Michelle Lintner is one in about 300, but her attitude is likely one in a million.
The 18-year-old senior at Sonoran Science Academy, 2255 W. Ina Road, recently found out she is the lone recipient out of more than 300 applicants to receive the $10,000 Anne Ford Scholarship.
She and her parents will travel to New York City next week so Anne Ford, granddaughter of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford, can personally present the scholarship on Wednesday.
The gift — in its fifth year — is awarded annually to one high-school student in the United States who shows financial need and plans to pursue an undergraduate degree. The recipient also has to have a documented learning disability.
On the surface, Lintner appears to be a standard-fare overachieving high-school senior:
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She has one of the highest grade-point averages in her graduating class.
She scored 650 on the math portion of her Scholastic Aptitude Test, but she plans to take it again to raise her reading and writing scores of 450 and 470 respectively.
She's taken seven college credits, in trigonometry and calculus, and she's working on Advanced Placement physics and AP computer science.
She's president of the school robotics club, which was the first of its kind in the greater Tucson area.
She serves as club adviser for the Lego league for younger children at her school.
And she's class president.
But her reading level is that of a sixth-grader.
"For my entire life, as early as I can remember, I have had a learning disability. It has been described as a language disability, speech disability, learning disability, reading disability and finally dyslexia," she wrote in her scholarship application essay.
"She's on all counts an outstanding success story," said Sheldon Horowitz, director of professional services for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, which administers the scholarship. "Here's a young woman who continues to charge ahead with enormous determination."
Her mom, Leslie Lintner, talked about what it was like to have her daughter labeled at an early age.
"At 3 years old, they told us Michelle would probably never read and would have speech disabilities," she said during a session helping Michelle stuff envelopes for the school while the rest of the students were on spring break last week.
In person, Michelle is rather articulate these days, but she said that's a recent development. She took speech therapy through her ninth-grade year, she said.
The most she dwells on her setbacks is when she uses them as a barrier to break through.
In other words, she doesn't dwell on them, her mom said.
"We just suggested things, and Michelle did them," she said.
As Michelle puts it, "I've been working to get a good enough résumé since junior high."
She became involved with sports, drama and volunteering in ways that she wouldn't have ordinarily done, except she knew it would help her get into college and get financial support while she was at it.
"I don't want any loans. I don't want any debt when I graduate," Michelle said.
Not that she has to worry. On top of the Anne Ford Scholarship, Michelle also was chosen as one of this year's 11 Raytheon Scholars.
In a collaboration between Pima Community College, the University of Arizona and Raytheon, a handful of future engineers are chosen each year to work four consecutive summer internships at Raytheon with beginning pay of $15 per hour, plus benefits.
Two years of tuition at Pima Community College and two years of tuition at the University of Arizona are usually covered.
When that's done, Raytheon will have a full-time position waiting in each scholar's degree specialty, with starting salary of $60,000 per year.
However, as the 11th scholar this year when only 10 are normally accepted, Michelle was informed by UA that her tuition there will not be covered, so she continues to hunt for scholarships.
"I don't want to be known as the girl with the disability," she said. "I want to be the one who people are surprised to find out I have a disability because I'm so smart."
On the Web
● To learn more, go to the National Center for Learning Disabilities' Web site, www.ld.org
