get in trouble for saying that,” she laughs. “But it was on that trip that I started building a real college list, asking real questions, and believing that schools like these were actually a possibility for me — including one in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
Ambriel is the first in her family to attend a four-year college. She’s quick to say she didn’t get there alone.
The People Who Showed Up
Ambriel thinks often about the EMERGE staff members who weren’t even her direct program manager but took the time, on that trip, to sit with her, check in, and have a real conversation about college and life. She thinks about her mentor, someone EMERGE connected her with, who reminded her so much of her grandmother that being with her felt like having a piece of family along for the whole process.
“Her sweetness, her honesty, her care — that’s what EMERGE actually looks like up close,” Ambriel says.
Nearly four in five EMERGE scholars prefer attending college out of state after their Summer Trip Experience — not because Houston isn’t home, but because someone believed they could see farther than the block they grew up on.
“Home can be both where you come from and why you come back,” Ambriel says.
Someone Else Is Standing There Now
Right now, another sophomore from Houston is stepping onto a campus far from home, feeling that crisp summer air for the first time — the way Ambriel did.
“Thank you for believing in scholars before we always know how to believe in ourselves,” Ambriel says. “I am living proof — and I’m just getting started.”
Help More Students Like Ambriel Reach Their Full Potential
EMERGE provides sustained advising, mentorship, and exposure to selective colleges so talented students can access life-changing opportunities.