New Town graduate excels at Harvard University

By Dorreen Yellow Bird, Press Secretary

Cesareo Alvarez, 19, is taking the world of Ivy League colleges by storm.  His is a sophomore at Harvard University, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States.   He is also part of a mentoring program.

While in the 6th grade at New Town, Alvarez asked his mother, Marcy Young Bear, what were the best colleges?  She named off a few but Harvard, by far, was the most prestigious.  Harvard became his dream.  That would be the place he would go, he said to himself.

Fast forward 10 years and Alvarez is living his dream, only in this dream he is out pacing the nation.  He applied for and received a Coca Cola Scholarship.  He was chosen among 80,000 applications for the yearly $20,000 scholarship.

Cesareo Alvarez

He was also selected as a mentor for the IvyAlly program.  IvyAlly is a community that connects current and aspiring Ivy League students.  IvyAlly said they are future doctors, politicians, CEOs and authors.  The program provides students with an exclusive network of current students representing each of the 8 Ivy League institutions.  They are:  Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Universities, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania.  

Alvarez didn’t stop there.  He also applied for the Gates Scholarship.  There were 28,000 applicants and he was chosen from among those students.  They select 1,000 each year.  He will receive up to $30,000 per year.

Alvarez just returned from Guatemala where he spent two weeks working in the community of Quetzaltenango “Xela” where there is 70 percent poverty.  The trip changed his views.  “I think more globally, I have a different calling,” he said. 

He will prepare to return to Harvard in the fall. 

Alvarez said he grew up in the area.  He attended and graduated from the New Town school system.  He earned the Valedictorian award. His mother is Marcy Young Bear and his father is Cesareo Alvarez Sr.  His grandmother is Maggie Young Bear and his great grandmother and father are Ivan and Luella Young Bear.

His majors in college are government and law.

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