Manassas Park Senior Knows the Meaning of Timeliness

Editor's Note: This is part three in this week's five-part series on Manassas Park High School seniors who will graduate on June 11. On Saturday, we will run a feature story on another senior.

Speaking in a voice barely above a whisper, senior Stephanie Gamble talks about preparing for life after high school and how she managed to get accepted to James Madison University—possibly the school most highly touted by her fellow seniors. 

“ I think every year there’s really that one school that all the kids are like, ‘Oh I want to go to so bad,’” she said. “Like last year it was all Virginia Tech.”

 Gamble said she’s not sure why she got accepted when many didn’t, but it may be because she started the process early.

“I was, like, one of the few people that applied early everywhere. My mom was like, ‘Just do it early and get it out of the way.’ I applied early everywhere except for Virginia Tech because their early decision was binding. So if you get accepted, they expect you to go there,” she said.

“When everybody was just sending their (applications) out, I had just got my acceptance letters.”

 Gamble said she plans to major in accounting or business administration. She would like to use her degree to work in the DC-area, like her mother.

 James Madison was her first choice out of the seven schools she applied to—schools that included the likes of George Mason University, Virginia Tech and Christopher Newport, she said.

 She was accepted to all seven, Gamble said.

 “I know it’s really cheesy when people say, ‘When you step on the campus, you’ll know.’ But that’s really how it is.  I really liked it there,” Gamble said.

 The 18-year-old said she was sold on the atmosphere and the overall friendliness of the college, something the student body and the faculty of the school pride themselves on.

 Perhaps the only downside is that she is the only student in her senior class that is attending James Madison.

  “As far as I know, I’m the only senior that’s going,” Gamble said.  “I was kind of sad. I’ll be by myself. But then it’s good that a lot of people aren’t going because that will push me to make new friends.”

 The teen moved to Manassas Park from Falls Church just before her fifth grade year.

 Like many of the students in the small school, they are close-knit because they have known each other for so long.

 “A lot of the kids that go to this school have grown up in Manassas Park,” she said. “They’ve been best friends since Kindergarten (or) first grade and they have known each other all these years.”

 Gamble said she is looking forward to graduation and feels she will cry like, “a big baby.”

 She feels excited about the moment when the senior class turn their tassels, a move symbolizing the end of the high school years.  

 The class will also ring a bell located in the courtyard of the high school—the same bell they rang during freshman orientation just under four years ago.

 The bell signifies the beginning and the end of high school for the students.

 “People say high school is the best time of your life, but overall, it was the average teen experience,” Gamble said in her mellow voice. “It was good.”