Irenys Reyes

From a young age, Irenys Reyes felt as though she was growing up in two different worlds—each on opposite sides of West New York, New Jersey, her hometown. Split between her single mother, who worked long hours as a homemaker, and her grandmother, Irenys often moved from apartment to apartment. As new housing developments and parking decks began overtaking her community, she noticed the city skyline across the river remained unchanged. Despite the challenges—catcalling on the streets and incoming gentrification—Irenys always saw West New York as home.

Irenys’ journey through school was filled with struggle, especially when it came to writing. In elementary school, she had difficulty with spacing and punctuation, and her struggles led to extra support services that felt isolating. While her peers in gifted programs went on field trips, Irenys watched from the sidelines. School felt like something she had to work harder at to keep up, but that hard work paid off. As she entered middle school, Irenys was placed in advanced classes, continuing her progress through high school.

She remembers feeling as if an added layer of expectation was added: as many school districts face inadequate resourcing, high expectations are placed onto teachers and the responsibilities that are not fulfilled by teachers are passed onto their most driven students. This meant that Irenys would be pulled out of her high school classes to organize pep rallies, build multiple balloon arches for a student council event, and purchase various items for her school district that she was promised she’d later get reimbursed for. While this offered her a platform to lead within her school district—a community that she grew to love—there were moments when this platform felt over-burdening and isolating, especially for a high schooler. 

The more Irenys proved her ability to lead initiatives within her school with minimal help from adults,  the more adults began to imagine that she’d be able to navigate other processes in her life with the same amount of resilience—such as the college application process. Being the first in her family to dream of attending a 4-year university, Irenys knew she needed help and when she felt like she had nowhere else to turn for help, she searched within her community and found Circle Match.

Applying to college while her high school was operating in a hybrid model due to the ensuing pandemic, Irenys remembers that she fully moved into the home of her grandmother who was immunocompromised. Spending long hours with her Circle Match advisor—Michael Sanchez (the organization’s Executive Director who was a junior at Yale at the time)—she remembers scrutinizing over her college application essays in a one bedroom apartment while her grandmother watched telenovelas. During breaks between video calls in her AP Calculus class and college advising, Irenys remembers hearing her grandmother ask her for what reason she was trying so hard to apply to college and leave home. Irenys responded that she had worked so hard for the opportunity to attend the college of her dreams, but as she continued to hear the same talk track from her family member who loved her deeply, the same thought creeped into Irenys’ own head. 

Just weeks before the early action deadline, Irenys remembers being on a video call with Michael as they looked over her personal statement that she had made no edits on for the past two weeks, despite there being multiple track edits on the right margin of her Google Doc. Noticing the lack of progress, Michael had a conversation with her and reminded Irenys the importance of her going to a college, and that she’d worked so hard in high school with the intent of attending the college of her dreams with no debt. There was something about this conversation that gave her the extra motivation that she needed to finish her college applications. 

Now, four years later, Irenys looks back on that moment with gratitude. She’s not only succeeded in her own college journey—starting at Emory University’s Oxford College before transferring to Cornell University—but has also become a dedicated volunteer for Circle Match. As one of the longest-tenured advisors, Irenys has guided over 20 students through the college application process, helping them achieve their dreams, just as she did.

Finishing up her junior year at Cornell and preparing to enter into her senior year, Irenys has learned the importance of contributing to her community and staying connected with it. As she looks forward to her next chapter in life, she dreams of working somewhere at the intersection of health policy and immigration law. No matter what the future has in store for her, she knows that she wants to connect with others through public service and make the world a better place.