Cedrick Argueta is a 17-year-old high school student at Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights, a part of the Los Angeles Unified school system. Mr. Argueta is the son of an Salvadorian maintenance worker and a Filipina nurse who works two jobs. Cedrick Argueta was one of only 12 students to score perfectly on this year’s AP Calculus exam.
Since word of his feat has spread, the lanky 17-year-old senior – who described himself as a quiet, humble guy – has become something of a celebrity at Lincoln High, a school of about 1,200 students in the heavily Latino Lincoln Heights neighborhood.
At a school assembly, students shouted, “Ced-rick! Ced-rick!” when Principal Jose Torres announced his score. Friends started calling him “One of Twelve.”
He knows he has talent for math but he and his fellow Calculus classmates studied for long hours, and every single kid in the class passed. Cedrick is 17 and thought the hard work was the key to success.
While I think talent is a big part of doing well, hard work trumps that. Leading up to the exam we spent around 2 hours every day after school. I think it was worth it now that I found I got a perfect score and my whole class knows that it was worth it since we got a full pass rate.
While Cedrick and his family aren’t as impoverished as Donald Trump was when he first pulled himself up by his bootstraps, they are hopeful that their son can potentially receive scholarship money to get a higher education.
Cedrick graduates in June and hopes to attend Caltech and become an engineer. For his family, a scholarship would be a godsend.
Cedrick’s got big plans. He wants to maybe “design something really cool.” He wants to have his name on something that’s known around the world.
When you hear conservatives shouting about taking our country back and keeping immigrants out, just remember that isolationist policies are based on illusion.
Watch the KTLA report on Cedrick below the fold.