Senior Snapshots | Jeannette Neto

New York City high school students are graduating this month. In our Senior Snapshots series, WNYC profiles a few students who learned what it takes to succeed in school and graduate despite facing numerous challenges.

For immigrant students, graduating can be especially tough: just 41 percent of pupils who speak a language other than English graduate high school on time compared to 61 percent of all students. But 18-year-old Jeannette Neto is among those defying those odds.

"My aunt is always like, 'You have to study here. Here you can do everything that you want if you just study,'" said Neto, whose family moved to Ridgewood, Queens, from Ambato, Ecuador, four years ago.

She enrolled in Newcomers High in Long Island City, a school for recent immigrants who do not speak English, where Neto did well her first year and took most subjects in Spanish. But in her sophomore year, she challenged herself by taking U.S. History in English.

"It was hard; my grades got down a little bit," she said.

To compensate, she said she borrowed a bilingual textbook so she could read along in Spanish. Jeannette was scared of the school at first, but she enjoyed meeting fellow students from all over the world.

"I start meeting first my Ecuadorian people and Chinese," she said. "And then once my English was improving a little bit I start to meet people from Bangladesh, also from Africa."

Neto, who earned a 95 average and won several scholarships, will attend Marist College, getting an early start by beginning a special summer program at the school at the end of the month.

She has an older brother and a younger sister and is the first person in her family to go to college.

"I'm going to hang out more with American kids," said Neto, who has an older brother and younger sister and is the first in her family to go to college. "I already know most about American culture, but also I want to improve my English and my accent."