Damian Chamale

Most mornings of Damian’s childhood began at his bedroom window in Union City. From there, he watched Bergenline Avenue wake up—cars honking, neighbors stepping in and out of bodegas, shop gates rattling open. In the evenings, he’d return to that same spot to watch the sun set over the city, trying to tune out the louder noise inside his apartment: oil sizzling in the kitchen, La Rosa de Guadalupe blasting from the TV, and plastic toys clattering across the floor. For years, he shared a single room—and often a single bed—with his mom, older brother, and older sister. When his older sister left home at sixteen and his baby sister was born right before COVID, his bed moved to the couch in the living room.

Damian is the son of two immigrants—one from Guatemala, the other from Croatia—and from a young age, he knew that his family’s journey to the U.S. came with sacrifice. Yet, there wasn’t intense pressure placed on him at first. The expectation was simple: graduate high school, go to college. In middle school, that quiet expectation turned into his own internal drive. As he learned more about college, he began to see himself clearly: first-generation, low-income, the child of immigrants in a country where many of these types of students never get a real shot at selective schools. Understanding that only a small fraction of students with his background reach higher education, he became determined to be part of that group—not just for himself, but for his family and community.

Before Circle Match, Damian believed he knew what it meant to apply to college: take rigorous classes, do well on standardized tests, join meaningful extracurriculars, and write a good essay. During his first two years of high school, though, those ideas lived mostly in the background. School and friendships came first; college was an abstract future project. He didn’t yet grasp how strenuous the process could be—or how much mindset and planning mattered. What worried him wasn’t whether he could apply, but how he would fit in if he got in. Coming from minimal resources, with no specialized tutoring or long lists of AP classes, he wondered what it would feel like to show up on a campus far from home, the only one in his family out of state. He knew how to “make something out of nothing.” What he didn’t know was exactly how to navigate what came next.

Damian joined Circle Match in the middle of his junior year, after sitting in an auditorium not quite sure why he’d been called there. As Max and Lexa began presenting the program, laying out the junior-to-senior roadmap, things clicked into place. He was already preparing to apply to the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars program; Circle Match was the missing piece—a team that could walk alongside him through applications he had only been navigating on his own. By the end of the presentation, he realized this wasn’t just another school assembly: it was a chance to have advisors who knew the process themselves and had come from his local community to invest in students like him.

Throughout the application cycle, advisors spent hours in one-on-one sessions refining his essays, helping him turn complex parts of his identity into a clear story. Support didn’t stop with his immediate advisors—Michael, Elise, and others jumped in to review supplementals and materials when deadlines piled up. Outside of essays and applications, events like the Summer Dinner Fundraiser and the Penguin Party showed him a different side of the program. He met students from other cohorts—North Bergen, Memorial—and felt part of something bigger than a single school. It made the work personal, reminding him that Circle Match wasn’t just about college admissions, but about a community investing in itself.

Damian applied through the QuestBridge National College Match, ranking Yale, Duke, Brown, and Amherst, also applying to Rutgers through the Common App as part of his Circle Match requirements. He built a mindset that protected him from shame or fear of failure. Whether he ended up in a library at a top-30 school or studying from his room, he knew he would pursue the same goals: college, a career in science, and a life of impact. He poured effort into his applications and trusted that if he did his part, the rest would be a mix of preparation and luck.

On decision day, he found himself in the back seat of his mom’s car, parked outside her doctor’s appointment, refreshing his QuestBridge portal. It was cold, and the setting felt almost too ordinary for a life-changing moment. When his mom and younger sister returned to the car, they picked up his older brother from college, and the four of them drove together. Damian tried to wait until they were home—but nerves took over. A tear ran down his face and froze on his cheek as he said, “I don’t think I’m going to match,” and clicked “status update.” The next second, he yelled, “I matched!” as confetti fell across the screen. Then came the surprise: “To Brown University?!” He had pushed the possibility of matching to Brown so far to the back of his mind that seeing it in writing felt surreal. After a few days, the shock settled into a quiet, steady realization: I’m going to Brown University.

Today, Damian is a student at Brown, planning to concentrate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He continues to work with Circle Match as a near-peer advisor supporting the Union City High School cohort, and he conducts dry lab cancer research with the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. On campus, he’s involved with clubs like Snail Mail and the UFLi (Undocumented, First-Generation, Low-Income) Center, building community with students who share pieces of his story.

For Damian, becoming an advisor was an easy decision. “Why wouldn’t I?” he says. Circle Match helped him reach opportunities he once only imagined, and now he wants to do the same for others. Paying it forward, to him, means creating a ripple effect—helping high-achieving students access top colleges so they can later bring resources and opportunities back to their neighborhoods. It doesn’t start with a job title or a paycheck; it starts the moment someone who has been supported decides to turn around and support the next student in line.

Looking ahead, Damian hopes to become an immunologist focused on communities that are too often underrepresented in healthcare and research. He wants to help fill the gaps in clinical studies that overlook Black, Latino, and other marginalized populations when examining genes, biomarkers, and disease. Advising through Circle Match has only strengthened that commitment; it has shown him that he wants his future to include helping others, in whatever form that takes.

To students just beginning their Circle Match journey, Damian offers simple but powerful advice:
“Keep an open mind. There’s a lot of work, but it’s work you’d do anyway if you’re aiming high. Be open to applying to schools you never imagined, to changing your essay overnight, and to adjusting your plans when life shifts. Circle Match isn’t the college process—but we’re here to help you get through it. Remember where your resources are.”

Ultimately, Damian’s story is about turning a small apartment above a busy street into the launchpad for a much bigger world—and then reaching back to make sure others can follow.