SHS Academic All-Star
Senior Alex Soto Honored for Academic Success
2022 Arkansas Times Academic All-Stars Team
The 2022 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team, the 28th team the Times has honored, includes a renowned crossword constructor, budding activists, enterprising craftspeople and tireless volunteers.
There’s rarely a B on the transcripts of these students in not just this, their senior year, but in any year of their high school careers.
Read on for this story of inspiration!
Alex Soto
Age:18
Hometown: Springdale
High School: Springdale High School
Parents: Daniel and Maria Soto
College plans: Stanford University
Whether it’s tutoring his peers to help improve their ACT scores in the morning before school or building a candy bridge with students from his former middle school to help ignite a passion for STEM, Alex Soto is motivated to eliminate inequality. A first-generation Mexican-American, Alex sees his ACT tutoring sessions as more than just helping to bring up test scores. “My school is predominantly minority, first-generation and low-income students,” Alex said. “I noticed that it was definitely harder for people from my background to do better on that test.” Not only are tutoring services expensive, Alex said that by the time some first-generation students realize the importance of the test, it’s too late. Alex’s older sister stressed to him the importance of the test, and when he first took it in seventh grade he scored a 19. Using free resources in the library and online, he studied on his own and raised his score to a 35. “Being at a disadvantage I had to work a lot harder, and just knowing everything I know now I thought I was in a good position to help my peers,” he said. Alex is inspired by Stanford professor Manu Prakash and the idea of “frugal science,” creating inexpensive innovations to eliminate health care inequality all over the world. Alex is currently working on an affordable, high-functioning prosthetic arm in his engineering class that will be controlled by a NeuroSky Mindwave headset. He also mentors students at his former middle school in engineering, working to help spark a passion for STEM. “I see a lot of Hispanics underrepresented in STEM fields,” he said. When he was younger he would go to math competitions and notice that he’d be the only Hispanic person competing. “It intimidated me because it made me feel like I kind of don’t belong. But I just realized by doing it so much, by gaining confidence and breaking those social norms, that’s how you end the problem. You have to set the precedent for future generations.” RB
Content was originally published May 4, 2022, in the "Arkansas Times."
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