UNION CITY – There’s a first for everything. Just ask 17-year old Nelly Sanchez, a Union Hill High School senior, and 17-year old Crystal Proenza, an Emerson High School senior. Coincidentally during women’s history month, they are the first young women in Union City’s 75-year history to be accepted for early admission to Brown University. The early admission program grants a student acceptance by a school pending continued academic success and completion of the senior year. Brown University is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and is the seventh oldest in America. Located in Providence, R.I., it has just under 8,000 students and a yearly enrollment fee of $33,530. The two young women are also the first in the history of the city to attend summer enrichment programs. Sanchez attended Harvard University this past summer, while Proenza attended Yale University with 190 other students from across the nation, as part of the Junior Statesman of America program. They said they do not view their accomplishments as gender-based but as the result of hard work and determination that can be achieved by any student. “I think it’s great not just because we’re women,” said Proenza. “Anyone can achieve what we did if they work hard. We’re not special, we just worked to realize our potential.” Sanchez added, “Anybody can do it. You just have to be willing to take a chance, to go for it. Nothing is going to come to you. You have to work for it.” Both Sanchez and Proenza said the first difference they noticed between Union City and the university campuses they attended over the summer was the academic environment. “The academic environment is completely different from here,” said Sanchez. “People here are apathetic about their grades. In the environment we were exposed to, everyone is competing for that A.” Proenza said the academic environment was so challenging that during her first few days at Yale she thought she was going crazy. “We had classes nine hours a day and night classes, too, so there was hardly time for anything else. I called it academic boot camp, but you get used to it after the first week and I had such a great time there.” Sanchez said she believes most students in urban environments tend to believe that they are unable to compete with suburban schools and limit their potential. “I think students don’t see beyond Union City, that there’s a different world out there,” she said. “You’re only aware of the community and its resources, so you don’t have a frame of reference.” Proenza said that the city can compete with any suburban school in the country, but students need to start sending out applications to Ivy League schools. Proenza and Sanchez encouraged students in the city to take advantage of the resources their school provides. Students who participate in summer courses and extra curricular activities distinguish themselves from the rest of the bunch, they said. The two young women also said that students should speak with teachers and formulate a series of small goals to achieve during their four years in high school. “Things like this might help inner-city schools if they see that people are going places,” said Proenza. Proenza and Sanchez also credit the Union City Board of Education with allocating funds that allow students to participate in summer enrichment programs. Nellie Chapman, the first woman to hold the position of assistant principal at Emerson High School, said the board allots about $5,000 per student for summer enrichment programs. Although the pressure to achieve academic success is strong at Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Yale and Brown, Sanchez and Proenza said they look forward to returning to such an environment. But both said they have not yet decided if they will attend Brown University because they are awaiting responses from other schools that they applied to. Sanchez has applied to Rutgers and Harvard universities and said she is leaning towards attending Harvard if accepted. Proenza has applied to Harvard, Rutgers and Columbia, and said that while Brown is an excellent school, she would attend Columbia if accepted because of its location in New York City. Sanchez hopes to pursue a career in literature and Proenza intends to pursue a career in journalism or political Science. Union City high schools have sent students to Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.