He got into a great college the old-fashioned way. He dreamed big, worked hard

Eva Vazquez was at a bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard, on the way to work as a cashier at a discount store near MacArthur Park, when her phone rang.

"I knew it was probably him," she said.

It was Thursday, March 28. The day her son Oswaldo was expecting to find out if he'd been accepted to the universities at the top of his wish list.

Oswaldo, sometimes called Ozzie by friends and family, had already gotten into several great schools on the strength of straight A's, a strong SAT score and his years of mentoring and community service.

But Eva Vazquez had seen him sink when he missed the cut at Stanford University, and she'd been praying he would get better news from other top schools. She