Meet the 2025-26 Prep Program Cohort, Which Broke Application Records

Prep Program Team

For the first time, we have surpassed the milestone of 10,000 applicants to the Prep Program, marking a historic achievement. The 2025-2026 cohort is also the largest ever selected, with 72 students admitted so far. Each year, the selection process becomes more competitive, but we have noticed that candidates are increasingly well-prepared and aligned with what we seek. Additionally, diversity among applicants is growing, with students from different schools and states that were previously unrepresented, demonstrating the Prep Program’s reach and how more students are strategically preparing for this opportunity.

The new students received their acceptance news on December 16, 2024, and just days later, they were already in action: they took SAT and Duolingo practice tests to map out their starting points and participated in Prep Graduação Online, an essential course for their academic foundation. We also held a conversation with their families to congratulate them and guide them on how to support their children throughout the year, explaining the routine changes they can expect during the preparatory process.

During the official orientation, the new preps had the chance to get to know the community better, interact with alumni, and reflect on the journey ahead. Now, an intense period of weekly classes, individual mentorship, and various activities begins. Gradually, each student will develop with all the available tools to build strong and successful college applications.

We have selected three profiles of the new Prep Program students so you can get to know the 2025-2026 cohort better:

Gianna Vitória – Caxias, Maranhão

A descendant of northeastern migrants and Indigenous people, Gianna carries the strength of generations who crossed the drylands on foot to settle in the interior of Maranhão. She grew up surrounded by nature, and her mother, a public school teacher, often said that she seemed to have sprouted from the earth rather than been born from a womb. Her father, an administrative worker, taught her to respect nature and ancestry. From a young age, Gianna has spoken to plants, trees, and sprouts—a practice known in some Indigenous cultures as Yuxin.

With scholarships, she excelled in mock exams and academic Olympiads. However, her world extended far beyond the school walls: she founded the environmental project Gi Naturalize, impacting more than 500 people, and became an ambassador for international NGOs such as Construindo o Futuro and Engajamundo.

Through UN simulations, she not only won awards but also discovered politics and recognized the link between global decisions and her community’s reality. As she deepened her environmental activism, she was amazed by the power of these discussions to drive change but also frustrated to see that the voices of communities most vulnerable to climate change were absent.

This realization cemented her decision to study and gain access to these spaces, advocating for fair and intersectional negotiations that bring forward the demands of those on the front lines of environmental destruction. Gianna dreams of helping Brazil develop viable climate policies that respect ancestral knowledge and ensure a sustainable future for all.

Paloma – Cuiabá, Mato Grosso

Born in Tangará da Serra, in the interior of Mato Grosso, and raised in Cuiabá, Paloma grew up surrounded by examples of persistence and creativity. Her mother, a law graduate who now runs her own software startup, and her father, an accountant who became the CEO of a small technology company, taught her early on the importance of intuition, balance, and being well-rounded. As her mother would say, she needed to “know how to ride a horse as well as dance ballet.”

At home, her favorite toy was an old orange soap dish, which turned bath time into an improvised laboratory. There, she created potions, tested hypotheses, and took apart toys to understand how they worked—her passion for science was evident from a young age.

At school, she found fertile ground to thrive academically: she participated in Olympiads, science fairs, and impactful projects, such as analyzing air quality and microbial diversity in a Brazilian school. She founded ImpactoBio to bring basic sanitation to Indigenous communities and helped organize charity bazaars for Instituto Reação.

It was during a medical summer camp at Oxford that she truly fell in love with biology—especially molecular and cellular biology—and began to see the beauty in the smallest details. In Oxford and at the Harvard SSP, an academic program for high school students, she realized how much remains to be discovered about the human body and how science can be the key to alleviating suffering and transforming the world. This is the path she intends to follow.

Despite her rigorous academic pursuits, Paloma finds joy in life’s simple pleasures: running in the park, feeling the wind on her face while driving with the music blasting, and inventing recipes with whatever ingredients she has on hand just to see what happens. She also finds refuge in classic literature, traveling through different times and universes.

Rodrigo – Jundiaí, São Paulo

Rodrigo was born in Jundiaí, in the state of São Paulo, into a family that always valued education and hard work. The son of a street vendor and an insurance broker, he grew up watching his parents dedicate themselves tirelessly to providing him with the best opportunities. Their example inspired him to devote himself to his studies, and the results soon followed: in 2023, he earned a full scholarship to a prestigious school.

With a natural talent for technology and communication, he quickly stood out in competitions and projects. He was one of five students selected to represent Brazil on the national robotics team, achieving third place worldwide in his category. He also founded STEAM-for-Africa, an initiative that provides robotics kits and online lessons to children in Angola, and created a mentorship program that has guided over 80 Brazilian teams, reaching more than 2,000 people.

For him, the greatest victories have always been those that created human connections—like the time he lost a robotics championship but, on the flight home, met the coach of one of the strongest teams in the competition. The coach recognized his effort and invited him to join their team the following year.

Beyond robotics, one of Rodrigo’s other passions is music: he is a multi-instrumentalist and finds in music his most genuine form of expression, composing songs that he plans to release in an album.

One of Rodrigo’s dreams is to combine technology and education to democratize access to knowledge and transform lives. Every project, invention, and lesson he teaches carries the desire to give back the opportunities he has received.

The Prep Program is supported by Apply and Monteiro Marques Admissions and sponsored by Instituto Apis and Fundação Behring.

Read in portuguese.